Beyond the Gates of Evermoore

And then she was out.

Melody dreamed. And in her dream, she wasn’t alone.

She was back in her room, back in the uncomfortable little bed she hadn’t slept in last night. It was pitch dark, except for the moonlight. She had no blankets, no sheets or comforter. She had no clothes on either, and yet for some reason she wasn’t cold.

SKRIIIIIIT!

She bolted upright, and suddenly Melody was wide awake. Her heart pounded in her chest. She listened again for the noise, struggling to hear it, hoping not to hear it again but listening for it anyway.

But then it came, only this time it was a different noise entirely. One that was very close by. Just on the other side of her room…

The knob to her door was rattling.

Melody reached for the covers and came up with nothing. She looked around the room, desperate to find something — her underclothes, the ball gown, anything at all — but her little bedchamber was totally stripped bare. Even her chamberpot and wash basin were gone.

“Eric?”

Her voice was so loud against the silence it seemed to split the night. No answer. The little antique knob kept twisting and turning, revolving left and right. Trying to reach that point at which it would draw back the latch bolt and allow the door to open…

“ERIC!”

She jumped up now, alarmed, and was horrified when something on the other side of the room moved. Melody’s gaze shot over quickly, afraid to both see and not see. Relief flooded through her as she realized it was only the mirror.

Oh my God…

She was naked in the mirror. Naked and disheveled, her feet and legs covered in mud. But there was something different too. Something about her face…

The knob rattled, this time hard. The whole frame of the door shook.

Slowly, unable to look away, Melody approached the mirror. In her reflection, the left side of her face seemed somehow distorted. Sort of like in a funhouse mirror, but not quite. It was almost as if part of the mirror had melted, yet when she looked at it the glass was smooth and unwarped and unblemished.

Your eye. Look at your eye!

She did. In the reflection, her left eye seemed somehow bigger than her right. Darker too. Like she couldn’t find the iris… like her entire eye was all pupil, all black, with just a little bit of white left in the sclera.

The knob rattled again, but this time she ignored it. All of her attention was focused on the mirror. Melody reached up with one hand and pulled down on her eyelid. Reached up with the other and pulled upward, too.

Her eye grew wider, even stranger still. And now there was something inside the pupil — an image or negative image embedded against the glossy black surface. Her eye was like liquid ink. Velvety black ink with ripples that shimmered when she touched it, when she began sliding her fingernail slowly through the liquid surface…

There was no pain, only fascination. No fear, only the thrill of impending discovery. There was something she needed to see. Something that needed to see her. Melody’s face was inches away from the mirror now. Centimeters. Her nose was touching it, all cold and dark and—

The knob clicked. The door flew open.

SKRIIIIIIT!

Something scrabbled in.

SKRIIIIIIT! SKRIIIIIIT!

Melody couldn’t look at at it — couldn’t draw her gaze away from the mirror even if she wanted to. But the thing was coming. She could see it peripherally, a shambling, horrendous thing in a vaguely familiar form.

It rushed straight at her, stirring a hot, fetid wind along with it. The smell of something rotten. Of something—

Her eye yawned open, and then she saw. She saw it all. Saw everything.

Melody’s mouth stretched wide, her throat opening in a bloodcurdling, terrifying scream…

“MELODY!”