Never Play "Through The Looking Glass"

Growing up in the mid-nineties was interesting. I was only two years old when Dial-up was first offered and while my family wasn’t the wealthiest, we managed to nab a home computer when I was around eight. I didn’t understand how it worked then, and 20 years later, I still don’t. But what I do know is that the internet has defined my generation. Growing up and having mostly instant access to just about anything you could think of was a blessing and a curse. Sure, as a young kid I would play silly games on NewGrounds, wait twenty minutes for a flash animation to load just so I could watch it once, not laugh, and go find another one but there was one thing my friend, Danny, and I did constantly that never ceased to feed that need for something interesting.

Huddled next to each other, me in my mom’s rolly chair and Danny in a chair from the kitchen table we’d type ‘www.’ in the search bar followed by any word 6-year-olds found funny. Some notable ones I can actually remember were fart(.)com, monkey(.)com, and poop(.)com. Most of them just returned a page saying the domain was for sale but those that worked tended to have us laughing for hours. Fart(.)com was just a button that played a random fart noise from a set of about 5 or 6 but those 6 farts were absolutely hilarious. I believe the monkey site was a simple flash game where you controlled a monkey at the bottom of the screen and tried to catch falling bananas. Pretty primitive game, even for the standards of the time.

You’d expect such a childish activity to die out and lose its spark after a few years but it continued going strong for years after. When WiFi became readily available our searches were faster than ever and we searched up sites with more veracity than ever before. It was also around this time we learned about words that kids our age weren’t allowed to say. All it took was my mom looking through the family computer’s internet history for us to finally see the error of our ways. We didn’t know the computer kept a record of what you searched, so when my mom came to me and asked “Was it you who searched up boobies.com?” Her tone was accusatory and I knew there was no reason to deny it but it was late and she said we’d talk about it tomorrow. Danny and I both were grounded for a week; no internet privileges, and no visiting each other.

Once that week was up, however, we hopped right back into the silly habit we’d come to love. I give you all this backstory as a way to give you context of the current thing I’ve found. Danny and I would stay friends all through middle and high school. We even both ended up at the same college, though we couldn’t share a room since he was, well, a ‘he’ and I wasn't. After college we lost contact for sometime while we went off and did our own things. I got a job as a graphic designer, and he became a freelance artist. It was pretty incredible to see some of his work written about by other well respected artists in the industry. It was while reading one of these articles I’d gotten the idea to call him up and see if he’d want to hang out again, like old times.

I was stuck inside following my recent surgery and was lucky to be able to work from home, but it was getting pretty lonely after two months of little human interaction aside from those at the grocery store and the occasional Zoom call with my boss or coworker. Nervously I scrolled through my contacts and found ‘Dan the Man!’ listed just below ‘Dad’. Dan had known I was on T for sometime, and was incredibly supportive, but we hadn’t actually spoken to each other in over a year. I shook off the nerves and clicked his name.

It rang three times and I nearly hung up but before I could Dan answered. “Hey, Olly. What’s up?”

It was so nice to hear a friendly voice again. We exchanged pleasantries, talked about how things were going for us lately before I finally just said what was on my mind. “So, I’m caught up on work for a while, do you wanna come by and hang out? Like a sleep over but for adults?”

He laughed, “I’m pretty sure that’s just called visiting, Olly. But, yeah, I’d love to! My schedule is free in a few days. Would you be cool with me coming down then?”

“Yes, that’s perfect! I’ll get some things from the store for us and make sure I have some clean sheets for you.” We both said goodbye soon after and I squealed with excitement once the call disconnected. I spent the rest of that day getting everything set up. I made sure all the extra blankets were clean, I had enough food, and I even stopped by my local video store and picked up a few horror movies. I had trouble getting to sleep because of the excitement but I managed to and before I knew it the day had come.

I greeted him outside with a hug, trying not to squeeze too hard. He laughed and when he pulled away looked me up and down, “You look great, dude!” His smile hadn’t changed since we were kids. It was always so big, and bright, and showed off a little too much of his gums.

“Thanks! You look great too.” He really did. I could tell that even though he chose a more relaxed day job, he was taking time to make sure his physical appearance didn’t falter. He had come far from the nerdy art student I’d known in college and it looked good on him. “We should probably get inside. It's going to get cold soon and I wanna show you around.” For the next 30 minutes or so I showed Danny around the house. It was a quaint three bedroom 1 and a half bath, though the third ‘bedroom’ was a glorified storage room. It was half the size of the guest room and had a tall wardrobe screwed into the wall by the previous owners so they could claim it as a bedroom.

The guest room was a tad bit smaller than the main bedroom, which of course was mine, but it was big enough to fit a queen bed and a small dresser with extra sheets and blankets. “This is my room for the week, huh?” Danny said, throwing his bags on the bed, studying every wall, corner, and the singular window like he was a landlord. He turned back to me with a half smile on his face, “I like it. It’s cozy.” I smiled back and told him I was going to get started on dinner.

We talked some more over dinner about what we’d both been up to. I told him about the articles I’d seen about his art, he told me that he’d been keeping up with me on social media so it was fairly simple to keep the conversation going. We both had things we knew about each other that we could ask for more information on. It was while we were cleaning up the kitchen that Danny asked something I wasn’t expecting. “Have you looked up any silly websites lately?”

I looked away from the dishes and back at him, “What do you mean?”

He laughed a little. “You don’t remember when we were kids? We’d look up random one word websites? Well, until we got in trouble because you wanted to look at boobs.” He laughed a little harder.

I laughed with him but continued with the dishes, “I do remember that now that you say something. No, I guess I haven’t done that since college. Why do you ask?”

After finishing off his drink he said, “I found one.” It was barely over a whisper, almost like he was worried someone else would hear it. It took me back to when we’d talk during class while the teacher was lecturing. I turned off the water and turned back to him with a puzzled look. He continued, “I found a really cool, one word site that I wanted to show you. It was part of the reason why I was so excited you called. I was pumped to go down the rabbit hole of random sites again like when we were kids.”

Now he’d caught my attention. I dried my hands, grabbed my own beer from the fridge, and sat down across from him. “Alright. Tell me all about it.”

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I started by looking up old sites that I’d remembered. The monkey site doesn't exist anymore, sadly, and pizza dot com is just a site to find pizza shops in your zip code. I tried a handful more but kept getting sites that hadn’t been purchased until I overheard something on my television. It was an infomercial trying to sell me the next revolutionary face cleansing product and the voice over said, “Make Bare Renew part of your daily morning ritual and see more youthful skin in just weeks!”

For whatever reason the word ‘ritual’ stood out to me. I typed it into the search bar and lo’ and behold, a site popped up. In reality it was a WordPress blog but I was pretty intrigued. The landing page was really well laid out and at the top was the title of the blog; Richard’s Ritual Glossary. Below that, it had various hyperlinks listed out in alphabetical order. I clicked the first one, and quickly found out that this was a site dedicated to rituals. The first link I clicked took me to another page on the blog that showed the name of the ritual, how many participants, the rules, and a supplies list. The ritual was named Affluent and it claimed that if it was done correctly it could bring some money into your life.

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It was at this moment I could see Danny’s eyes lighting up with excitement. The look on my face was far from that. I was never one to dwell into the paranormal, or anything adjacent to it. I didn’t even watch horror movies for fear that the negative energy would somehow make their way into my life. But this was my best friend and I trusted so I kept listening. “I tried it, Olly.” The smile on his face when he said that was bigger than I’d ever seen it. “Obviously, I’m doing pretty well for myself but I couldn’t pass up on the chance of getting a little extra money. On top of that, it was the first one I clicked on and I’m impulsive, honestly.”

I let out a stifled giggle, finally breaking my silence. “You know most of that is just made up right? The dude who owns that site probably pays his mortgage just off the money that gullible people like you bring in when looking at his site.” I was lying through my teeth. Deep down I knew I believed it had worked.

Danny just shook his head. “I’d normally agree with you but,” he reached into his back pocket and pulled out an old, worn, thick leather wallet and dropped it on the table with a loud thud. I knew it wasn’t his because he never carried cash and green bills were pouring from this thing.

“Where did you get that?” I said, pointing to it. I couldn’t bring myself to pick it up. Something about it felt… wrong to me, though I couldn’t explain it at the time. What Danny said next helped me understand why I felt that way.

“I found that wallet on the ground outside a gas station a week after I did the Affluent ritual. I looked for an ID and asked around to see if anyone had seen the man around the area. Everyone just said they hadn’t so I took it to the police station to report it. I hoped they could find the person it belonged to and they promised they’d get it back to him. Couple days later they called me to say the man who’d owned the wallet had passed away a few days ago and since he didn’t have anyone alive who was close to him, I could keep it. Finders keepers.” He smiled again.

“Danny that’s fucking weird and gross.” I held my hand to my mouth suddenly feeling nauseous. “Put it away.” He looked upset, but not in an angry way. It was more like the look a kid has when they’re caught doing something they shouldn’t have been doing. Danny was never as superstitious as I was so I don’t think his brain connected the dots as quickly as I did. “When exactly did they say he passed away?” We ended up looking up the man’s obituary and found out the man had been killed that same day Danny did the ritual. The man, his name was Oscar, was mugged at gunpoint but given that he was a veteran, he put up quite a fight but ultimately lost the fight.

The man who did it was caught, but Oscar’s wallet wasn’t discovered. Not until a week later when Danny picked it up. I explained all this to Danny who just stared in silent confusion. “That ritual killed Oscar.” I finally said.

Danny’s face changed quickly but not the way I hoped. He threw his head back in laughter, “Olly, you don’t really believe that silly ritual worked, right? It's all just coincidence. I was just messing with you. I don’t actually think it worked. People lose their wallets all the time and-”

“He didn’t lose it, Danny! He was killed.”

His smile faded. “Look, Olly, I get that you’re superstitious but rituals are nothing more than a silly thing girls do at slumber parties to freak each other out. Think Bloody Mary, or the Candyman thing. It’s all just clever marketing. You even said it yourself; the guy was just banking off people like me, and you’re probably right.” We sat staring at each other for a few moments, trying to read each other. Finally I stood up and said, “I’ll see you in the morning. It's getting late and I’m really tired. All your blankets are at the foot of your bed.”

When I was halfway down the hall Danny called out, “What if we did one together?”

I stopped in my tracks. I was really hoping he wouldn’t say that. Ever since we were kids Danny had a way of convincing me to do things I normally wouldn’t even think about. In some cases it was good, like when he made me believe I had a chance to get into my dream college, and actually ended up getting in. I wouldn’t have even applied if Danny didn’t talk me into it. I guess at that moment I believed I owed him something. It sounds so stupid looking back. “Fine, whatever.” I said, turning and walking back into the kitchen. “Don’t make it a long one. I want to go to bed.”

We decided on one called Through the Looking Glass. The site described it as, A quick, but effective ritual that allows the participants to travel to the mirror realm. It's a realm just like our own, but as if you were looking through a mirror. It should take no more than a few minutes to gather materials, and set up to begin. The material list is below. Just under that short paragraph was an italicized list for the items we’d need, and a short step by step guide.

Material List

- Two mirrors, preferably large and tall enough for someone to step through comfortably. If the mirror cannot stand on their own, they must be propped up. They can be placed at a slight lean but be warned, this can lead to unwanted results.

- A candle. The size is not that important, though, it may need to burn for sometime so things like tea candles are not suggested.

How to

1. Set up your mirror across from each other so they’re reflecting one another and creating a tunnel effect. Having the mirrors sitting straight up is highly advised as it gives a much more direct connection to the mirror realm.

2. Light your candle, then place it in between the two mirrors. It is strongly suggested that there are minimal lights, or no lights on at all. Too much artificial light can cause an unwanted result.

3. Wait. You will know when and if the ritual works. The room will become colder, the candle may burn out inexplicably, only to relight again.

“One final word of caution. Traveling through a mirror can be incredibly dangerous. You’re doing this in order to see something you were never meant to, and so, you may bring in some unwanted attention.” Danny looked up from the laptop after reading that last line. I was hoping he’d look as worried as I was but he only wore the same look a kid does when they see an ice cream truck. He read me like a book. “Oh, come on Olly. This will be fun! Look, if you get too freaked out, we’ll stop.”

I let out a big sigh. “Fine… but this is the only one we’re doing and if it doesn’t work, don’t come crying to me.”

We set everything up in my living room. My two body mirrors were propped up on some kitchen chairs and a small stool held our candle. The mirrors weren’t perfectly straight up as the site suggested, but we couldn’t find a way to do it without risking them falling over and shattering. “Okay, I think everything looks good,” I said, “Let’s light the candle and get this over with, eh?”

Danny pulled out his Zippo with a smile and in a really bad British accent for dramatic effect said, “As you wish good sir.” Next thing I knew we were sitting across from each other, me in a recliner, him on the love seat, staring at this candle. At this point it was the only light source in the house. I figured if we couldn’t get the mirrors just right we could at least get the light part right.

We had to have been sitting there for twenty minutes, and at this point we were both beginning to fall asleep. “Danny, I think we have to call it here. I really need to get to bed, and you do too after that long drive here.” I could barely see him even though he was nearly arms reach of me. The candle wasn’t doing much for visibility but I’d assumed Danny looked a lot like me in that moment as he’d wasted no time in agreeing with me.

“Yeah. We probably should have called it quits twenty minutes ago.” He laughed then leaned forward to blow out the candle. Just before he puffed out his breath, the room went black as the candle snuffed out. I heard Danny let out a small gasp, and I found myself holding my breath. In the moments that the candle was out, it was like we’d entered a different atmosphere. Not only was the room colder, but the background noises you become accustomed to while you’re living somewhere, like the hum of your fridge, the creaking of an old house, and even the sound of my breath.

Once I’d let out the breath I was holding I noticed that I didn’t hear myself exhale. I opened my mouth to ask Danny if he was experiencing what I was, but even though my mouth moved and I felt my throat vibrate with the words I spoke, he just gave me a confused, and frightened look. He moved his mouth as well and to the best of my ability I read his lips. I can’t hear anything. We tried our best to continue our silent exchange but we both stopped when the candle came back to life. Just as it did, all sound returned; which is such a weird thing to say because there was barely any to begin with.

I don’t think either one of us wanted to believe it had worked so when I suggested we just blow out the candles and put everything away, Danny was quick to oblige. I took out my phone flashlight to see things better, blew out the candle and took it back to my room where it’d come from. Just as I put my phone on the charger, Danny calls out from the living room. “Olly you have to see this!” I couldn’t pinpoint if he was excited or… afraid. Perhaps both. Either way I knew I needed to see what he was yelling across the house about.

When I turned the corner Danny was standing in front of the tall mirror we’d placed on the kitchen table and his hand was reaching out to it. “What is-” I stopped mid sentence. Danny’s finger touched the reflective surface of the mirror but instead of his finger stopping on the surface, the surface rippled like something breaking the surface tension on a calm pond. Ripples flowed to every corner, only stopping after a few seconds. Danny turned his head to me, “I think it worked.”

I didn’t want to believe it, but there was no other explanation to what I was seeing. My once solid mirror was now seemingly semi-solid. “Aren’t we supposed to see something strange? Or something from ‘another world’?” I tried to sound sarcastic but I was far too scared to use the tone I wanted. Danny nodded while a huge smile spread across his face.

“We have to go inside, remember? If you really wanna see something crazy, then you have to go through the mirror.” Before I could argue Danny was propping the mirror against a wall and trying his best to fit through the small mirror. It was only about 5 feet tall and 2.5 feet wide and with Danny being 6’2 and well-built, I’ll admit it was funny to see him crawl through but it was also unsettling. I don’t think it had fully set in what we’d done, and what he was doing. We turned a mirror into a gateway! What the hell were we thinking?

Finally I snapped out of my fugue-like state to recognize how absolutely bat shit this all was. “Danny, wait!” I ran over and tried to grab at Danny’s ankle before he made all the way through but I was too late. Just as the last fuzz of his socks left our world and went into the mirror world there was a loud sound similar to that of someone sharpening a knife on a whetstone. It only happened once but when it did, I knew what it was immediately. I watched it happen. The ripples in the mirror caused by Danny’s entrance all stopped at once. I placed a trembling hand on the surface… it was ice cold, and completely solid.

Looking through I saw Danny, but he was mirrored. The letters on his shirt were backwards and the scar from falling off his bike as a kid looked to be over his left eye, instead of his right. I called out, “Danny! What’s going on? Can you get out of there?” He was looking around the room, my mirrored living room, taking it all in. His face wore fear, just as much as it did amazement.

“Olly, come through with me! This is so cool!” I just shook my head. I searched for my words but they all escaped me. When my eyes met the dark figure standing behind Danny, though, they began pouring out.

“Danny, get out of there! Something is behind you! Come on, get out!” I was yelling till my throat hurt but Danny just gave me a confused look before pointing to his ear and saying, “I can’t hear you.” He then motioned for me to come in, again. I tried my best to charade my message to him, that someone was behind him, that the mirror was solid again, that something was really wrong but I couldn’t… The shadowy mass that stood behind Danny placed a deep red boney hand on his shoulder. Danny froze but didn’t turn around… looking back I’m not sure he could.

Danny’s face began to age drastically. His hair turned gray, then fell out leaving nothing but dark age spots peppering his scalp. His face began to wrinkle and droop, his teeth fell out, his eyes turned from a dark brown to a light gray. His once well fitting shirt draped over as if it were 4 sizes too big. Finally the creature lifted its hand from Danny, and let him drop to the floor. Instead of thumping like I’d expected, Danny’s body simply collapsed into dust.

I broke down then. I cried out, I screamed for Danny even though I knew he couldn’t hear me. I cursed the creature that stood over the ashes of my best friend, called it every name in the book, and swore I’d have my revenge someday. I was so blinded by fear, rage, and sadness I hadn’t noticed that the once shadow-like mass had taken on a new form. I can only assume it drew power from Danny, and now it was able to take on its true form.

Most of its top half was that of a man, though it was definitely not human. It stood well over 8 feet, with large horns coming from its head, only to curl back around into its eyes. Thick black blood dripped from the wounds as the creature sniffed the air like a dog, smelling something on the grill. Eventually, even though it had no eyes, it looked directly at me. I knew it was. I could feel it baring down on me and before I knew it, it was making its way over to me.

The legs were like dogs, though long claws protruded from them, and they were hairless with small patches of skin peeling off in some places. I was frozen until the thing lunged at me, and it was then I did the only thing I knew to do. I had to stop this thing from escaping and there was only one way to do that. I rationalized in my mind that Danny wasn’t going to come back before sending my fist into the mirror. It hurt like hell, and I bled for a while but it worked.

Blood and broken glass littered the floor of my living room as I sat there and cried for longer than I can remember. I knew my hand was bleeding but at that moment I didn’t care. I’d lost one of my best friends to some idiotic ritual. Sitting on that thought brought me back. I knew Danny was dead, but in the eyes of everyone else, in the eyes of the police, he would be considered missing. They’d look at phone records… I’d be the number one suspect. They’d never believe the truth.

I decided to run. I grabbed everything I needed for a cross country trip, drained all my bank accounts, dyed my hair, did anything I could think of to make myself invisible. I’ve been staying out of a hotel for two weeks. I don’t know how long I can keep this up though. The police have plastered Danny’s face all over my town, and they say the search is starting up in neighboring counties soon. They know about me as well. They won’t say it, but when I hear “We have a suspect in mind” I know they mean me. I was the last person with him.

I’ve thought about turning myself in, telling them the truth and living in an institution the rest of my life. They couldn’t pin me for murder if there is no body, right? I need to make a decision soon. Lately I’ve been feeling watched. I know it could be because I’m the suspect in a missing persons case but that isn’t it… that thing that killed Danny, stole his life from him… it’s coming for me next. And before you go on about how I’m just a paranoid freak, I’ve seen it. It’s in every reflective surface. My blank laptop screen, the windows of my hotel, even the reflection on my smartwatch and of course the mirrors. I’ve done my best to cover everything that reflects, but that’s no way to live.

I slip up here and there and of course, I can’t cover all the reflective surfaces in the world. And then there’s the bigger problem… Every time I catch myself in a reflection I see that thing that took Danny from me. And every time I see it, it’s a little bit closer.