Emma woke up one morning to find a strange object on her bedside table. It was a small, intricately carved box with a glowing blue button in the center. She had no idea where it came from or what it did.
She felt strange. And yet, driven by curiosity, she opened it.
What she saw inside shocked her to her core.
As she lifted the lid, a puff of misty smoke escaped, carrying with it a faint whisper that sent shivers down her spine. Inside the box lay a small, ornate mirror with a glowing silver frame. But it was what reflected in the mirror that made her heart race—a version of herself, but with piercing green eyes and long, flowing hair that seemed to move of its own accord.
The mirror-self beckoned to her. Its eyes gleamed with an otherworldly intensity. She felt an inexplicable pull, as if being drawn into a realm beyond her own.
The pull was so strong that she could not help but reach out toward the being inside the mirror.
But all of a sudden, she heard a loud bang.
The sound scared her out of her mind.
The loud bang shattered the spell. She snapped back to reality and found herself sitting on her bed, the box still open. But the mirror was now just a regular mirror, reflecting her ordinary self. She breathed a sigh of relief, thinking it had all been a strange hallucination.
Then she noticed something odd.
Her room was different. The furniture had been slightly rearranged. The windows were open, even though she was sure she had closed them before. And then she saw a piece of paper on her bedside table, with a message scrawled in handwriting that looked eerily like her own:
"The mirror's secrets are not to be trifled with. Be careful, for the boundary between worlds is fragile."
A cold dread crept up her spine. She picked up the mirror, studying it, searching for anything wrong with it.
That was when she noticed her eyes.
Their color had changed—exactly the same piercing green as the girl she had seen in the mirror. But that was impossible. Her eyes had been brown since birth.
Terror seized her. She couldn't believe it. She ran toward the bathroom, threw open the door, and stared at herself in the bathroom mirror.
What she saw made her shout out in horror.
"AHHH!"
Her eyes had indeed changed to that unnatural, piercing green. She stumbled backward, tripped over her own feet, and fell hard onto the bathroom floor. The mirror seemed to mock her, reflecting an image that was no longer her own.
She scrambled to her feet, heart racing, and turned on the faucet, splashing water on her face, hoping to snap out of this surreal nightmare. But when she gazed into the mirror again, she saw something even more chilling.
Her eyes were not the only thing that had changed.
Her hair had grown longer and darker, cascading past her shoulders in waves that seemed to drink the light. Her skin had taken on an ethereal, almost inhuman glow. She stared at the reflection, but the face staring back was no longer recognizable as herself.
She ran out of the bathroom, desperate to find her phone. But instead of her old phone, there on the bedside desk lay a brand new iPhone X. She was bewildered. She walked toward it, picked it up, and turned on the screen.
The country written on the front page of the phone was Atlantis.
A country she didn't even know existed.
She stumbled backward, sitting down hard on the bed, staring at the phone in disbelief. Atlantis? She had always thought of it as a myth—a legend from ancient times. But here it was, staring her in the face as if it were real.
Had she somehow been transported to a parallel universe? Was this all just a wild hallucination?
Her mind raced with questions.
Then, before she could even begin to process what was happening, the phone buzzed in her hand.
A message flashed on the screen:
"Welcome, traveler. You have been chosen. Meet us at the old oak tree in the heart of the forest at midnight. Come alone."
She stared at the words, her blood running cold.
What should she do now? Try to ignore the message and pretend none of this was happening? Or let curiosity get the better of her and head into the forest to uncover the secrets of this strange and terrifying new world?
The clock on the phone read 11:47 PM.
She had thirteen minutes to decide.