How the Other Side Live

I always thought my life was normal. Until the day I rebelled. It was a strange existence – like living in a fog. Occasionally shelves appeared behind me - always the same shelves, although the items on them changed - and at the same time, people appeared in front of me. Always strangers. Usually I only saw the backs of their heads, but sometimes I'd catch a glimpse of them in profile. They never stayed long and I never saw the same person twice. 
 
And then one day, something odd happened. 
 
The first change was that something tilted in my world. The fog was still there, there was nothing to be seen around me, and yet I felt as if I were floating sideways. 
 
The second strange thing was that a fireplace appeared behind me instead of shelves, and a stranger appeared in front of me, but this time I saw their face and not the back of their head. 
 
The third strange thing was that I felt a strange compulsion to move closer to this face. I drifted through the fog until I was standing right in front of him. 
 
He frowned, and I felt my own face tighten around the eyes. Suddenly a yellow cloth appeared in my hands and I felt my arm being pulled upwards. What magic was this? My hand with the cloth waved itself in front of my face, and slowly, slowly, the fog cleared, and a fully furnished room appeared around me.
"Wow! That was dusty!" The face in front of me spoke, but I felt my own lips moving. Weird.
 
Life actually improved after that. I didn't exist in a fog anymore. There was a whole room around me. A fire appeared in the fireplace whenever it got cold. Sometimes books appeared on a small wooden table, and I was able to curl up in a grey velvet armchair and read. I learned to read quickly though because sometimes the books disappeared before I got to the end. 
 
Sometimes other people appeared as before, but now it was the same few that I saw again and again. And sometimes that boy's face appeared. The one I was drawn to.
 
Whenever he was there, I seemed to lose control of my own body. Perhaps he was a magician? But if he combed his hair, I had to comb my hair. If he laughed, I laughed. It was frightening I suppose but more than scary it was annoying.
 
Whenever he appeared, I had to stop whatever I was doing and stand in front of him. When the books kept vanishing before I'd had time to finish them, more and more I resented the time I had to spend in front of him, being controlled. Something had to change... And so I rebelled.
 
I remember it clearly. He stood in front of me and scratched his nose. I didn't need to scratch mine. It wasn't itchy, and so I concentrated hard on not moving my hand.
 
A range of emotions flickered across his face: fear, curiosity, and finally excitement. 
 
"Who are you?" he whispered. And then, "Can you come out?" 
 
I didn't know. I didn't even know I was in something to come out of. But I was willing to try.
 
We both stretched out our hands, spreading our fingers like a starfish, reaching closer and closer, until - a crackle fizzed from my fingertips all the way to my heart. And then I was standing beside him. We both giggled. 
 
"Come on!" he said, grabbing my hand. "Let me show you round."
 
That was the day I realized the life I'd been living wasn't normal at all. I had thought my one room was the whole world, but now there were more rooms; there was an outside. There were dogs, and sunshine and... ice-cream. 
 
After my first spoonful of lemon sherbet ice-cream, when my tastebuds exploded, I knew my life would never be the same.
 
But better than all of that, was the room full of books. All the books I'd started and not been able to finish. I knew I could never go back. 
 
"Aren't you curious," I asked, "about my world?”
 
Of course he was. I could see it in his eyes.
 
We both stood facing the mirror and then I pushed. He fell through the frame and I saw him turning this way and that, taking in my former home. He turned to face me and I saw the panic in his eyes.
 
"Let me out!" he cried.
 
I couldn't. I couldn't give up this new life I had found. How to make myself safe? I grabbed something from the table - a paperweight - and threw it towards the mirror. 
 
It smashed into thousands of pieces and I saw him, lots of versions of him, in each of the shards. It wasn't enough. There were too many of him and I had to make sure that none of him could escape. 
 
I picked up one of the shards of glass from the floor being careful not to look at it as I held it. My fingertips fizzed as they had before and I knew I had to act quickly before he was back beside me. 
 
I squeezed the glass, feeling the blood trickle down my fingers and then I thrust it through the cracks in the glass, into his heart.
 
He gasped, his face crumpled and he fell. And then he flickered and vanished.
 
Satisfied, I grabbed a book and headed to the kitchen for another bowl of ice-cream. It was dark now and so I turned on the lights. 
 
"Arthur, there you are!"
 
A tall, beautiful lady hugged me....and screamed at something over my shoulder.
 
As I turned to see what she was looking at, I finally understood how things worked round here. Reflected in the windows, a tall, beautiful lady, exactly the same as the one beside me, stood, mouth opened in a silent scream. 
 
Next to her, where my reflection should have been.... there was nothing.