//------------------------------//
// Through The Looking Glass 
// Story: From The Vault 
// by Mischievous Blue 
//------------------------------//


Through The Looking Glass


Before I looked in that mirror that morning so long ago, I had never considered talking to a pony, or a horse. I left that to the more mentally unstable people of my world. But even now five years later, I find myself eager to wake up every morning, race to my mirror, only to find my reflection staring back at me, and remembering that she was taken away from my life. But, as I write what I can remember, I feel I must start at the beginning.
I was a bully, as most people would call me. I stole lunch money, beat up nerds, and made the new-comers of the school respect me and consider me a god. I rarely got in trouble because the teachers were scared to get close to me. I was the undisputed ruler of the school. When the principal tried to suspend me one time, I suspended him and sent him home with a broken arm.
But even though it seemed my life was perfect in every way, I hated every moment of my waking life. My father was a crazy drunk. He very rarely showed his face around the house while he was sober, and because of his problem, he never bothered applying for any jobs and was living off welfare. My mother had a job, but considering what it was, I almost wish she didn't have one. She was a prostitute. Late at night while my father was passed out from the alcohol pumping through his veins, she was out there on the street or in a stranger's car, pumping something else. Due to the fact that my father was a damn drunk and my mother couldn't get laid enough times in one night for a steady income, I was the only one making any money. So I paid the bills, bought food, replaced clothes, and everything else, but it was hard getting by. I worked overtime every day, and sometimes had to 'bribe' my female boss for a little extra cash. Even then, when the bills were paid and food bought, we had mere dollars, or sometimes only cents, left.
The school had finally let out for the year, and the kids in my class couldn't be happier. That meant three months they didn't have to sit in the same room as me. But who could blame them? With this kind of crappy lifestyle, I was undoubtedly the poorest kid in the school. I had no friends to hang out with; not even I would hang out with me if I weren't the same person. And who would be friends with a bully? Nobody of this earth, that's for sure. I walked home and entered the doorway, ducking as a half-empty bottle of alcohol whizzed past me and shattered against the door. Nothing new, my father was drunk. Again.
I went up to my room, closed the door, and locked it. Locked doors weren't allowed in our house, but I used it as a precaution. My father had a tendency to get more drunk than usual and go on a rampage, destroying anything in sight. If he came to a locked door, he would pass it by. If it was unlocked, he would enter, and nothing inside would stop him then. I still have a scar from the time he had found an ax and roamed the house and eventually found me. But his drunken rampages is why we don't have any pets anymore.
I sat down on my bed and turned on the television, looking for anything that our feeble antenna could pick up. I came upon a moderately well-received signal for a religious channel, but it cut out within minutes. I turned off the television and laid back on my bed, staring at our peeling ceiling. I continued to look at the ceiling until I heard my father's footsteps coming toward my room. I reached my hand out and unlocked the doorknob, just in case he was sober enough to talk and tried to communicate. I shouldn't have hoped for so much. He slammed on my door with a fist, or his head, opened it, and barked, "Hey loser, dinner's ready! Get out here!" He left and I pulled a cap gun out from under my bed, pointed it at the place his head had been, and pulled the trigger. The cap gun went off with a mildly satisfying CRACK as the cap was broken. It was the closest thing I had to a real weapon, so I repeated the process every day. He would burst in, call me names, leave, and I would pretend my little gun was a real pistol, and pretend his stupid ugly face was still there.
I ignored his order to come out and ate in my own room. I always went out to the fridge while he was passed out to get food and smuggled it in my room for later consumption. This time I had some old vegetables and week old macaroni. I would have to restock soon since I could see fuzz on the mac & cheese. I went to bed earlier than usual, locking my door again. I stared at the night sky, or what was supposed to be a night sky. With all the people in this town, there were too many lights on at one point so the stars were never visible. A shooting star zipped across the sky so fast that I would have missed it if I had blinked. It was silly and too childish for me, but I decided to make a wish. With eyes closed and hands clasped together, I made my wish, "I wish on the shooting star that I can find an escape from this life." I knew that it wouldn't work, so I kept my eyes closed, laid my head down, and fell asleep.

===

I woke up a couple hours from midday, and lay in bed for a couple minutes, listening for any sound in the house. If there was no noise, it meant I would get up, take a shower, eat breakfast, and maybe hit the gym. If there was a noise, it would leave the house soon and I could go on with my routine. No noise was audible in the house, so I got up, undressed, showered, and redressed. I ate some frozen pizza since my father had broken the microwave in a rage when it wouldn't start. It worked fine, he just hadn't plugged it in. After the breakfast, I didn't feel much like going to the gym today. I decided I'd stay in my room today and do nothing. Nothing to do in this town for a broke family.
After a small glass of juice, I went back to my room and shut the door. There was no point locking it since there wasn't anybody else in the house. I sat down at my desk and noticed that the large flipping mirror was slightly offset. I sighed and got up. I figured it must have been the cops again. They came by every once in a while and went through the house. They would come into my room and mess stuff up, looking for drugs, I guessed. I didn't bother doing anything. The one time I had tried stopping them, I had gotten a fist in the stomach and arrested. I had been released the next day, but I left the police alone after that.
I flipped the mirror back to its original position and turned to get something from my backpack. If I had looked a little longer at my mirror, I would have noticed something was weird about it. The mirror itself wasn't the problem, though. It was what it was reflecting back that was the problem. I turned back to the mirror and let out of a scream that would have rivaled the girls' at school. I had turned expecting to find myself in the mirror, but instead, I found a small green...something...in my mirror, staring back in obvious horror. This creature was about three feet tall, a mint green color, and along with the very prominent ears sticking up off of its head, it had a mane and tail. Another noticeable detail was the long black eyelashes. The animal was a female. I knew biology well enough to know that this was a horse or, in more specific terms, a pony. But I had never seen a pony that was this color, or this cartoony. It looked like something that would have been on Nickelodeon, or the Disney Channel.
I cautiously stepped forward to get a closer look at the thing in the mirror and, as I half expected, the pony backed up, growing smaller as it retreated farther into the mirror, as if it was a room. "Wait! Where are you going?" I called out as she continued to back up. I put my hand on the mirror as if I could reach in and stop the pony.
She noticed my hand on the glass and stopped. She now looked curious and cautiously stepped forward. My entire body had been flooded with adrenaline, and I was sweating. I flexed my fingers that were pressed on the mirror and they left a smear behind. The pony reached the other side of the glass and looked at me with large yellow-orange eyes. She tentatively raised a hoof and rested it where my hand was. Now that she was closer, I got a better look at her.
Being roughly three feet tall, she came up to about my hip. She was a light mint color, which mixed nicely with the grey-blue and white striped hair, or mane as it were. Her eyes, those amber wonders, hadn't left me since I had flipped the mirror. As she shifted slightly, a flash of color caught my attention. I slowly tilted to the left so I could see what had caught my attention. On the pony's back leg, there was what looked like a tattoo. It looked like a strangely shaped harp, or a bow that had been bent all the way back, secured, and then had strings attached. I frowned. It had to either be a tattoo or a brand. But who owned her? I focused back on her face. Her eyes for some reason were almost impossible to look away from. I shifted my eyes up to avoid looking into hers and spotted something that shouldn't have been there. A green horn, the same color as the body of the pony, was sticking about six inches above the top of her mane. She was a unicorn.
Great, I thought to myself. My father must have put something in my food because I'm now seeing mythological animals in my mirror. I really am losing my mind. I lower my hand and stand up. The pony steps back. I decide to try something that my therapist suggested. She said that if I faced what wasn't real and said 'You aren't real' enough times, it would eventually disappear. I take a deep breath, stare right at the pony in my mirror and say, "You aren't real."
The pony cocked its head to the side and replied, "What do you mean? I'm right here."
I just about shit myself. This...pony...was intelligent enough to talk. I must have waited too long before trying the therapist's suggestion. I tried again.
"You're not real."
"Yes, I am."
"You're not real."
Now she was starting to get annoyed. "Yes, I am! I'm real and my name is Lyra! Lyra Heartstrings!"

===

For the next several hours, the pony, Lyra, and I talked. We talked about humans and ponies alike. I was most curious about how she had ended up in my mirror so randomly. She had said that she was having a rough couple of days and had wished on a shooting star the previous night and had wished for an escape. Just like me, I thought. But how does this count as an escape?
Just then, I heard the door to my bedroom slam open. I whipped around and saw my father standing there, drunkenly swaying. "Hey loser, you know where-" He trailed off as he looked at the mirror and what resided inside.
What happened next can only be described as 'amazing.' My father, the drunken idiot who can't hold a job for more than two weeks and can barely stand in place for more than a couple seconds, let out a scream that rivaled mine from hours ago, ran out of the room with a speed that I never imagined possible, and headed right for the phone. I heard him say from all the way down the hall, "Police, there's a dangerous animal in our house!"
I turned to Lyra, who was huddled down and shaking, and said, "You should probably go. It's too dangerous to stay here. I'll try to contact you when it's safe again."
She nodded, got up, and walked off the side of the mirror, leaving it blank. A second later, it became reflective again, showing my slightly pale face. I hoped that she had someplace safe to go until this problem blew over.
The police searched through my room, but found nothing dangerous or otherwise. They found the cap gun, but didn't consider it a threat since most kids have one when they're younger. They also questioned me, but I played dumb and said that I didn't know what my dad was talking about. The cops did a quick search of the rest of the house and, finding nothing, left.
I breathed a sigh of relief in my room and sat down on my bed to slow my heart. Sensing another presence nearby, I turned my head to the side to see my dad leaning against the door frame, glaring at me.
"What was it?" he asked flatly.
I stood up and faced him. "What was what?"
His eyes flashed with anger. He took a step closer. "You know what I'm talking about. That...thing in your mirror. What was it?"
I looked away from him and out the window, the sky already showing signs of oncoming night. "It was nothing. Your imagination." I turn back around and my blood runs cold. My dad is next to my mirror holding a small hammer in one hand.
"Well then," he said with a small smile, "If it's just my imagination, you wouldn't mind me breaking this."
My whole body was flooded with adrenaline. Do I fight him? He may be a crazy drunk, but he knew how to fight. When I was younger, I saw him beat the crap out of a high schooler who made the mistake of brushing against his car. But this wasn't some dumb high school jock, or even a girlfriend. This was the only friend I had. But this time, I didn't want to postpone the inevitable. It was time to end the pain of having a despicable parent like this.
I carefully leaned down and reached under my mattress. One thing the police always managed to miss while searching my room was the paper-thin slice on the underside of my mattress, and stashed inside with the springs, was a long, sharp, and carefully crafted hunting knife. It was roughly 8 inches long and tapered to a razor sharp tip. I had tested the edge when I first received it and had accidentally cut my finger on it.
I stood up and my dad's eyes flicked to the knife clenched in my hand. His arm and hammer pulled back to swing it into the mirror, but I was faster. Chasing down nerds at school had kept me in shape enough to beat my dad to the mirror.