Colors

Drizzling raindrops were hitting the windshield of Emily’s car. She and her two best friends were passing around a joint. The windows were foggy. Emily watched as Charlie brought the joint to his lips, inhaled, and blew the smoke out his nose. He looks like a dragon, she thought, giggling to herself. In the seat behind her, Elsie is drawing something in the hazy window. The squeaking sound is loud in Emily’s ears, and she took the joint from Charlie and brought it to her lips. She felt the smoke enter her lungs. It burned, but she held it in for as long as she could. Her eyes feel heavy as the high settles into her mind. Elsie drew a stick figure version of Charlie. His spiky hair defined and his tongue sticking out of his mouth. There is a thought bubble that says “suck my ass”, which is something Charlie says a lot. When Emily and Charlie see the picture, they burst out laughing. Elsie soon joins them. It’s uncontrollable, hyena laughter. Embarrassing, really.

This is usually a little ritual between them, hotboxing Emily’s car. But today it’s a celebration. The last day they have together before moving into their new house. It’s their last day of innocence.

The house is basically brand new. Secluded in woods right outside of Toronto. Their closest neighbor is four miles down the road. The owners only lived in it for two years after they built it. Elsie says they are probably a military family or something like that. The best thing about the house is most of the furniture was left behind. Bed frames, tables, couches. The only things they have to bring are things like kitchen utensils, sheets, curtains, and a few decorations.

The house is light and open. The rooms are mostly painted light colors to help the sunlight brighten the room. The couches and seats all matched. The table and counters matched. That was good enough for them. Even Elsie, who for sure thought she was going to redecorate the entire house.

They move in on a Sunday night. Elsie and Charlie go to bed almost as soon as the U Haul is unloaded.. Emily stays up. She loves to paint at night. It’s peaceful, knowing she’s awake with the wolves and foxes roaming around the woods.

After Elsie and Charlie lock themselves in their rooms, Emily retreats to hers, bringing her art box with her. Her room is empty and simple, but it’s perfect. The floors are wood. The ceiling and walls were painted an off-white. There is a big window on the wall parallel to the door, with a view of thick tree trunks and deep-green leaves stained with moisture from the Canada rain.

Emily sets up her canvas in front of the window. She pulls out all her shades of blue and starts painting a background for her next project. She has shades of the night and day sky, shades of the deep ocean, and shades of blooming blue flowers all over the canvas. She could never make a background with just one set color. She works on that for about an hour before the first wave of exhaustion washed over her. She falls asleep content that first night, almost even happy.

Emily wakes up to the smell of coffee and trots down the stairs, looking for the source of the scent.

“Good morning,” Charlie says as Emily fills up a Dr. Who tardis mug with coffee. Charlie is sitting on the table reading through a script for a web series he just got casted for. He’s wearing jeans and a buttoned up red flannel. His spiky, black hair tucked under a gray beanie. He smells clean and ready for the day. Emily, on the other hand, has her shoulder length black hair up in a bun, still wearing the grey crew-neck and shorts she wore to bed.

“Where’s Elsie?” Emily asks, blowing into her mug to try and cool down the coffee.

“She left for work like four hours ago,” Charlie replies, not looking up from his script.

“I thought her first class didn’t start until 9?”

“Em, it’s noon. Plus, you know she likes to be early. Even if it’s to teach college students about earthquakes,”

“You mean ‘seismology’” Emily jokes in Elsie’s voice. Charlie laughs.

“Suck my ass,” he retorts. Emily smiles and sits down across from him.

“Are you going in today?” She asks.

“No, but the read through is tomorrow so I want to be familiar with my lines, it makes you look good,” Emily nods and takes a sip of her coffee. Charlie stands up. “I’m going into town to get food, unless you’re good with eating an orange and coffee creamer.” He says as he puts on his coat.

“Make sure you get those chicken nuggets you can heat in the microwave,” The only one who cooks is Elsie, so the nuggets are going to be the primary source of Emily’s lunches.

“Duh,” Charlie says as he walks out the door. Emily sat there until she heard his loud-ass car drive down the street. She feels a little guilty for being the only one in the house without a ‘real job’. She finished college with a psychology degree, but ultimately art is what she wants to do. It stresses her out sometimes, making money only between long periods of time, but she knows how to deal with it.

For the next few hours, Emily works on her painting. They’re hands. Orange hands on a blue background. The left hand is palm down, fingers extended. The right hand is grabbing the left, curling it’s finger around the side. The nails are painted black. Emily looks at her watch. Elsie and Charlie should be home soon. She cleans up her paintbrushes, watching the colors of an autumn waterfall swirl around the sink and disappear down the drain. She jumps in the shower, washing the colors of her arms and face.

After her shower, she starts unpacking. Dishes, pillows, all that good stuff. She comes across a box labeled Important Books. Odd. She doesn’t recognize the handwriting either, but thinks maybe one of their other friends wrote it or something. She picks up the box and looks for an empty room to store it in.

After opening a few closet doors, she finally finds a small empty room. It looks like it could be an office, or maybe a nursery. The only things in the room are an empty shelf and full length mirror on the wall.

Emily puts the box down and observes the room. Maybe she can convince Charlie and Elsie to make this room an art studio. She walks over to the bookshelf and runs her finger along the wood. Dust collects, and the wood smells like an old attic. Her face scrunches up in disgust when the scent reaches her nose. She goes to leave and glimpses at herself in the mirror. She stops in her tracks.

She’s horrified at her reflection. Her hair is a puffy mess. Her eyes are bloodshot with dark circles under them. Her white shirt was ripped and dirty. There’s blood on her fingernails. A scrape on her arm. Her head is cocked to the side and her eyes are wide and dead looking.

She lifts her hand and waves it, her reflection doing the same. She reaches up and touches her face, her image mirroring her. Is this real? Did she black out or something? She runs to the bathroom down the hall and looks in the small mirror above the sink. Her reflection was completely different from the one she saw seconds before.This reflection was normal, familiar. Her hair neat, her clothes intact. Her eyes are wide from fear but they aren't bloodshot or tired and dead looking. She exhaled, not realizing she was holding her breath. She turned on the sink and splashed some water on her face. Maybe that was a hallucination. Maybe she needs to sleep more. She stares at her reflection. Her knuckles are turning white from gripping the edge of the sink so hard. She shakes her head. Should she go back there and look? No. She needs to relax. Take a break. She needs to get out of the house. She goes back to her room, avoiding looking at the empty studio room door. Her heart is beating so rapidly she’s scared it might jump right out of her chest. She changes into shorts and a sweatshirt disappears into the woods.

By the time Emily got home it was getting dark. Elsie and Charlie had been home for hours already.

“Hello? Where have you been?” Elsie asks as Emily walks through the front door.

“Went for a run,” Emily responds, grabbing a water bottle and heading to the stairs.

“Is everything okay?” Elsie asks, following her.

“Yeah, I’m just tired,” Emily replies, running up the stairs before Elsie could further interrogate her. Emily thought about the mirror the entire run, and decided the only way to put her mind to rest is to look at it. She needs to prove to herself it wasn’t real.

The door to the room is still open, and the box of books is still on the ground. She hates herself for not being surprised at what she sees when she reaches the mirror. She feels more anxious and annoyed. Almost like she knew what she would see.

She stares at herself, starting to feel nauseous. Her reflection was the same as earlier, except now she’s wearing different clothes and she has dirt all over herself. She looks down at herself to make sure there’s not actually mud on her, which there isn’t, and her reflection does the same. She looks back at herself in the mirror and stares. She’s not sure how long. Eventually, her reflection lips curl up into a grin. Panic rises in Emily’s chest and she brings her hand up to her mouth. She unexpectedly feels her teeth touch her hand, and she realizes she was smiling as well.

Emily’s breath catches in her throat. She didn’t mean to smile. She didn’t even know she was doing it. Or why. Emily runs to the top of the stairs. “Guys come here!” She yells.

“Why, what do you need?” Charlie calls back.

“Come up here right now please!” Emily is screaming like someone is holding a gun up to her head. Elsie and Charlie’s footsteps are loud as they jog up the stairs. Emily runs to the mirror and stands in front of it. Her friends rush in behind her. She stares at her reflection.

“What’s wrong?” Charlie asks.

“Look!” Emily says, pointing at herself in the mirror. “Look at my reflection!” Charlie and Elsie move in behind her and look. Charlie and Elsie’s reflections look perfectly normal next to Emily’s crazed-looking one.

“Uh, you look great Em,” Charlie says. Emily puts her hand back down to her side.

“You don’t see it?” Emily whispers, more of a statement than a question.

Charlie and Elsie exchange a look.

“Why don’t you shower and take a nap? I’ll finish unpacking,” Elsie says, backing towards the door.

“Yeah, I’ll start dinner. And by dinner, I mean heat up chicken nuggets,” Charlie says. He wraps his arm around Emily, who is still staring at her reflection, and kisses her forehead. “I know you’re stressed. We can hotbox the car before dinner if you want,” When Emily doesn’t answer, he heads down to the kitchen.

Emily keeps staring at her reflection. Why did they look normal? Why was it just her? Why can’t they see what she’s seeing? The reflection grins, and so does Emily. Emily watches her reflection reach up and scratch at her chest. She does this until her chest is red and bleeding. Emily gasps. She looks down at her own hands to see that they’re blood-stained as well. She puts her hand up to her chest and feels a sting of pain. What the hell? She didn’t do that. The girl in the mirror did. How was this happening?

Emily doesn’t go downstairs for dinner. She showers and sits on her bed, staring at the window. She feels powerless. Defenseless. She doesn’t control her own mind anymore. What’s happening to her? How did she end up scratching herself without even feeling it? She isn’t crazy. She can’t be. She needs to stop thinking about that mirror. She needs to do something distracting. Anything.

Emily decides to draw. She always says she goes into another world when she creates. Emily rummages through her box, finding her sketchbook and a charcoal pencil. Suddenly she’s being shaken by Charlie.

“Em, stop! You need to stop!” He’s yelling at her. Why is he yelling at her? Where did he come from? The last thing she remembers doing is grabbing a pencil.

“What are you doing?” She yells back. They’re both on the ground. He stops shaking her. Elsie is in the doorway, looking shocked. Charlie has the same expression on his face. “Guys? What the hell?” Charlie lets go of her and leans back on his heels. He runs his hand through his messy hair.

“Look,” he says. Emily looks around her to see nothing but hard scribbles on sheets of paper sprawled across the room. What has she done? “You were in some sort of trance,” he says as gets up and walks out, obviously upset about this. Emily wraps her arms around her legs and rests her head on her knees and starts to cry. What is wrong with her?

A few days later, Emily is sitting on her floor looking out the window. A cup of coffee in her hand. Charlie had locked the door to the room, and Emily hasn’t seen any crazy reflections or drawings or scratches since. Elsie helped her pick up the scribbles, but Emily didn’t want them thrown away, so they staked on her dresser. Emily has barely slept, though. Every time she closes her eyes she sees that creepy version of herself. Charlie has stayed home with Emily the last few days, missing the read through for his show. Emily liked the comfort of someone watching over her. Today Charlie has his first rehearsal, so Emily is alone.

She’s doing well, just drinking coffee and enjoying the view of the forest. Until suddenly a feeling of Deja Vu hits her, like the feeling when you recognize someone but you’re not sure where you met them, or the feeling you get right before a car crash. She gets up and takes the stack of scribbles on her dresser and lays them on the floor. She subconsciously arranges them around like a puzzle until all the scribbles on separate pages from a picture. A giant drawing of the version of herself she saw in the mirror. She looks at the creation she made when she blacked out and screams out. She rips, kicks and stomps on the papers, throwing them around the room. She feels tears swelling in her eyes.

“This can’t be happening,” she says out loud, pacing around the room. She swells with rage and fear. She goes down the hall, and jiggles the doorknob on the room door, not remembering it’s locked.

“Fuck,” She says out loud. She runs her hands through her hair and paces again. She goes into Charlie’s room and shuffles through unpacked boxes, drawers and closets. She throws things that are useless to her around his room, creating a mess. She eventually finds a hammer and goes back to the door. She hits around the doorknob with the sharp part of the hammer until it breaks off. She opens the door and stands in front of the mirror-from-hell. She sees the same thing she saw before. Crazy hair, blood-shot eyes, dark circles, ripped clothes. She paces in front of the mirror. Her reflection doing the same. She scratches her arm, drawing blood like she did before. She stops and stares at herself.

“What do you want from me?” She says. Her eyes fill up with tears. “What do you want?!” she screams. Sobs escape from her throat, her anger growing the more she looks at her reflection. She screams, smashing the hammer into the mirror. It cracks, and she hits it again. The mirror shatters, cutting her skin and clothes. She keeps going, hitting and smashing and screaming “leave me alone” until there’s almost no big pieces of the mirror left.

She finally stops, her breathing heavy. She drops to her knees and looks at all the glass on the floor. She starts laughing. Seeing blood from a cut on her arm drip down her hand. She cracks up like she just heard the funniest joke of her life. Her abs are tightening.

“I’m not crazy, I’m not crazy,” she says. She stands up and heads to her room, closing the door to the room and locking her bedroom door behind her.

Elsie gets home first that day. It’s so quiet she can hear a pin drop. She goes upstairs to change and notices Emily’s bedroom door is shut. Thank God Emily is finally sleeping. She changes into comfy clothes, grabs a book, and goes back downstairs to sit on the couch. She gets a few pages into the chapter when Charlie bursts through the front door. He’s panting and sprints straight upstairs.

“Emily!” He’s screaming.

“What’s going on?” Elsie says as she follows behind Charlie. Charlie jiggles the doorknob.

“God damn it! Emily!” He screams again.

“Charlie what’s happening?” Elsie is yelling now. Charlie starts hurling himself at Emily’s door. He hits it hard one, two, three times before it breaks and he rushes into the room, Elsie close behind him.

Elsie is hit with instant cold and shivers before she realizes what she’s seeing. Emily’s huge window is wide open, the Canada chill engulfing the room. Standing in it is Emily facing away from them at first. Emily turns around to look at them when she hears the door break. Her hair's a mess. Her eyes are bloodshot with dark circles from lack of sleep under them. Her clothes are ripped and her hands are bloody. There’s scratches all over her. She looks directly into Charlie’s eyes and smiles a big cheshire cat grin, then looks straight into Elsie’s. Emily’s brown eyes meeting her own.

“What’s wrong?” Emily whispers. Her eyes are big and empty. There’s no sign of fear, or worry. Before Elsie has time to process what is happening, before she even had time to scream, Emily leans forward and disappears.

On the way down, Emily thinks about what it felt like to be high with her friends. Her car foggy, much like her vision is now. She thinks about the sound of Elsie and Charlie laughing before hitting the ground, leaving her paint on the world like colors to a canvas.