When I woke up, I was in a room with cracked walls and withering green paint. I couldn’t see anything in the room but an old wooden chair that looked more like a lounge sans its cushions. Bright sunlight gushed in through a doorless doorway that was right in front of me. “Where am I and how did I get here?” I asked myself.
I tried to rise from the wooden chair to get out the place, and landed my feet on something wet, which was actually a bucket of warm water! “What the heck?!?!” I screamed, but hey… I din hear my voice! I froze in sheer shock. What is happening to me? I screamed again, “helllooooooo”, again I couldn’t hear my voice but the thumping of my heart. I could even feel my pulse behind my ears. I stepped out of the bucket and felt the cushy floor, the floor was cushy because it was carpeted with layers of dirt that stuck on my wet feet like a sock! “Yuck! What kind of place is this? And why couldn’t I hear my own voice?” Not long before I tried to take the next step, a pretty woman came running in “No No don step out! I forgot to clean the floor! Please sit down”. I sat down like a hypnotized puppy, gazing at her flawless face. She must be elder to me by some ten years at least, but her face was young and flawless. My eyes did not want to lose hold of the woman’s incandescent face! As I kept glaring at her, she dipped my feet in to the bucket and started cleaning it. “What’s happening? Why are you cleaning my feet?” I forced my mouth to be heard but no it didn’t work. I tried to convince that this is just a dream but the warm water and the woman’s soft fingers fondling my feet evaded me from self-convincing.
“I am done with cleaning the floor. You can go now!” Her resonating voice woke me up form my trance.
I stood up to face her back, “Where am i? Who are you?” I could hear my voice now, what a relief! for a second I thought I went dumb. What the heck now? The door is open! I better run instead of starting a weird conversation in this totally creepy place. I ran out of the door and everything outside looked normal. I was in the same route that I took to go home from college. As always, people and vehicles ran past, not noticing anything around. I stopped at a crossroad to get to the other side. I tried to squeeze through the gaps between the grunting vehicles. Before I reached the other side, something caught my attention! I stopped and looked in to the glass window of the car that stood in front of me. “May be something’s wrong with the glass!” How can I not have a reflection! I calmed myself down and went to the nearby clothes showroom to re-check what I saw or rather din’t see! Mirrors and more Mirrors all around but none reflected my image!
I rushed out of the store, crossed the door, and went in the direction I came from. I kept running, looking for that old green house. I couldn’t find it. I know I am in the right place, I know it is here! I am always good with routes! I stood in the middle of the road confused of what is happening around me! I could not take this pressure any longer. My head started spinning and fell on my knees.
Flashes of memories crossed my mind. Yes, it was a bet! I challenged my friends that black magic and witches do not exist…That’s how I got there! There was a rumor in town that the green little house on Burton road is jinxed and a witch steals the most valued possessions of people who enter the house! That is how I lost my reflection! I keep starring in to the mirror all day! I valued my reflection more than anything else in my life. I know I cannot find the house or the witch forever because I know I am cursed now!
I am kneeling in the middle of the road not knowing where to go!
