She looked deep into the mirror, wondering...

The wrinkles. Are they really as bad as they look? Laughter lines, surely, though she couldn't remember anything being THAT funny. The hair. A little tug here, a little push there. Thankful that red hair doesn't really go grey. A pout of the lips, the two cigarettes a day not enough to make the pout look like a crater, all ridged and rough.

The ear rings. A bit too much, really. She never, ever wore large hoops like that usually. She didn't even know why she had them in today. Why not? The same reason she wore the simple white training shoes instead of the heels. The jogging suit rather than the black trousers or skinny jeans she favoured.

Dress Down Day. She tried to have one every month, a cure for the chaos of her life. Work, no rest and very little play. Without her DDDs, she felt she'd go insane. A break. A breath. Chance to scratch her behind without feeling she was wiping everyone else's.

So. Why not the hoops. A little much, but still, not the small plain studs she felt she was required to wear.

Some habits were hard to break. The hair for example. She regarded herself in the mirror. It was just too set. Too right. With a sigh she pulled the grips holding the perfect bun in place.

"Stop it," she muttered to herself. "Dress DOWN day!"

She smiled. She had a pretty smile, she thought. Her eyes still sparkled at the rise of her mouth, just as they did a good twenty years or so before. She'd never lost the sparkle.

She picked up an elastic hair bobble from the dressing table by her side and scooped her hair back. A simple pony tail. Why not.

"You'll do," she told her mirror-self.

She turned and walked to the door, picking up her phone on the way. It was also her mp3 players and library, thanks to the music and eReader apps she'd installed. A run, a read and a relax. Perfect for a Triple D.

Her hand was on the door. Something was troubling her. A niggle nudging at the back of her mind like a kitten wanting a bowl of milk.

She turned back to the room, scanning across it. The usual mess of discarded clothes and shoes covered the floor, an assault-course of attire that made getting to the bed in the dark a dangerous undertaking. The bed itself had once been made. The quilt had been straightened and the cushions set out so it looked like an oasis in a sea of insanity. That once was roughly about six months previously. Apart from a casual tidy when the bedding was changed, the bed did its very best to match the rest of the room.

She liked to call it 'lived in.'

Nothing was out of place. Rather, everything was out of place, which meant it was all IN place. She shrugged.

She opened the door. Normally, she'd walk along the short corridor, picking up her keys from the wooden bowl on the small table along the way. She'd grab a coat if necessary (which it wouldn't be today as the one day of summer a year had decided today, you lucky people, was the day), and she'd be out of the front door.

It took a moment for her eyes to adjust to what she was seeing, and a longer moment still for her mind to adjust to what she wasn't.

Then she vomited. The remains of her breakfast, cereal and toast washed down with a tepid tea, were launched into the corridor. Or what was meant to be the corridor. What was supposed to be. What she remembered it being.

But what was actually...

It started off fine. The big, brash patterned wallpaper. The chrome light switch not quite seated correctly so it clung to the wall at a slightly skew-whiff angle. For a foot or two, anyway.

Then the hallway became a sickening whirlpool of tortured flower wall print and beige carpet that spun off to, well, forever. She felt she was hanging over an abyss, one that was ready to suck her from her feet and swallow her along with the hall.

She slammed the door and fell backwards onto the floor, cushioned by a fallen cushion and the previous day's cardigan. She wiped her mouth and stared, unseeing, at the remains of puke that ran up her wrist. After a few deep breaths had steadied her (though a vodka might have had more effect), she pushed herself to her feet and returned to the door.

She turned the handle and pulled.

Swirling, yawning maw. Colours merging to an indescribable mess.

And breathe.

She took a step forward. It was her imagination. She gulped to hold back the vomit. Her hand lifted to flick the light switch, but there was no bulb - or ceiling - to respond.

She was standing on the small part of the floor that was still in one piece. Keep walking. It's not real. Ten paces and you'll be at the table. Another two and it's the door. Go.

GO.

She lifted her foot and slowly moved it forward, only to see it lengthen and join the whirlpool before her. Her leg felt like a hundred hands were dragging down the flesh, pulling it away into the void. She held back the vomit, but fell backwards again.

This time there was no cushion to protect her. Her backside landed on one of her copious shoes that were strewn across the floor. She didn't feel it. She was too busy touching her leg, frantic to make sure it was still in one piece. To make sure she kicked out, slamming the door once more.

A moment passed. She could feel her thoughts whirlpooling like the chasm beyond the door. She looked around. There was no other way out.

Wait.

The window.

Rising slowly, unsteady on a leg that she wasn't yet sure was still attached properly, she moved to the window. It was a first floor flat; she would have no problems climbing out and hanging down, dropping to the ground.

She looked out. All seemed right with the world. It was a typical Sunday morning. Cars were driving by. People were walking. Talking. Some holding hands, some on their phones, some huddled down, hands in pockets.

The window was locked. It always had been. She'd never had reason or inclination to open it. The key. The key...

Ah.

On her dressing table was a small lidded pot. In it was a jumble of hair clips, a spent battery, and the key to the window lock. Rather than fumble, she up-ended the pot and emptied the contents onto the table. She expected to need to search, but the key lay on top, almost wanting to help her escape.

Thankful, she snatched it up and slipped it into the lock, surprised at herself that she managed it with shaking hands. There was a soft click. She turned the handle and pushed.

Her breath was yanked from her lungs as the world outside changed suddenly from the street she knew to the vortex in the hall. Again the colours were thrown together, melting into one another. She could see faces and cars and buildings, but they were stretched and fused together. She held onto the sill and looked from this new Outside to the window.

Through the glass she should still see the street. People still walked. A dog pulled at its lead. Someone was talking to a driver that had pulled over to the kerb. They were laughing.

She pulled the window shut. The world beyond went on, ignorant to the shock on her face. Oblivious to the high mewling that she didn't realise was coming from her mouth.

She stepped back. What? Why? How could she SEE the world but not ENTER it? What had happened to the hall? Outside? Why could she see it through the glass.

The glass.

An idea stole into her mind, creeping through the confusion then slipping away before she could quite grasp it.

She looked at the window again and then ran her fingers along it. She could see the street. She could see the reflection of her bed and the clothes on the floor.

But she couldn't see herself.

It occurred to her that she might be a ghost. She'd died in the night. Her body would be on the bed, still looking like it was sleeping peacefully. She turned and looked. The bed was empty.

Her gaze returned to the window and she waved her hand. Her lack of reflection didn't wave back.

A movement out of the corner of her eye.

The mirror.

She turned quickly, but could see nothing but her room. But...

She walked slowly over. The room in the mirror expanded as she moved closer. She could see... herself. But it wasn't herself. It was someone who looked like her, but that someone wasn't standing at the mirror looking back. That someone was on her phone, talking. It would be Ed, her boyfriend. She always spoke to him before her jog. She always...

What did she do? She couldn't quite remember. The hall. Outside. It had jumbled her mind, casting her thoughts aside like clothes on the floor.

Surely.

The call was ended. The her in the other room walked to the door and turned the handle.

She screamed out. "No! Don't go out there!"

But in the mirror, she could see the hallway. She could even, if she moved her head over to the edge, see along it to the corner of the table. It was all as it should be.

She didn't have a reflection. She didn't have a world outside this room.

She banged on the glass.

"Come back! Don't leave me!"

Other her walked out into the hallway, pulled the bedroom door closed.

"No!!"

The door clicked shut.

She looked around at her own door. Longing. Wishing.

Then her world - her reflected version of the real world beyond the mirror glass - disappeared until the real her ventured into the room again and the reflection was needed once more.

"No..." she whispered in the darkness.