All I get from you

Knowing what each other would do. That Jonas was bored and that Benson would comply, the twins sneaked out of bed during a wet blue summer night and made their way to the mirror house, squeezing through an opened window in the second story floor and closing it shut behind them, so the flying termites, who unborrowed at that time of the year, wouldn't follow them in.

It was a closed circuit, stale and warm. It reminded Benson of the trunk of a car, although he'd keep that to himself. Despite the croaking of the wood, Jonas made it's way first, as was tradition, down the stairs, towards the main floor, turned into a single room when all doors had been screwed of its hinges, and all the furniture had been hauled away after the relatives of Gerspertine, the old artisan who used to live here, was transported to an old folks up in the mountains, were she was never seen again. Leaving the house a snakeskin of its former self, hollowed out of most of it's form, all but the mirrors, of course.

"So… Do we take the cloth's off one at a time… All at once or…" Benson went quiet. 

In what would perhaps be the entrance to always locked house, there were a series of cloak's hanging over a murder of mirrors of many, many sizes. Some about their height and others who columned up to the ceiling, making them wonder how did those frames even get there, perhaps they were spawned in here, or like a stalagmite it simply grew from the floor,

"It's kinda of like they're dressed up as ghosts" Said Jonas. To himself. "Let's start with the bigger ones first, which are gonna be the most difficult, then move on to the small ones at the end."

And so the twins did, with lot's of care, one out of weary, other out of the sublime as one by one, the drapes were sheathed off and pulled towards their feet, the curls of the mantles covering up the wooden floorboard, displacing the coating of dirt, plastic, hair, polen and fibers which it accumulated along the years since that place was abandoned. From the termites' view within the planks, they would see their plains turned to dunes in the folds of the fabric, making way to black monuments towering onto the sky.

Benson let out a sneeze as the mirrors revealed themselves. They circled around the room, angling themselves to the center, where it unspokenly asked the twins to place themselves, which they did, this time with no sound, as the cloth sheets muffled their step. "Cool, now we just gotta find a way to see the reflections…" The mirrors were black, only the faintest draft of their silhouette could be seen in that darkness.

"We can wait here, and let our eyes adjust to the dark." Smirked Jonas as he ruffled through his pocket for something illegal. "Alternatively…"

Like the lighting of a flare, a palm length, finger thick, gas flame zipped into the center of the old house with a roar, and an orange hue colored the boy's face. For an instant, the reflections in the mirror showed themselves, distorting the twins' expressions of glee and fright, before with a "clack", the room slipped back into darkness. Benson shouted, flailing for his brother:

"Cut that out you idiot! This place is ancient! Do you want to burn it down while we're still in it!?" Jonas responded by pointing the lighter at Benson, to make him shrink back. "Calm down, I know what I'm doing, this place is empty, it's got no lights. Besides, this way is quicker. You'd get paranoid if we stayed here for too long." The twins left too fast, their phones were still at the bedside table.

Benson let out an irk through clamped teeth "Dammit this is creepy…" The twins shuffled in the dark "I mean… Yeah! Isn't that why you came, Benson?" There was a pause, about a heartbeat, Jonas' reached out "Do you want to hold the lighter?"

It was a chromed black, square little thing, bought in three parts by separate buyers and assembled at dad's garage as the Dragon's Breath model did not fit US regulations. Jonas stretched his arm up, lighter in hand and felt it connect with his brother's dry fingers, as he carefully directed Benson towards the ignition. "It has this gear that you can dial n with your index to determine the length, tune it down to the smallest level and slowly crank it up to the point it's comfortable, it shouldn't hit anything but still let us see the room." 

With care, Jonas felt his brother ruffle through the small metal box until it reached the rig "Ok right there, go." Benson pressed down on the flint, snapping out a nail of light, barely enough to see their little hands, Jona's was bigger, a bit wider, with a few more calluses, Benson's was nimbler, paler, but felt much gentler "Now raise the flow. We gotta keep the flame in the center as it's the only way it lights both of us up. Thing is that we can only see the other's reflection."

"Unless you take your hand out of the lighter so we can all look in the same direction Jonas…" Another pause, three heartbeats "Dial up the light Benson." 

And so the fire lengthened, steadily so, the flame stretched from their nose to the eyebrowline, the twins avoided looking towards each other's faces and focused on the panels on the back.

The reflections were eery, imperfect, the angles were wide and concave, the boys seemed to merge into one yarn bundle as their clothes were similar, curving, stretching and squashing their bodies into many variant, fading sizes.

Jonas smirked. "You're getting bald, there is a donut hole in the back of your head"

"Shut up!" Benson turned around, Jonas let go of the lighter, laughing as his brother went face to face with the many curved mirrors, staring right back at him, making the kid look crooked, angular, turnip headed. "Maybe you'll be like that when you grow up!" 

"Well" huffed Benson "As long as it's not like you..."

Benson shut off the lighter, the contrast made the return to shadows the more overbearing, even if it was only alight by just a few seconds,the dragon's breath had made the room much, much more warmer, Jonas wiped his forehead with the back of his shirt "Damn… I mean you can always dye your hair…"

"I mean it, I think we look too much alike, pay attention." Benson let off another jet of fire into the room. "I don't think this has done too good for me."

Benson technically looked like Jonas, but it was very easy to tell them apart, their parents never confused one for the other, their classmates always addressed them correctly by their names, meaning that they always talked to Jonas first, all the twins' features were there, just oh so slightly tweaked. Benson's hair was blonde, but not gold blonde, silvered, they had big blue eyes, but Benson's were sunken into his head, while Jona's beamed with life, their skin was freckled, but only Benson's felt like sores. "Everything I do has to be compared to you."

"C'mon! That's not true!" Jonas nudged Benson's shoulder, it felt squishy, for a moment, he expected a thump but chose not to comment on it. "And who cares what other people think? You're my brother! My comrade, i'd follow you to the end's of the Earth."

"But I don't seem to go anywhere do I? I seem to just… Follow you around…" Replied Benson, scratching his cheek, before the lighter's flame faded out once again. Jonas blinked, adjusting to the dark once more "Well… where would you like to go now? It's still early, rain hasn't fallen yet, if you're miffed about staying here, we can hangout somewhere else… and do anything you'd like!"

"I… Don't know where I want to go. It's strange…" Benson continues to scratch himself as the mirrors watch. "I just… huh…" 

Jonas saw his brother's shade step back, "Feels like… Some things were never for me, you know?" he heard his twin sit down amidst the dusty cloth dunes. "Like I was always wearing loose fitting clothes all my life… That my food was always served cold… Like it had always been left there out in the open, uncared for a bit too long… Like there was always something else taking priority…"

"Hey! You really shouldn't think about things this way." Jonas took a step towards the figure, reaching for the shoulder again. "Maybe we should go home and…" His hand sunk deep into his brother's arm, with no resistance, it collapsed onto Benson torso with a sloppy sound of frozen broth against the counter.

Jonas jumped back, something cold still dripping in his hands, he whipped whatever it was into the cloth as Benson sunk even more amidst the sheets. "Would you like us to pretend this never happened and just move on?"

Jonas stood up, hairs standing up needle like, clink, the lighter in his brother's hand fell to the floor as Benson's muffled voice gurgled out: 

"Go home and sit down on my bed, below yours? Wake up tomorrow for breakfast were mom serves you bacon and eggs first and I get the leftovers, catch the bus to school were you pick your seat, already saved for you by your friends while I micely head to the back, sit on class and get passed cute colored pamphlets, talking about the sweetest things, asking me to deliver their messages to you…"

Jonas reached for the lighter, holding it with both hands, gearing it up to the max and in a heartbeat, let the light shine into the mirror house for one last time.

Merged into the sheets, cowering beneath the mirrors was a huddled, dough like mass of what used to be his brother, his hands pressed deep into his eyes, as if digging them out, patches of torn hair were gripped tightly between his fists, his nails were stamp waxed red, from and patches of his pale skin "Do you think given time, the girls you reject will come to me too?"

Jonas ran off towards the flight of stairs, stumbling into the cloth's flooring and slamming head first into the mirrors, who dominoed into each other as more and more of them fell to the ground, crashing into one another with a large and continuous sea wave of glass. Yet the boy continued on, rushing in a blind panic, catching shards with his shoes as he went up the termite hollowed floorboards upstairs, with Benson asking one last time. 

"Is this my fate brother? Is this everything I will ever get?"

Jonas jumped from the second story window and with the thump he was expecting a little while ago, fell towards the grassy floor. His ankles folding at the impact as a great numbness overtook him, and he felt his body was little different than the drapes the mirrors clothed themselves in. 

Shortly after, came a cold prickle, like ice blinking thrice, his eyes slowly returned, from a blur, to his usual sight. slowly, Jonas turned around, and stared towards the closed door of the mirror house, locked as the first day he saw it. It's handle unmoving.

The streets were empty, dogs barked at the moon, the winged termites, who had emerged from all the rotten woodwork, were buzzing in the air, craving light, swarming the lamplights. Cold needles of raindrop began to fall on his cheek, telling him it was time to go home. And so he did, leaving behind a small trickle of blood from his feet, while from the inside of the house, something let's out, only a wimper.