Reflected
The world isn’t how we all wish it were.
Well my world, at least. Though the dense woods, over the bottomless oceans, between the alleyways of secrecy, and all those cliché sayings you hear in fantasies, is where someone will discover a mystical mirror that marks the end of the world…or so one may think. While people stare into the reflection of themselves and the surrounding beauty of nature, they are oblivious of what lies behind the scenes. Unaware of the one-sided mirror that towers in front of them, a world of devastation and disaster remains hidden. My name is Ren, and that is where I live. Why is my world the “bad one,” one might ask? Well, it’s because of them.

Periodically and throughout the seventeen years of my desolate life, I’d visit the mirror and watch people come to the deepest lakes and dump their waste out thinking that they were doing good. Other times, I’d watch an entire city mesmerized by the bright screens of their smart phones and computers, overreacting when a red low battery flickers. Sometimes I think that nature is meaningless to them, but just another thing to take pictures of only to edit out all its pureness later. Sometimes I feel like the logical people live on my side, but were stuck with the burden of struggling to live for the better of the other siders. Though I guess this is just how life was meant to be.
While they use infinite amounts of energy, we have multiple power outages; while they burn their landfills of trash, we receive its ashes as rain; while their factories release polluting substances into the air, only we are affected by it. Everything that the “angels” would do to destroy the earth, is just transferred over to our parallel universe so the barbaric people of my world are left to suffer while they continue life like usual. Don’t you get it yet? My world’s destruction is the only reason why yours still exists.

Pop! Well I guess they just added a new pool since our only lake has drained while I was talking. It’s been years since the other siders have attempted to make a change with their lifestyle and become “eco-friendly”, but they’ve given up since the discovery of everything harmful they did merely disappeared. Moo! Well there goes the rest of our livestock; probably another Mcdonalds opened up. If only they could see what was really happening behind the scenes….if only they could learn. Trying to fix my world is nearly impossible because of the angels’ frequent pollution; our dark world is cursed until someone makes a change. Sniff, sniff. Oh gross what did they burn now?


Two months later

Things have drastically changed and my world is crumbling to pieces. Why are we called the devils when everything here isn’t our fault? The air is always fogged with black, swamps and oil rivers flood here and there, and the smell of garbage from remaining ashes lingers on all of our citizens. It depresses me to see my world be torn down area by area and knowing that I can’t do anything to help. Though, maybe there could be even an inch of hope for us because there was one angel from the other side that happened to catch my eye. Walking toward each other one day, though she had no proof of my existence, I had the strongest feeling that she was aware of my presence behind the mirror. Her beauty glowed in the sun on her side while I was darkened by the fog on mine, but when we reached up the barrier between us to match each other’s touch, there was something within her expression that let me know that she was definitely the one who was going to save me and my people.
Though my world continues to crash down and hers continues to thrive in beauty, the connection between us was something that I couldn’t explain. I long for the unbearable and unspeakable feelings that I once felt with her through that dreaded mirror; it is spread out so much that she could appear anywhere, but I haven’t seen her in days. Knowing that she was not capable of proving my presence was sad, but I knew that she’d be there to save the dystopia of a world I reside in. To my surprise, she appeared later in the day with that same look of curiosity in her eyes as I had seen months ago. Brushing against the surface of the mirror with her fragile fingertips, a smile silently crept upon my face as she studied the glass whilst cradling a small journal in her arms. A pale hand presses up against the mirror…it’s for me to meet isn’t it? The dark fog started to thicken which made climbing up the mounds of dirt I spotted her from harder; she’s waiting for me, I just know it. Coughing up fits and getting my entire left leg stuck in the mud, I was merely a couple feet away…when her hand lifted off the mirror, formed into a fist, and all hell was about to transpire.
“Everyone take cover! Two-eleven on the bridge! Two—“
And that’s when she knocked on the glass, hard. A series of earthquakes violently shook my world, families working hard on their weak homes devastated, landslides of trash reaching up to knee level, and screams of terror filling the atmosphere.

“Don’t! No, stop!” Forgetting that she couldn’t hear me, I screamed for mercy.
Wilting tree one, down. Wilting tree two, down.

“Ma’am, please care not to knock on the glass,” An officer in white took a hold of the girl’s arm before she knocked again, startling both me and her.

“I’m...I’m sorry…I just,” she stuttered out, but was interrupted.

“Ma’am, please come with me for a moment.” The officer spoke again, taking her away as a few more angel officers appeared from behind the lush trees of their world.

What? No! Why isn’t she fighting back? Please no, I’ve waited for so long just to see her again. Damn! Why did…I…have…to…get stuck in this rut?! Finally, out. Please, let her go. Thoughts rushed all across my mind, wondering where or why she was being taken away from me. Sinking down to the ground, I notice the journal she carried earlier abandoned and opened up to a page showing sketches of my world and of…me? Then everything went black from there.

I awoke in a small room with a dim table lamp, confused in almost every way possible. Where am I? Noticing that I was strapped into a wooden chair, I questioned myself thinking that there may have been someone in the room with me.

“Our world has been discovered,” a deep voice answered me.

“Who are you?”

“We will not let the angel destroy all that is life,”

“Why am I here?”

“She may know how to get to us,”

“Will you stop ignoring me?!” I finally brought myself to say. The room was spinning now. “I don’t care if our world is discovered! I bet even you know that we are in desperate need of help. You’re another one of those dark guardians who want to keep us living in misery, aren’t you?”

The voice I heard before let out a chuckle and then I felt someone breathing down my neck which made me jump back in my seat, hitting the body behind me. The room brightened just by little as four figures in black hooded coats steeped out of the shaded area in front of me; I tried to take a quick glance over my shoulder to see if there were any more of these monsters and expectedly, there were. They explained to where the angel was kept, showed me the pages of her journal, and what she had in mind to help us. I thought it was wonderful, but kept a somewhat disgusted look on my face for my own good. She was kept away in the “heavens” of her world while I was apparently in the “hell” of mine, though the surface of my world is already terrible as it is. Locked away in the depths of my world and she trapped in the infinite clouds of hers, we were separated as afar as possible from each other for the sake of humanity, not that there was any left.

After the dreaded creatures left me alone in the dark room I managed to break free from the rough ropes and closely studied the girl’s ideas, admiring everything she had in mind: eco-friendly lifestyles, energy reducing devices, and other things similar to that. How to get out of this lonely place is what’s important now; hoping that the beauty I have my mind set on is trying to find a way to break out and meet at the mirror too. A sudden force pulled me towards a dark corner of the room, scaring me out of my skin. I decided to follow the force and let it throw me to where I would most likely end up again anyway, but I it was a strange feeling. Nerve is running through my veins now, like the force was getting stronger with each tug through a tunnel of dirt.