My breath is racing. No, racing isn’t the right word. I’m gasping, panting, clinging to breath, in hopes that my lungs will continue to work for longer than just tonight. Corn stalks taller than the sky fly by, yet seemed somehow slower than my pumping heart. Screams rang out, surrounding me until my head swirled with fear and imagination, feeling the chase in my heart. I’m stuck in a never-ending loop of fear, overwhelming my senses like a tsunami of terror. Looking up, I see a scarecrow among the stalks, reaching towards the sky. It’s laughing at me. And then black. Lonely, lonely, black.

I knew I shouldn’t have come. I hate haunted houses. Actually, scratch that. I despise haunted houses. I’m sure some old-timey philosophers claimed: “Fear is just the unknown” or some stupid thing like that, but I beg to differ. Haunted houses, sites of fear, bring out the worst in people. When inhumane actions are the only recourse you can take, everyone breaks down. Surviving is above morality. 

But here I am, dragged into Marymount’s Freaky Fall Festival, by Charles, Annie, and Joseph. Annie and Joseph just wanted to cuddle in mock terror. Their relationship is cute and all, it’s just that Annie was my friend before Joseph was in the picture. She’s different with him, all cute and sparkly, as if life is all good. 

Dang. I sound like a downer. Sorry.

Charles is our extraverted friend. He talks. A lot. But it’s almost nonsense. Yes, he talks about things, a lot of things, but I couldn’t for the life of me remember what they are. Yet, even with all of this idle talk, he fades into the background like nobody's business. Fading is a skill that takes years of watching and waiting silently; I should know.

I don’t trust Charles.

“Tickets, please.” The teen took the money and gave the tickets quickly, then ushered us in, eager to get us out of his hair. His eyes flashed as I passed, turning… gray? I paused, then glanced again. They were back to a dull blue, tinted with green. It’s nothing, I told myself. I’m just being paranoid. 

As we entered the House of Horrors, we were instructed by a white-noise voice that we weren’t supposed to touch anything and nothing would be touching us. There were four rooms, and after, we were to follow the signs to the exit. I glanced back at the outside, smelling the fresh fall air. I turned back around, facing the darkened room.

The door slammed shut, filling the room with black and musty, almost rotten air. 

This was a bad idea.

As we bunched together, Joe led the way. Holding hands. With Annie. Ugh. Costumed teens lept out of darkened corners, jumpscares being the only reprieve from the dull lives they lived outside of this little hut. We were swept through a room with about the same scariness of seeing a leaf on the sidewalk in broad daylight. All the energy, the passion, just wasn’t there. Which, don’t get me wrong, is a good thing.

As we padded into the third room, I felt a hand on my back. 

“Yeah, what’s up Ann-”

I turned, staring straight into the eyes of a zombie. It’s touching me. Isn’t that against the rules? We all screeched, some of us louder than others, and ran into the 3rd room. I panted, out of breath, but not willing to be away from the group for a second.

What? No. Psh. I wasn’t scared. I’m not, I swear! It’s just… this seemed like a scary haunted house. All of a sudden, things seemed real. Which is good I guess, I’m glad the seniors increase the ‘scare factor’, it just seems sudden. These scares are really, really good. These rooms, these actors, these scents even, are just too realistic. I don’t like the way that I came into contact with the ‘actors’. Plus, that zombie smelled like blood. Real blood. I’m pretty sure ketchup doesn’t smell like that.

“Guys, doesn’t this seem a little… too real?” I mutter to my friends, who are five feet ahead and don’t hear me. I shake my head, jogging to catch up as we pass into the fourth room, the final room. Charles, Annie, and Joseph push pass the curtain, shrouded in what looks like a cheap fog machine and mold. I pull back the stage curtain, grimacing as I do. It’s damp. I look up, expecting to see the blinking red eye of the exit sign to show me the way out of the final room, the last room. Except it isn’t.

It’s not done. 

There’s no exit sign, no way out, no door that screams “Push me!” There aren’t even people there, no one to show me where to go.

Wait.

No one?

I spin around, gasping for breath. Where are my friends? There’s no one, except me. Dozens of me’s.

I had stumbled into a mirror room. What was only four or five mirrors multiplied into thousands, spanning universe after universe. And a thousand replicas of me, all trapped inside a never-ending loop. But… no, it wasn’t just me trapped. There was a table. My friends! And they were playing… poker? Weird. 
I ran toward my group, and promptly ran face-first into a mirror. How did they get inside a mirror? And more importantly, how will they get out? I pounded on the mirror that seemed to hold my friends captive. Charles turned toward me slowly.

“Hey, Hayden.” He drawled, normally bright voice dull. His neck moved at an uneven pace, turning at a grotesque angle. His green eyes looked sickly, like a rotten leaf about to die. He held up a rectangular piece of paper, grimacing in what looked like a smile, if you were to describe to an alien what smiling is. “Is this your card?”

I peered closer, pushing my face up against the glass. It was a black suit, but didn’t look like any cards I knew. It was… a gun?

“Charles, that’s not a real card. ‘Gun’ is not a suit. And, how did you-”

The lights shut off. It was pitch dark, which somehow was scarier than a creepily half-lit room. I knew there were mirrors aplenty, but right now, there might as well be one.

“Hey!” I screamed into the abyss, voice hoarse. “Hey! Get me out! Turn the lights on!” I turned back to the mirror where my friends had been. Nothing. I peered closer, trying to figure out if this was a sick prank. 

I heard a click, and found myself staring into sea-green eyes. I leapt back with a scream, panting, only to realize it was only me. Just me. The mirrors were back to normal, and the lights had been turned back on. My friends were gone.

I sighed to myself, and walked back up to the mirror. I shook my head, looking at my scuffed tennis shoes. What a night this was. 

“Look, guys, I don’t know what kind of visual effects you had to do to make it look like you were in a mirror, but it was impressive,” I said to the empty room. “Look, we’ve all had our fun, yeah, you got me, but can we go home now? I’m getting cold.”

I turned back to my reflection, fixing my hair. I actually didn’t look too messed up, even after the zombie contact and jumpscare mirrors.

I looked myself in the eyes and smiled. 

My reflection didn’t smile back.