You Have No Power Over Me

The mirror showed a reflection that wasn’t my own. It was me… it was my bathroom. But it wasn’t mine. What I was feeling was inexplicable. What I was seeing was not. My hazel eyes, in the reflection, were more of a gray. My eyebrows were a bit bushier. My mouth was drawn up in a sneer. And the scar on my right cheek should have been my reflection’s left cheek, but it was still on the right. I wasn’t looking at a reflection… I was looking at another me!

“Hello, dearie,” my reflection said. It eerily reminded me of Megadeth frontman Dave Mustaine.

“Well me, it's nice talking to myself.

A credit to dementia.

Someday, you too will know my pain,

And smile its "black-toothed grin"”

I wasn’t sweating bullets yet, but it wouldn’t be long until it began. Of that, I was quite sure. My reflection’s smile was a black-toothed grin, each black tooth sharpened to a keen point. His smile stretched the scar to the point of cracking and oozing. Behind him, the walls of the bathroom began to crack and ooze a thick, red liquid. Blood? I really had no desire to find out. Was I dreaming still? Was I entering the first stages of dementia? Perhaps, Dave Mustaine deserved more credit for the song than the song credits dementia for talking to oneself.

Without taking my eyes from my reflection, his ghastly countenance held my gaze in a tight grip, I reached down and pinched my arm. Hoping to awaken safe and sound back in my bed, I was instead met with a lightning bolt of white pain. The pain, thankfully, allowed me to break the staring contest, though there arose an immediate fear in me of what my reflection might do in those unobserved moments.

Much like the scar on Reflection’s face, there now appeared on my arm an open wound oozing the same thick, red liquid. Probably blood, I thought to myself, but it felt like a lie.

“Wanna come out and play?” Reflection asked, his voice a high-pitched, smarmy growl.

Returning my eyes to the mirror, a hot coal formed in the pit of my stomach when I saw that he was now dry shaving his head with the pitted, uneven blade of a long, rusty dagger. Deep lacerations appeared on Reflection’s scalp where the blade took hair and skin. But the blood didn’t flow, it oozed like it did from my wound, his scar, and the walls of his bathroom. I wanted nothing more than to vomit in the sink, but the fear kept it down, adding to the white heat of the coal already in my stomach.

I stared with morbid fascination as the ooze ran in slow rivulets down Reflection’s pale face, its deep red a stark contrast to his gray eyes. I watched as a drop formed on the hair of his eyebrow and fell. In that same moment, I felt a drop fall from my own eyebrow. I tore my gaze away to look into the sink and watch my own bloody ooze meander towards the drain.

I spoke for the first time. “What is happening?”

My voice was hoarse and breathy, as fearful of coming out as the chyme in my stomach. My eyes returned to Reflection, his smile broadened impossibly at the fear he saw.

“Inevitability is happening, dearie!” he growled. “The Great Master comes to the last world, your world, to seize his destiny!”

The sky through the window behind Reflection turned a sickening shade of green, as did the light in my own bathroom. Once again, I turned around. I saw the sky through my own window. It wasn’t a trick, the light shining on my world was now puke green. Taking the step towards the window before me, I opened it to get a clearer view, instead of looking through the frosted glass. The faint aroma of death and decay began to seep into the bathroom. This must be what it smelled like in Reflection’s world. The trees, the leaves, the houses, all of it, began to look aged and runny. It reminded me of soft plastic slowly melting under a hot sun, or an Edvard Munch painting, where I would soon become the “Screaming Man”.

Something finally broke through the terror… anger.

“Why are you doing this?!” I screamed as I turned back towards Reflection.

He brought the rusty dagger down to his arm and wiped the hair and bits of scalp off the blade. His eyes, so far full of contempt and anticipation, suddenly turned into mocking shock.

“Me?” he asked. “Why, I just told you, dearie, it’s the Great Master! I…” and his face once again turned dark and contemptible. “We are merely his vessel. His vassal. His conduit for remaking the realities to his will.”

My anger flared, but the white hot coal remained in the pit of my stomach. “He’s gonna turn the realities into this?!” The defiance in my voice was unmistakable, and Reflection didn’t appear to expect it, or to like it.

His expression turned to threatening with a side of psychosis. “Careful where you tread, dearie,” the words coming out in a hissed growl this time. “The boss is not keen on upstarts. There were many of us like you. Now there are just the many others like me, and lonely, little you.”

As the world around me continued to “Munchify”, I tried to come to grips with what Reflection was telling me. A dark, evil entity was conquering and altering all of the realities into a puke green, malodorous, melting mess, and I was the last of me standing in his way. For some reason this godlike spirit needed me, a nondescript, regular Joe, to subjugate existence.

Maybe it wasn’t the right time for curiosity, but the anger welling inside me gave me a bit of courage. Besides, don’t the villains always find the time to explain themselves? When they sense their victory, the villains usually become loquacious and absentminded. Could I do that to Reflection? And what exactly would I do when I got him there? I had no power that I knew of, certainly not any sort of power to undo what was happening to my world. Then again, what did I really have to lose? I would welcome Death with open arms before I would continue my existence as a reflection of Reflection.

With all of my strength, I attempted to saunter back to the sink. I wanted to appear as the upstart Reflection just called me. I wanted to show defiance, perhaps it would open him to giving me information from his place of arrogance. The smell of death intensified in the bathroom and the world outside. Whatever was happening was happening quickly, I dared not waste a moment.

“What makes you special?” I did my best to sneer with my words, to fight arrogance with arrogance. “How did you become the Great Master’s fuck boy?” I attempted the same growl with my voice that came naturally to my adversary, but I feared that I just came off as lame. I hate to say it, but an image of Christian Bale as Batman popped into my mind at that instant. It’s neither here nor there, but his voice change for that role was as ridiculous as the voice change I just tried. Incredibly, a small chuckle escaped my lips, and it incensed fuck boy even further.

“Mocking me will only add to your suffering, dearie. I’ve been doing this a long time for the Great Master. I was his first.” I caught a sense of longing in Reflection’s voice.

Prior to the Great Master’s arrival, I pictured Reflection much like me, but weaker of mind and spirit. I remembered going through a period in my life where I felt that way, but that all changed when my mother died. Never the extroverted type, I still was able to harden my spirit enough to see the world for what it was and find the strength to face it head on. I may not have always found victory, but at least I knew how to fight. Fuck boy? I’m guessing that his mother lived, and he remained a weak, malleable mind that constantly found himself back home suckling on momma’s teat.

“His first? You mean his weakest?” Reflection’s eyes flashed with hatred.

His voice came out level, but brimming beneath the surface I could see him frothing and foaming like a sea of water disturbed. “I am the strongest!” he hissed. “He chose me because I was the strongest!”

“No,” I forced my expression to become one of disdain, but I could feel the hot coal in my belly slowly rising into my chest. It didn’t take as much effort as I expected. “He chose you because you were the easiest to control. You’re not a servant,” I continued, hoping that my next words would be a bit of a backbreaker. “You’re a tool that he’ll throw away as soon as it’s convenient.”

I saw the instant change in Reflection’s face, where there was once arrogance and surety, I could see the first cracks of doubt. It’s much like a bully in school, they’re all big and bad until you force a little truth into their heads. When it makes an impact, then their whole world begins to crumble. But I also felt a change in myself. Not just the rising heat inside of me, but a pushback against the physical changes I’d been witnessing in myself and the reality around me. It was a string of hope that was just enough for me to grab onto.

Reflection covered the cracks of his psyche with some emotional spackle, but the damage had been done. “I am his right hand, dearie. And I will remain so. Killing you will be more joyful than any of the others like you. I shall separate your head from your body and present it to the Great Master as a testament to his victory!”

The rusty dagger was lifted to his arm, and he dragged the blade across it with forced authority, leaving gashes deeper and angrier than the ones on his scalp. I took an instant to look down at my own arm. Nothing… even the open wound where I had pinched myself had all but disappeared. Had my Gandalf moment arrived? I come to you, now, at the turning of the tide! Fuck boy took no notice. Good. I had to press him further, to get his kilter even further off.

“Tell me, fuck boy,” the insult oozed from my lips like the blood from his head. “What is your prize for doing Grandmaster Flash’s bidding?”

Ok, so maybe an old school rapper reference wasn’t the best one to use, but it was in the heat of the moment. What do you want from me? Besides, Reflection was me, so he understood the reference. He drew himself up, almost imperceptibly, and dug the pitted blade into his skin.

“The Great Master,” the emphasis on the title was confirmation that he understood my insult. “Has promised me immortality! I will have near unlimited power to help govern the realities, dearie.”

I leaned in towards the mirror, resting my hands on the edge of the sink. I found myself in another Gandalf moment. “There is only one lord of these putrid realities, and he does not share power. You will be the first to die after you kill me, fuck boy.”

Reflection’s emotional spackle cracked before it even had the chance to dry. The tide was now firmly with me, and the smell of death began to ebb. But as much as I had the upper hand, I should’ve remembered what happens when you back a rat into a corner. Reflection moved faster than any person I had ever seen and, before I knew it, his hand was around my throat. The strength in that grasp was like a vice, and the air was trapped in my lungs instantly. I’m gonna die anyway! The thought was more than fleeting, but luckily the moment the thought lived in wasn’t.

It had never occurred to me that the mirror was no longer a physical barrier, but I quickly realized that this attribute would save me from Fuck Boy. He had dug the dagger so deep into his arm that, when he grabbed me by the throat, it stuck there. And now it was within my reach. I decided to see if I could be as swift in movement as he was. One instant the dagger was stuck in his arm, and the next instant it was stuck in his eye socket. The grip on my throat immediately slackened and I pulled back as Reflection’s body began to slump, a low moan escaping his lips as death took him.

I felt whole again, like I did before this whole nightmare began. The odor of death had completely disappeared, and I looked behind me, out the window, and saw bright blue sky. A smile began to spread on my face, then the god-awful roar came through the mirror. The green sky through the window on the other side of the mirror became obstructed by a gargantuan… thing. Oh shit, I thought, it’s Grandmaster Flash! It was too far away to make out what the thing was, but my heart told me not to give it a chance to get any closer.

I took the butt of the dagger and tried to break the mirror. Seven years of bad luck be damned, I figured that breaking the mirror would sever the tie between our worlds. Unfortunately, my hand went through the mirror and into the reality where Reflection lay dead and decaying. The air felt clammy on my skin, and the hairs on my arm stood to attention in anticipation of lightning that would never flash. I pulled back quickly, the monster in the distance getting larger as it raced toward me.

Anger and frustration swirled in me like a maelstrom, and I continued trying to break the mirror with the butt of the dagger, each attempt ending up just like the first.

“DAMN IT!”

Grandmaster Flash roared again in response. Then it dawned on me. I had turned the tide on Reflection because I took control of the situation. Now that he was dead, it was me against the monster seeking dominion over all the realities. I was scared… It was feeding off of my fear. I hadn’t even noticed that the hot coal, my constant companion through this whole insanity, had sunk back down into my gut. Taking a deep breath, I closed my eyes and focused my anger, pulling the hot coal back into my chest.

Where Reflection had first reminded me of Dave Mustaine, I now forced my recollection to see the monster not as Grandmaster Flash (I didn’t really see the thing as the aging rapper, it was an insult towards the fuck boy), but as the Goblin King. There I stood, in the Goblin King’s castle at the heart of the Labyrinth, staring him down. My reality was Toby, and the Goblin King was trying to steal him. And I was Sarah, finally breaking the hold that the king and his labyrinth held me in.

I stared at the oncoming monster, my hot coal friend flaring white hot yet again.

“You have no power over me,” I said, quiet and calm.

The monster continued his advance, its roars now deafening.

“You have no power over me,” this time with more volume.

The monster didn’t relent.

“YOU HAVE NO POWER OVER ME!”

I raised the dagger and brought it down on the mirror. It shattered the glass into a thousand pieces. The roars of the Great Master choked and were silent. I looked at the shards of mirror still in the frame. It was just me. There was no decaying bathroom, no puke green sky, and no Goblin King. Something wet ran down the pinky finger of the hand holding the dagger. It was blood. Regular blood. Not the putrid ooze of Reflection. It was over.

I keep the dagger in a lock box on my closet shelf. Every so often I pull it out and remember what happened that day. I wonder if my reality truly is the only one left, or were Reflection and the Great Master lying to me just to gain access to this world. I hoped it was the latter. I also wondered if the Great Master had found himself another fuck boy. I wondered all of this, but I wasn’t sure how much I truly cared about those thoughts. My reality was safe, at least for now.