Remake

Chelsea Bonifade was a dirty-blonde, hazel-eyed, nervous wreck. There was no Shakespearian way to put it; a sneeze had the girl run for cover like a live grenade was tossed in her direction. She found solace in books, and yet she would see a library as too crowded for her comfort. If being an introvert could be mathematically cubed in real life, it would be her.

A hall of mirrors stood before her, each one illuminated by a light inserted into the ceiling. At the behest of her date, promising that this would help with her anxiety and nervousness, she walked through the doorway and started her navigation, reflecting on not just the images before her, but on her memories of the past few weeks.

For some reason, Tony Palmer had chosen her over all the other girls; perhaps their outdoorsy demeanors put him off, given that they would exuberantly throw themselves onto any handsome boy with a large sum of money attached to his family's name, or it could just be a personal preference. Chelsea never saw herself vainly, plainly applying a basic touch of makeup upon her visage before leaving her home to traverse the routine grounds of the school; it was during a day of taking her lunch out to the grounds that she actually bumped into Tony, her lunch meeting his shirt and adding more starch to it than what had been previously applied. He laughed the event off, but Chelsea was surprisingly insistent on washing out her mess; if anyone else found out about this at school, she couldn't bear to show her face around anymore.

As for Tony, he had been with her for almost a month, exercising the second most important virtue of any relationship, which is patience. Even when she was ready to give up on the relationship, he would counsel her, asking her to give it a little more time. There must be a way for them to connect; somehow, he told her, he had to bring out that more outgoing part of Chelsea.

A carnival arrived in town during the fall, giving an opportunity to both. Chelsea never went to any event and hesitated in reluctance, but Tony insisted, pursuing this issue with the reason being that this could change her.

Soon, she said yes.

Tony meant well, she thought as she stepped between the frames and, after gently bumping into a glass wall and gasping, she felt around and found an empty space on her left, which she turned and followed. As more of her reflections popped up, her heart started beating faster. It wasn't because of this place; she remembered that she was shown the entrance and exit, with a map shown by Tony so as not to panic. No, it was because of Tony. She felt better around him. Was this love?

Another glass wall, this time with the empty space on the right. She turned-

"He's cute."

It was barely a whisper, yet it prevailed in this lonely place. Chelsea stopped and slowly turned. All she saw was her reflection, its back to her with its head turned to look behind it at her. She breathed in relief and continued walking forward, believing that maybe it was just a thought that she echoed out loud.

This was a shorter hallway, with a longer glass wall peering into darkness while three panes of mirrors had three Chelsea's following the original to the next turn. Another left and...

As she was rounding the corner, she noticed that one of the reflections delayed. She came back, all three reflections now keeping pace with her, yet the third one down seemed slower than the rest. It almost acted...reluctant. Chelsea shook her head, the images mimicking her action, yet the third one delayed again when the action ceased.

She moved away from this image and headed left.

No glass walls with black backgrounds were in this section, only more mirrors. This time, there were two openings flanking a reflective wall, made larger than the other mirrors via an upward slope in the ceiling, with a cross-reeded pattern like that found in shower enclosures etched across its face. As she drew closer to it, the space opened up in a facetted half-octagon shape, like prongs of a tuning fork that stabbed into their respective openings.

Four more reflections came into view, each one distorted by a warpage made underneath the reflective coating; one was short and seemed to jump from left to right, one was tall with a small head, one appeared to be getting bigger and wider, and one looked, well, like a normal reflection. Chelsea was curious as to what the image in the cross-reeded patterned mirror looked like-

"I'm scared."

There was that whisper again. Chelsea held her hand to her mouth.

"I feel so exposed."

Another one! She tightened her grip upon her lips.

"This is stupid!"

Each of these voices, they sounded familiar. They sounded like the same person.

It was her voice!

Her mouth was starting to scream in pain while a whine from within was blocked by the enclosing of her own jaw, aided by the vice grip of her hands. Despite this, it wasn't loud enough to drown out what she discerned as humming.

Humming. She had not hummed since she was a child. Her eyes darted to the reflections, hoping that it was all just some elaborate prank, that there were other people in this place. At the same time, she hoped that no one else was here, as she didn't want to be seen like this. When she examined these facsimiles one by one, they moved with her in almost all aspects save one; their heads remained focused on her. Each one moved their own lips and gave a testimony, starting with the small moving reflection, seconded by the tall reflection with the small head, and nearing conclusion with the growing reflection:

"I wanna be brave."

"He can't see me like this."

"Dammit, what the hell is wrong with me?!"

That left the fourth one, the humming image. Chelsea slowly advanced on it, the humming increasing in volume. She was in front of this mirror, the reflection copying her every move down to the last muscle twitch. The sound it gave off reverberated not just upon the glass, but it was bouncing off of Chelsea's own body in synesthesia. It felt numbing, even comfortable.

And then it stopped.

Pain shot through Chelsea, and she clutched her side and her chest. She collapsed upon her knees, staring at the shoes of the humming image. It was still standing, looking down at her from some flat dimension. The humming came back, and the pain started to rescind. She stood back up and lifted her hand to brush away her hair. The humming image copied her movement but, when she lowered her hand back down, it kept its arm up and gave her a wave with scraggily fingers.

Her nerve was failing, and she backed away. The humming lessened with the distance, but the rest of the voices increased as she retreated to the center. Chelsea felt herself bump into the cross-reeded reflection and the voices quieted as suddenly as they had started, including the humming. She slowly pivoted, taking in the new reflection barely conceived by the cross-reed pattern. She could make out the dirty-blonde follicles, the pale skin, the...lack of clothes? She peered closer, placing her hands upon the glass; the distortion did the same, and she noticed that it appeared to hover above her despite its fingers touching exactly where hers resided.

There were its hazel eyes, looking upon her. There was its mouth, opened slightly like hers. Both were frozen in place, the distortion just barely a foot above her level. Condensation started to build before them, getting heavier until Chelsea could no longer see the distortion's face. She leaned closer, with the condensation spreading downwards as well as sideways. The distortion also leaned closer, seeming to plant its head almost directly on the glass. The condensation started to gather droplets, falling down the mirror in streaks; she could have sworn that she heard crying.

The distortion reared back in an instant and slammed its face against the glass.

Chelsea bounced back in fright. The distortion repeated the action, again and again, moving faster with each strike. The condensation, once appearing white as a fog, was now turning red, just like the thing's face and hair as it struck once more, the heavy glass shaking under each impact. Chelsea cried out and ran, taking the left opening as a cracking sound emanated behind her.

More mirrors. More distortions. Left, right, blackened glass, opening, and Chelsea clutching her chest once more as that pain returned. "Where's the end?" she called out. "Tony! Someone, please!"

Now her head started to throb as tears streamed down her own face. The room seemed to spin; nausea was seizing her, and she braced herself. Somewhere, close by, she could smell something familiar-

Cotton candy! Carmel apples! The moisture of a cooling atmosphere! She was close, she knew it. She felt against the mirrors, the twisted apparitions also reaching back for her. Another left, and she finally saw it; just around the last corner, the exit was revealed perpendicular to the last mirror.

Something dripped past her right eye and hit the floor. She took it as a tear and moved closer to the final stretch. Another sound of dripping liquid was heard near her left side, followed by another and another, and she looked down. Illuminated by the last three lights before the exit, there was a growing dark splotch on the floor. She looked up, being greeted only by the dark-gray ceiling and the final mirror. More drips. Confused, she brushed her hand through her hair, feeling something wet upon her scalp. She pulled her hand back before her eyes.

Red.

Blood?

She sniffed it, but there was no metallic aroma. In fact, it smelled nice, like freshly shampooed hair. She felt around her head again. More red. This made no sense! She turned to the final mirror.

The sight of her blonde hair broken in so many places with splotches of red ramped up the already rapid drumming of her heart! What's worse was that these splotches appeared to be growing, from around her head to the bulbs and tips, spreading even to the front. She reached up and grabbed her bangs, her morphing reflection doing the same. Pulling her hair close to her eye, she could see that it was still dirty blonde. The reflection watched her panicked state with intrigue, releasing its reddening hair as she released hers. Her panic drained from her in that moment, a strange peace starting to seize her as the reflection smiled confidently.

The pain was gone. The fear was shrinking. A coolness surrounded her, and she stepped back, the reflection mirroring her movements. She turned to look at her exit, just as this strange doppelgänger looked out hers. They exchanged a glance one last time, then they both moved to the threshold.

Sachlee Fainbode walked out of the hall of mirrors, meeting Tony on the grass and kissing him on the lips. He pulled away, surprised at the sudden change in this young woman. "Hey, babe, did...did you change your hair in the halls?"

She smiled at him and caressed her auburn locks. "Yep, and then some."