Trapped

The mirror showed a reflection that wasn’t my own. It was me, but there was subtle creeping difference that started with my eyes. A quick glance wouldn’t confirm that, but as I stopped to carefully apply lipstick I realised I was looking into the eyes of someone or something malevolent.

I quickly look away. I had a job to do and I would be in big trouble if I didn’t carry it out in the way I had promised.

Or at least that’s how it felt. To be honest with you my neighbour scared me. I squashed down the feelings of disquiet. It was a simple task really.

I snapped the light off so I couldn’t catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror again. The thing was my mother had promised that I’d help Phoebe our neighbour, tidy up her junk. Phoebe never threw anything away and her house had long been a fire hazard and now it was beginning to stink. Mother was not someone to be disobeyed and she had volunteered me to help with the monumental job. She knew I was scared of Phoebe but she didn’t care.

I’d put this off for as long as I could wasting time making myself look presentable as if Phoebe would care. I felt so uneasy, but it was Hobson’s choice incur the wrath of my mother or enter the home of someone who had terrified me since early childhood.

I timidly knocked on Phoebe’s door I received no answer, as the door was ajar I crept in, well as well as I could as papers food containers electrical goods and books were piled high in the hall.

“Phoebe? Are you there? “. I still got no answer and I could already see I was facing a monumental task.

I had a plan in my head that I would make up box nets and pack everything in them so I could at least see the floor…

I needed a team of people. I needed help!

I cried out for Phoebe again. Still no answer. The uneasy feeling I had felt when I looked into the eyes that weren’t my eyes in the mirror that morning was back.

I had seen Phoebe yesterday when she had spent the morning alternately raving at no one at particular and at one point having an exaggerated polite conversation with my mother. The conversation that had led to me standing here with a mounting feeling of doom.

On the grimy wall opposite me, well the one I could see part of was an equally grimy mirror. I pointedly didn’t look in the direction of that mirror, but if I had… well, there’s no point in thinking like that

I heard what seemed to me like a sigh, and as I felt overwhelmed by the task before me, I decided that Phoebe was going to have to help. I heard her just then I was sure. So I yelled out again

“Phoebe, I don’t mind helping you but you need to help me too…”

Silence. Maybe I’d imagined that sigh.

Then I noticed that the cupboard under the stairs that was of course almost completely hidden by a mountain of papers .. was slightly ajar.

Please don’t tell me Phoebe was in there, well how could she have got in there anyway?

I heaved the large vacuum cleaner and coffee machine out of the way, scattering papers and tins of food across the hallway…

I managed to drag the door open, sweating with the effort, but it was opened wide enough for me to look in…

I peered into the total darkness… unable to tell if anyone or indeed anything was there

Then I felt it …the sharp pain that whomped the air out of my lungs… and I shot forward and into the blackness, striking my head.

“You bitch, I told your mother I didn’t want you here”

The door slammed behind me and a scrabbled for a door handle that wasn’t there…..

I heard her muttering still, if I’d looked up into the dirty hall mirror I would have seen her lurking behind a pile of clothes, but I didn’t…

And now I’m trapped, writing this on my phone while the battery lasts… I don’t have a signal in here. I need to pee, but that’s the least of my worries as I can see from the dimming light of my phone there is no other way out of this cramped space. And I can’t get out of the handle less door. I’ve tried kicking and screaming and pleading.

It wasn’t myself I saw in the mirror this morning I was seeing the trapped animal I had become. I didn’t pay attention to the gut warning I had. I was at the mercy of a person who wasn’t of sound mind … maybe it was her eyes I saw.

I hope mother notices I’ve gone.

If she cares….