Page 193 of In Somnis

Paul

The room is mirrors.

Floor to ceiling, wall to wall, every surface reflecting the same image from a different angle. Me, standing in the center of it, and her, everywhere.

Every mirror holds her, and for a moment, that’s all it is. Her face, her eyes, that light blue I could pick out of any crowd, looking back at me from a dozen different angles, and my chest does what it always does when I see her, that settling, that there you are, the feeling of a problem resolving itself.

But she’s not standing next to me. She’s only in the mirrors, and when I really look at her, I find the panic in her eyes.

She’s trapped behind the glass. In all of them, every reflection, her palms flat against the surface, and she’s saying something I can’t hear. I move toward the nearest mirror and press my hand to hers through the glass. She shakes her head while screaming at me, but still, I can’t hear what she’s saying. Her eyes go past me, and I turn to find someone else in the mirrors too.

I can’t see his face, only his shape, tall and broad-shouldered. He’s in shadow behind her in every reflection, and his hand closes around her arm. Her mouth forms my name, just when I watch him pull her back.

Mirror by mirror, reflection by reflection, she gets smaller. I move from glass to glass, pressing my hands against each one, and none of them break. None of them gives, and she keeps getting smaller. The mirrors keep multiplying, and the room keeps expanding, and I can’t find the one she’s actually in.

I slam my hand against the one mirror in front of me, again and again, wanting to break it, needing to break it⁠—

I slam back into my body, but know the second I do, I can’t move.

The paralysis lands, the full weight of it, arms pinned, upper body compressed, and legs locked.

You are awake, you are safe, it will pass

I force my eyes open and fix them on the brightly lit ceiling and breathe.

In through my nose.

Out through my mouth.

The crawling begins at my wrists, and I close my eyes, breathing through the feeling. When I open them again, I see her mouth.

I’ve spent more time studying it than I’ve allowed myself to examine, the fullness of her lower lip, how it parts when she’s about to say something she’s been holding back. I know it, and it’s there, above me, moving.

“Paul.”

My breath stops.

“Paul, please.”

You are awake. You are safe. She is not real.

“Help me.” The words come out desperate. “Please, I can’t… I can’t find… Paul…”

I try to move, but the paralysis holds me in place. I move my pinky finger, one millimeter, then try again, and the crawling reaches my throat. Her voice keeps coming, broken and pleading. I am lying here listening to her beg for help with my body locked and my hands useless, while shadows start eating the corners of the room.

“Help me, please!”

Finally, my whole hand moves. I drag air into my lungs and wait. I exhale, and her voice fades like a signal losing frequency, and then the weight lifts all at once.

I sit up and press both hands to my face. “I’m awake,” I say out loud, because saying it makes it real. “I’m fine.”

“Are you?”

I drop my hands.

He’s standing at the foot of my bed.

Not in shadow this time. Not half formed. Just there, in the lit room, looking at me with his green eyes, and my body understands before my brain does. The cold that moves through me has nothing to do with the room’s temperature.