She clutched the object and held it so she could peer behind her and over her shoulder.
What was she doing?
Then she started forward, walking slowly, rotating the mirror so it caught the flickering lights behind her.
She veered to the left, and the wind crept next to her. Her pulse was still a frightened drumming. Her hand still shook, and the mirror with it. But she still moved forward.
Then the wind felt the thing again. It raced up behind them, darting at the woman.
In the mirror, the wind saw a black cloud, like smoke flashing by.
The woman whipped around and held out her hands. But the thing was gone.
She swallowed and then held up the mirror and walked forward again, choosing path after path. They crept deeper into the maze.
Black smoke played at the edges of the mirror. Each time it appeared, the woman spun around, hands out, but as soon as she did, the thing raced away.
The wind wondered why the woman wasn’t taunting the thing. Perhaps because it didn’t have hands to tear off?
She tiptoed forward. How long had they been in the maze? Long enough for night to die and a new day to be born? Time was nothing to the wind, and the maze was nothing to time.
The woman bit her lip. There was a noise. A shuffling, shifting, crinkled-shroud noise.
The wind shivered, and the woman looked behind her.
Nothing.
There was no one there.
She turned around.
No!
There!
The wind shrieked.
In the mirror, a man stood behind the woman.
His face was bone-white, his eye sockets hollow. His skin was a mummified leather that tightened over his skull. He’d been brined in evil and soaked in its flavors. His lips pulled back gruesomely, baring rotten teeth. His bone hands reached out. He’d almost wrapped his elongated fingers around the woman’s throat.
When she turned back to the mirror, her gaze connected with the empty sockets of the thing. For one second, she froze. She stared mute and horrified at the thing that could only be seen in her mirror.
She made a whimpering noise as its hands reached for her throat.
No!
The wind screamed and shoved at her knees.
Her legs buckled, and then she twisted around. She dropped the mirror. It cracked, lines splintering the glass. She conjured a wall of scalding steam and threw it behind her. She tossed waves of boiling water, and the wind rushed through them, pushing her on. Shoving her away from the thing.
She stooped down, grabbing the broken mirror. It sliced through her skin, and blood pooled on her fingers.
Run!
She sprinted, tossing water daggers and water piranhas after her. The creatures snapped their teeth as they flew through the air and then splashed to the floor.
Run! Run! Run!
