Vintage Memories

Chapter Fourteen "I Saw the Devil Looking In The Mirror"

Allen stood alone in his bedroom, pristinely organized and clean. The world outside was deeply enveloped in the darkness of the late night, his neighbors asleep, his parents asleep, and yet, he couldn't settle down; sleep eluded him once again. His quiet steps paced back and forth nervously, eyes darting from side to side as he scanned his room. He was completely alone, but even so, he felt as if he was being watched.

It was an ill-boding sensation, one he couldn't shake since the day he performed that ritual with Anthony in that alleyway; the miserable feeling had relentlessly plagued him for weeks. 

Distressingly, with everyone around him unknowing about his delve into the dark arts, he had no one he felt safe enough with to talk about this sinister sensitivity that would squirm in the back of his mind. Anthony had returned to New York a few days after their little ritual, gone for who knew how long this time. Feeling alone and isolated, he wished desperately for him to return as soon as possible. This feeling was starting to prove to be too much to bear in solitude.

The clock on his dresser struck 3am with a low, ominous tick that rang throughout his bedroom. 

As the last chime echoed, time around him seemed to accelerate; The floor seemed to move underneath him. Allen looked around desperately for something to grab a hold of before he would lose his footing. Faster and faster; Emotions intensified; Anger intensified; Sadness intensified; Happiness intensified; His head spun violently. Shadows danced around him, blocking out the lights in flashes of darkness. Verbalisms in his ears, in no way appertaining to his own mind, whispered to him, mocking and jeering in a choir of screeching utterances.

The synthesis of treble babel wracked his eardrums, spewing disgustingly sweet sentiments of death and destruction. They whispered beckoningly for him to join them in action, promising great rewards in return for his cooperation. Tempting curiosities lapped at his psyche as for just what these muses were propositioning him. However, barring further intrigue, his body felt as if it were failing him. His arms and legs felt heavy; burdensome as if cement encapsulated itself around his hands and feet. Divine power very well could have been siphoning his soul from it's husk, draining down through his feet and out of his body.

He stumbled out of his room and into the bathroom, pulling his glasses away and placing them on the sink counter. Shakily turning on the faucet, the brunette lapped up cooling water in his hands and splashed it onto his face.

"My heavens, what is happening to me?" He breathed in and out in harsh, clamoring strokes, trying to stabilize his racing mind. He looked up to the mirror to gauge just how much of a wreck he truly was, though he didn't see himself.

Glowing, yellow eyes peered back at him through the mirror, black pinpoint pupils locking his stare in place. The shadowed figure twisted in the mirror, beginning to take shape: a figure with a large brimmed top hat. A low warbling sound echoed throughout the bathroom, coming from the dark specter in the mirror. Was it trying to talk to him? He leaned in to better hear what it was trying to say to him, only to have the mirror, in and instant, crack and shatter in his face. 

Shock left Allen jolted and he fell back against the bathroom floor, the mirror pieces raining down upon him. He sheltered his face behind his hands to protect it from the falling broken glass.

Suddenly silence and stillness; Allen pulled his face from his hands; He brashly looked up at the broken mirror, only;

The mirror was intact, and the floor he suspected covered in glass, was clean and untouched. His rationale figured he must've been hallucinating. He stumbled to his feet to delve into the mirror again, except, the specter was gone. The only thing meeting his gaze now was the reflection of his frazzled self. Was he going mad? He slowly exhaled, suspecting his sleep-deprived brain to be playing tricks on him, and trudged back to his room, closing the door behind him.