The Other Side Of The Mirror ✔

Part Three

Eli was going to vomit; he could feel it. He had been fed a little over half an hour ago and already it was threatening to come back up. He wasn't sure if it was from not eating for a long time or from everything that had happened since he woke in the tree that morning.

It was dark outside, the stars shining brightly above him. He had never seen so many before, especially not back home. He lived in the suburbs, where it was always bright and there were never many stars to be seen.

Here, wherever here was, the only lights were the candles that lit up the houses and shops around him. Sitting on the porch of a wooden shack that could barely be called a house, Eli was free to stare in wonder at the brilliance in the sky above him.

Or he would have been if he wasn't too busy resting his head between his knees in an attempt to keep the little amount of food he had eaten in his stomach. He groaned, staring at the pale dirt in front of him and gulping loudly.

The old man, whose name he had learned to be Amos, had told him many things. Many confusing things that didn't make any sense to Eli no matter how hard he thought about it. Amos hadn't been able to speak much English, only a few words he had learned from a friend a long time ago.

Amos had taken him from the circle of terrified and angry men, yelling at them constantly. Eli was dragged away, protests either ignored or not understood, he wasn't sure which. He had been rushed around buildings and scared people until he found himself at the rundown shack that Amos apparently owned and lived in. There he had been fed and allowed to bathe. His cuts had been treated to the best of the old man's abilities, cleaned and wrapped in a bandage. Amos had told him in his broken English that they would be fine.

Eli had been sat down at a rickety table, probably as old as Amos was from the look of it. The old man told him as much as he could, and as much as Eli could understand. Which, as it turned out, wasn't all that much.

Amos called the land Arumni and referred to the town only as 'the Village'. Over and over again he would gesture to Eli and say the word 'reflection' as if Eli was supposed to know what the word meant. It had taken a while, Amos not understanding Eli's words and Eli not understanding Amos's, but eventually, the old man understood that the young boy had no idea what a 'reflection' was.

What he had gotten out of the conversation was that he had come through his mirror into Arumni and that there was no way of getting back. Well, there was, but he would most likely die before he made it. He had only been able to make out a few words like 'evil', 'castle', 'death', and 'death of the land', but it had been enough for him to piece some things together. Enough for him to figure out that there was no way he could get home on his own.

Overwhelmed by the little info Amos had given him, he ended up sitting outside, trying to keep his food in his stomach. He wanted to go home so badly, but he also wanted to understand why he was in Arumni in the first place, and not just because he fell through his mirror. He wanted to know why he had been attacked.

He didn't even know Amos had followed him outside until the man told him that they would be leaving in the morning. The old man knew someone who might be able to help him get back home. Eli only groaned in reply, sitting up and playing with the bottom of his shirt.

He went inside to sleep then, not once glancing at the field of stars above him. He was too distracted, restless, to even sleep properly. More nightmares, this time of his mother and his home and the other things he would never return to. He kept waking up to the dark unfamiliar room at the back of Amos's house, covered in sweat and completely exhausted.

He woke up once more when the sun was just starting to rise above the horizon, irritated and exhausted. He could hear noises coming from outside his room, where the tiny rundown kitchen was. Eli slowly got out of the lumpy bed, padding across the wooden floorboards and out into the kitchen.