"Annnnnndddd... Open your eyes!"

With that, his lightly calloused hands were removed from her face, to reveal a stately building before her. It stood empowered on tall pillars of stone if only to hold the many flags above its rounded roof.

She paused for a moment. "A museum? This was the super secret, super special anniversary date?"

"Hey!" he cried out, all offended. "It's not just any museum. It's an art museum. I thought we could celebrate being together for two years and your acceptance into your art college all in one go. I thought you'd like it. Heck, maybe we could make fun of someone for taping a banana to the wall or something."

Mia giggled, putting a hand on her freckled face. She knew two years wasn't too long, in the grand scheme of things, but he really knew her well. Museums weren't really her thing, but if it was to admire different styles of art, and spend the day walking around with Tian, then that sounded just fine.

"Maybe, although it is a shame..." she trailed off, pulling her hands behind her and swaying back and forth. She watched as his face fell, awaiting her disappointment with his choice in the date. He was so gullible, and it was so cute every time.

"What? What is it?"

"It's a shame that we have to walk around this whole place, without any pretzel to go with it." She nodded her head towards a small concession stand right outside the building.

He sighed jokingly. "It's always food with you Mia, isn't it?"

"What am I supposed to do? Deny the cheese-stuffed pretzel gods?" With that, he ruffled a hand through her thick, curly hair, and went off to grab said pretzel.

...

Pretzel in hand, they made their way through the tall corridors. Mia was quick to notice that it wasn't even a typical art museum, with glass cases containing handcrafted swords throughout the eras, blown glass figures from ancient times, and of course, the few pieces of 'modern art' which made for a good laugh whenever they passed them. As she tucked her arm through Tian's and lay her head on his broad shoulder, they turned the corner to find a mirror.

It stood there, at least ten feet tall, with golden vines wrapping themselves around each rounded corner of the frame, leaves of silver reflected back on the perfectly polished glass. They could see themselves together in it, Tian standing tall and proud in his warm summer clothes, and Mia by his side in her short sundress, looking as though they were meant to be.

And then Mia saw it. Her reflection closed its dark brown eyes in a slow blink, and she knew for a fact that she hadn't. Before she knew it, a scream erupted out of her, a high-pitched cry of terror. Tian immediately jumped back, hands up in surrender.

"What happened? What's wrong?" Mia felt his question pressing into her, along with the stares of the few people in the room.

"I... I thought I saw it blink. The reflection, when I didn't actually blink. I don't really know how else to describe it." Even as she tried to explain it, she knew how insane it sounded. Now he was going to think she was crazy, or worse, be worried, when they had been having such a nice day.

"Huh. You sure?" He turned to admire the mirror again, walking around all sides. "Hmm. I can't find any date or information plaque on this thing. I'll bet it's an attraction."

"An attraction? Like a funhouse?" she asked worriedly, noticing that it did had a small crack spreading from the bottom, almost like a design.

"Yeah, something like that. Look, now mine's doing something weird too." He leaned in close, his glasses almost sleeping off his nose, and his reflection stuck out a tongue at him, even with his own mouth closed. "It's just for fun."

"That's so interesting. I wonder how it works," she murmured aloud, when she turned to look at her own. It stared back at her, seeming to mouth two words.

Come closer.

"Did you hear that?" Tian asked.

"Hear what?"

"Sounded like they said to come here. I wonder if it's interactive." He reached his hand out, up and over the red drawn cord in front of the mirror.

"Hey! Stop it!" She reached out to tap his arm. "You can't just reach across the bar."

Tian turned to her, a pout on his face. "Then why would it say to come here? No museum in their right mind would make something that basically says 'Touch me' if it's not supposed to be touched?"

"I... don't know." An uncomfortable feeling had begun to sit in her chest, the same awkwardness that had happened when she had sent in her application to the art institute of California. The same tension that had crept into her heart from the moment her rejection letter had come back, and that half-truth of a text had slipped out of her fingers. Taking a shaky breath, she went to grab his hand again. They had been having such a nice day, after all. Why feel like this now? Why worry now? There would be time later to explain. For now they could simply walk away, and forget about it all.

"I'm just gonna give it a little poke, and see what happens. Nothing to get worked up about." With that, he tugged himself out of her grasp and pulled away, reaching out towards the frame. She hated how his reflection had turned to watch and stare, as if he no longer needed to bother to do his job anymore, while her mirror image could only watch with the same dread.

A simple touch, and in seconds, the crack had webbed itself up to his finger. The lights flicked off, and the room filled with a deathly chill, and with it, a scent like flowers too sweet to be natural.

Then, the mirror images peeled themselves away from the glass, taking a first step onto the museum floor. Mia screamed as a perfect copy of Tian made his way slowly towards her. She looked around her in both directions in horror, but the room was now void of any other humans other than the couple, as if they had entered a new dimension entirely.

"Stay away from me! Stay away!" she began to repeat, again and again, backing up on step than another, until she found her back pressed against the wall. From there, she could only manage to shrink slowly to the floor.

"Mia!" She saw the original Tian cry from the other end of the room, finally snapped out of his stupor. He ran towards her, but the second Tian stood in front of her, holding his arms out protectively.

"I won't let you hurt her!" the reflection shouted out, causing him to stop.

"Wait... What?" he asked, coming to a halt. "You don't want to hurt her?"

"Why would I want to hurt my own girlfriend?" The reflection seemed to be at just as much of a loss.

"Hold on." Mia was surprised to hear another voice, sounding exactly like her own, peel out from the other end of the room. "Are we all exactly the same? You are just our reflections, so there's no need to do anything hasty, right?" Her voice came to a wavering lilt at the end. A small bit of panic, but her words made some sense.

"You've got it backwards," Mia responded to her, finding it odd to talk to herself, and yet, not quite. "You're our reflections, but if we don't want to hurt you, and if you don't want to hurt us, then you can just go back in the weird mirror, and we can forget this whole thing."

In response, the mirrored couple, or what she would hope was them, (as she was having difficulty keeping track of which Tian was her own) looked at the mirror behind them.

"There's no way we're going to be able to fit in that thin object. I'm my own full person," one of the Tians pointed out.

"Well, we're going home," the second one said, grabbing her should protectively. "I don't know what happened when we touched that thing, but now I can barely see a darn thing in this museum, and everyone else must've run out in panic. To be honest, you guys are probably just some extreme practical joke, and I'm not about to be made into some fool on a tv show. So goodbye!" With that he flipped Mia around, and they started to walk out of the room.

"Tian," she whispered to him, standing on the edge of her heels to reach his ear. "Are you sure they're not real. They look so..." She paused to find the right word. "Exact."

"I'm positive. There is no way two reflections came to life. It's not possible. Otherwise it would have happened to someone else already."

With that, they walked out of the large room, leaving the mirror behind, but Tian had been right. The rest of the museum was pitch black, with only a few dim emergency lights on every fifty feet or so, casting the entire place in a haunting red glow.

They had just made their way out of the first hallway, when Mia heard a pair of steps behind her. Turning around, she saw the second couple trailing behind them, walking in the same cautious fashion as they were.

"They're following us," she pointed out to Tian in a whisper again. In response, he turned around to look.

"Hey! You two! Stop following us and stay the hell where you are. I won't ask again!" he called out to them. Mia had never heard his voice sound so cold and unnerving.

"Stay the hell where we are?" his reflection responded. "We're going home. You two copycats can stay here, thank you very much. We don't want any problems."

"Don't want any problems?" the first shot back. Mia watched as he slapped his olive hand into his face in frustration, before running it through his thick black hair. "Why am I even arguing with something that does even exist? This is stupid." With a huff, he turned back around, seeming to not care whether the other two followed them anymore.

Mia turned to face him. Even though it wasn't her fault, she hated to see the aggravation and regret sit on his boyish facial features. "I'm so sorry Love. And we were having such a nice day to..."

"Coming to this place was a mistake," he said angrily, and he felt his grip around her hand tighten sharply. "I know I wanted to celebrate you getting into that art college and all, but this is just ridiculous. Can't even go out somewhere without being pranked by some stupid show."

"Excuse me." Mia heard her voice ring out behind her, and she didn't like how confused and questioning it sounded. "Did you say you went here to celebrate her getting into college?"

"Yeah? I thought you "reflections" would know everything about us. I said she got into the art college, so we went to this art museum to celebrate, and look where it got us!" He stumbled for a moment in the dark, but managed to pick himself back up quickly.

Mia halted her steps. The other couple was looking at each other now, making her anxiety spike with each second. What did they know that she didn't? Was that really her mirror copy? Did it know everything she had said and done?

"I'm sorry. Maybe our reflections experienced something different, but I never made it into the art college. They rejected me right off the bat. Tian here had taken me to this museum to celebrate our second anniversary together, and comfort me after the application was sent back." Mia felt her stomach sink lower and lower with each word, because each one made something vibrantly clear.

This was no illusion. No gimmick, no prank, no show. This was her reflection come to life, and she hated it.

"What?" Tian turned to her, "How would they know that?" He had had a smile on his face, most likely meant to hide the panic he was experiencing inside, but it quickly fled when he laid eyes on her. They had been together long enough for him to know her body language. The way she chewed on her nails, the way she failed to make eye contact and her legs pressed tightly together as sweat dripped down her face. "Mia? Mia, you made it into that art college, right? You wouldn't have lied to me."

She looked at him, dreading each second her voice failed to answer. Where was her sharp wit, her quick response? Every moment her reflection's eyes bored into her, as if searching through her very soul.

She heard a sigh, from both the Tian right next to her, as well as the one a few feet back. "So that's how it is, huh? I try to take you out, and it turns out you didn't even deserve it in the first place!" He took a step towards her, the red light making his face look threatening, dark.

"At least my Mia didn't lie to me," the other Tian shouted back. "Look who's so cocky now."

"Shut up!" he yelled, enough to make Mia cover her ears. "You're not even real! And I'll prove it!" He shoved Mia aside, knocking her against the wall with a thud. As she watched, he strode past her, looking at the same beautifully handcrafted japanese knife they had looked at only an hour or so before.

"Tian! What are you doing?" Mia cried out, but he ignored her. In a shear moment the glass covering was shattered and the knife in his hand.

"Hey man!" the other Tian shouted. "What the f*ck are you doing? Back up!" He pulled the second Mia behind him, yet kept his hands in front of him as if to show that he wasn't threatening in the least, a stark contrast to the deranged look in Tian's eyes.

"Don't you dare pull that thing behind her like you care," Tian threatened. "There's nothing to care about. She's not real, and neither are you." He was dangerously close to them now, the knife in his hand raised.

"Stop!" Mia and her counterpart shouted simultaneously, then she continued. "Tian this is crazy! That's murder! Stop it! I'll apologize. I'll do whatever. Just stop!"

"It's not murder. They're not real. None of this is!" Then he lunged like a tiger intent on its kill, and Mia turned away. Not that that could save her from the cries of agony or the heart-wrenching screams, sounding just like her own, as her reflection watched the love of her life be killed before her.

She stifled a hand against her mouth, if only to muffle her own tears. It felt like she stood there an eternity before she heard the screams come to a horrid stop, and when she turned to look she almost gagged. Even as she turned away, she couldn't erase the image in her mind of Tian simply sitting there, his own body lying lifeless next to him, as he stared upwards into the domed ceiling, looking to be in such a loss that he might have seemed like any other adult, not sure what they were meant to do in life. Except that there was red. Everywhere. Mia had always said it wasn't his color, but now that very same thought, those same words caused a cry like that of an animal to escape her chest as she only heard one other sound.

"...I guess he was real."

"What have you done to him?" It was a question, but it came out as a screech, as the second Mia collapsed onto the floor.

"What did I do?" Tian whispered, before looking around at his macabre surroundings. "I... I didn't know. I don't know. Nothing makes sense." Mia watched as he turned to the other girl. "You know me. You know I could never... would never..."

But the girl only glared defiantly. "You murdered him. No excuses. You think I understand this any better than you? Than her?" Tears leaked out of her eyes but she held her gazed, her tear bared in cold fury.

"Is that what this would be? Murder?" He looked between Mia, and the other girl once again, his glasses falling off of his face. She could see now a wild look in his eyes as he slowly got to his feet. "What does that mean for me then? My hopes and dreams, all gone in one night? And all..." He stopped for a moment, laughing harshly, the sound echoing off the dark walls as each one made Mia's blood feel as though her heart pumped thorns. "All because of this lying bitch?" He stood there, coming closer to her once again. "I wanted to treat you. Celebrate your achievements, because don't I have such a wonderfully talented girlfriend. But now, now all of this had to happen. And what happens when we do get out? Hm?" He was at her side now, his face leaned in close as he murmured into her ear, as he had done so many times before. But his words were strange, bordering on a Wonderlandian balance of logic and madness as he came to each realization aloud. "Once we get out, I bet you'll start your lies again. You'll tell everyone how I killed him, but leave out convenient details, like the mirror, or how none of this makes sense. You'll make me out to be the bad guy. You'll ruin my life. We can't have that, not after I actually got into the programming college I dreamed of." He pulled his face away, a look of disgust making her feel the guilt.

"I-I didn't want to lie. Really. I just didn't know what to say... and we were having such a nice day, that I didn't want to ruin things. I would have told you later. I would have-"

"Watch out!" Mia heard her own voice shout out, and with a quick duck, her eyes widened as she saw the same knife swing over her head. With a scream, she took off, the decorative heels she had chosen that morning making each step wobbled and painful with each clack on the marble floor.

He clamoured after her, and with a start she realized she could never hide in here. He could hear her every move, and he wasn't going to let her leave until he had hidden every trace of what he had done. Even now, he gained on her, shoving over pedestals of glass bottles, art statues that shattered across the floor. As a round pole came into sight before her, she grabbed onto it, the momentum from her swinging her thin frame in a perfect circle around it to run in the opposite direction. She didn't have long to think of something, and the rush of adrenaline through her veins was starting to ebb away to make room for the rushing waves of exhaustion.

She looked around in panic, but her reflection was nowhere to be found, having probably hidden off somewhere until someone else could find her. Mia couldn't even be disappointed. It was what she would have done, if she wasn't the one being chased instead. A tall piece of modern art loomed in front of her path, and she recognized it as the same one they had passed before...

The mirror.

To think that not even an hour ago, they had passed the twisted bit of metal, making jokes and comments before coming to the same room she stepped back into now. Slowing down, she ran to hide behind the mirror, it being the only option in the room. She was too tired to think of anything else, and what else could she do?

She heard him enter, his steps sounding just as slow and tired. "Where are you hiding, you coward? Afraid of the consequences to your own actions." He paused for a moment, seeming to realize his surroundings. "So we're back in here, huh? What do you expect me to think? That you've been sucked inside the mirror?"

She held her breath. Maybe she could get him to think that, if she didn't do anything to make him think otherwise. She heard him step closer to the mirror, one step, than another...

"So you think you can hide in there? Well I have news for you, I'm going in there too, and when I find you, you're dead."

A moment of time passed, the deadliest silence, and then Mia heard it. A draw through the air like a small breeze, and the clang as that knife, that horrid knife hit the marble floor. She peeked around the corner, but his body was nowhere to be found. There was only the mirror, standing before her, reflecting the room as if she weren't there. It sent chills under her arm, which only amplified when she felt a hand rest on her shoulder. When she turned around, she found that it was just her, which gave a small bit of relief.

"Is he gone?" the girl asked, to which Mia nodded in response.

"We should go now. I don't want to stay in this place for a moment longer."

"I agree. Just one second." With that, she walked away towards the mirror. It was odd, watching her small self from afar struggle with her back against the mirror frame, but after a minute, she managed to push enough to shove it over, crashing the rest to bits against the floor. At that moment, for some reason, it hit her. Tian was dead. Her Tian.

Tears stung at her eyes as she stared at the mirror, smashed to bits with no way to ever return and bring him back. She turned away so as not to look at it, even when she heard the other girl stepping around the mirror.

"It's okay. He wasn't the same Tian. He would have killed us. Let's go now."

The red lights, still casting their dim shade across the shattered art, seemed less haunting now, even with it so much quieter, but Mia didn't want to look at it. The art, the museum that started everything. All she wanted was to go home. Not that she would be able to forget everything, but at least she could sleep. Her body needed it, from her legs that felt heavier than lead, to the aching cramp in her side. As the door of the museum finally came into view, she got a final second wind, and ran up to it, happy to see the rays of moonlight from outside.

"Oh we made it!" she cried out. "Let's leave this place. You can come home with me, and we'll make sense out of this tomorrow."

"You would do that for me?" The girl stepped closer, before pulling Mia into a hug.

"Of course."

"And I bet that's a lie too, isn't it."

"What?" And Mia felt as the girl's arms wrapped tightly around her, restraining her much more than just a hug.

"This is all your fault you know. If you really were a mirror image of me, then you would have made the same choice. And then my Tian wouldn't be dead right now. His death is your fault."

With the last word, Mia felt a blade against her back, realizing that the girl must have picked it up off the floor when she had turned her head away to cry. She couldn't move, and was stuck there at the other girl's mercy as the museum peeled away into an eternal abyss of black.

☆

The girl lay dead in her arms, and Mia tossed her aside. As different as these two people were to her, and as little as she understood of what had happened, she knew one thing for sure. Everything was located in all the same places. So she would be able to go home. When her mother asked why she had been missing all day, she could explain how Tian had nearly killed her, and how she had barely managed to run away. Then she could take a shower and go to bed.

At least that part is easy enough to plan for. And to think, we had been having such a nice day...