THE GIRL IN THE MIRRORS

Joram closed his eyes for a second. Hr hoped he would see her once he opened them again but for yet another time, she was not there. The elevator door opened and the three people he had been with in there left. He punched the close button and closed his eyes again. This time around, he saw her in his mind. Her little black dress with shiny crystals around the neck, her tiny red high heels that showed her cute little toes painted in pink gel with a white slim line on the edges. He saw her smooth legs. They were nice, but not as beautiful as her sharp chined face. Those blue eyes, those rosy lips that could use a lip balm but were beautiful anyway, the tiny nose and all of that completed by one sided dimple. Joram knew he would never forget that brief smile. The girl was about five feet two inches, just how he liked it. He knew that she would complement his six feet well built body. He never counted himself amongst the handsome men but he knew he was something to look at. The only problem that evening was the fact that he was looking for a beautiful girl she only ever saw briefly in the mirror. A girl he knew nothing else about apart from he wanted to see her again. He had gone through every floor on the Acra business arcade looking for her. People thought he was insane as he explained that he was looking for a short curvy girl with cute blue eyes. He knocked on every office door, explained himself to every guard he met. He went through all the seventeen floors but he never found her. His heart was broken and his thoughts were racing as he finally decided to end his long search. He looked at his watch and was surprised to see that it was already three in the evening. "This is the third day that I haven't showed up in the office. My boss is going to kill me for sure," he thought as he made his way out of the elevator at the eighteenth floor where he worked. "Hello Mr Lango, Madam was here, she wanted to talk to you and she said to tell you it was urgent...of course that was five hours ago and I know she is mad but you can tell her I didn't tell you on time...you know just to get yourself out of trouble or something..." she kept going until Joram had to ask her to shut up. Her name was Lily. She had worked as his receptionist for three years now. If Joram was ever keen, he would have noticed her obsessive love for him. He would have noticed that she always got worked up whenever madam big boss went by Joram's office and the two would laugh and talk for a while. She had loved him since she started working there. She even turned down a salary raise just so Joram would notice her but he never did. Whenever she was around him, she behave like a crazy little girl, she talked too much and always ended up making a fool off herself. "Sorry sir, I will go back to my desk now," she said the moment she saw the harsh look on Joram's face. Joram felt a little bit at ease when she left. He couldn't stand her but then again he couldn't afford to lay her off as she never demanded a raise like ever. He walked into his office and locked the door behind him and leaned on it. "I think I am losing my mind," he thought as he ren his hands over his face. He was about to slide his back down to the floor when his office phone rang and he ren all the way to his desk and picked it up. He had someone looking for the mysterious mirror girl and he was hoping it was him calling. "Joram, you haven't been home for three days and everyone is starting to get worried, your sister also told us that you haven't been going to the office either..." it was his mother and she was furious. "Please tell me you haven't gone back to the addiction Joram," she added. Joram opened his mouth to assure her that she was as sober as ever but something stopped him. It was the beautiful face again. He saw her through the unnecessarily huge one way glass door. She seemed to be admiring her pretty black dress. She had a smile on her face as she turned around admiring her beauty. Joram hang up the phone and walked towards the door slowly. He felt like he was dream walking or something. He reached the door and quickly opened it but once he got out, she was not there. He looked for her on the hallways but he didn't see her. He made his way towards the receptionist who was getting ready to go home. "No one came this way...you know no one gets past me," she assured him. Joram didn't believe her. He knew there was only one way to leave the floor and that was through the elevator as the stairway was out of commission. He rushed towards the elevator just in time to see it read "2nd" floor. She was gone. He would have waited for the lone elevator to come back around but by then she would have already left. He had an idea, a bad one. Quickly, he took off his shoe and broke the tiny glass patch on the stairway door, he then went on to open the door through the hole he had just made. Walking down the stairs would have taken him more time than he had so he decided to slide on railings instead. It was faster and way much unsafe as compared to the elevator but it would get the job done. He wanted to see her, he had to talk to her if it killed him. He had a lot to say to her. First, he wanted to know how she existed. Secondly, he needed to apologize to her. He also had to make sure that she was real. He slid his way down and just at the first floor, he missed a step and fell. He felt and heard his hand break but that didn't stop him from getting up and walking out of the building while holding his hand. He passed by a couple by the door and the lady couldn't help but hold her nose. Joram didn't even notice her as his eyes were fixed on the little black dress three buildings away. He went past a few more people and they all lamented his smell every time. He got to the place where he had seen het close the road. He was supposed to look around before closing but he feared doing so would make him lose his concentration. He jumped on the road and had himself hit by an incoming commuter bus. As he dropped to the ground, he saw her face headed towards him and while he was lying on the floor, he saw her staring down at him. She was still smiling at him. His eyes slowly closed but he still heard the noises from the crowd that had gathered within that short period of time. Everything went dark and quiet. He woke up a day and half later. He was strapped on a hospital bed. There was a huge plaster on his hand and leg. There was a huge bandage on his stomach. His head hurt like hell and there were butterflies in his tummy. "Where is she?" was the first thing he asked. "Where is who?" his sister asked. She had been there all night and half of the day. She was scared for him. "You need to rest Joram...it has been a long week for you," she said while holding his hand. Joram wasn't even listening to her as he was busy trying to sit up. "She was there, she was right there Nelly, I saw her looking down at me...I need to see her, I have to see her," he added. At that point, Nelly was hooked. She had heard him talk about the girl in pretty black dress for the last eighteen hours. At first, she thought it was a dream but now she knew it wasn't just a dream. While she was there thinking about whether to ask him about her, the door opened and Junior, Joram's identical twin brother brother walked in. He had a worried look written all over his face and both Joram and Nelly could see it. "Joram, I am so sorry..." he started and would have kept going if it were not for their mother who pulled him from behind. He took him outside and asked him to leave and never show up again. "Mother, Joram is in big trouble. You don't want to see me now but I promise you I am the only one who can help him...let me talk to him just a couple of minutes and I will be gone. Please mother," he tried to plead with her but she wasn't ready to talk to him. She pushed him all the way out and asked the guards to keep him away from the hospital. "Who? who is this girl you keep talking abou?" Nelly asked her brother after the commotion ended. "The pretty girl in a short black dress. I keep seeing her in the mirrors," he said. I painful smile was curved on his face for a moment but it was cut short by the numbingly sharp pain in his head. He slowly lay back on the bed and closed his eyes. As usual, she was there waiting. She was still smiling and admiring herself on the mirror. Every time he saw her in his mind, he learned a new thing about her. This time was not different either. He got a chance to closely look at her. He noticed the innocence in her smile. She was just a happy, shy little lady. He smiled painfully before falling asleep. She was all over his mind and as soon as he drifted off to sleep, he started dreaming about her. "You said yourself that all he wanted was to help him mum. Maybe he knows something we don't. Maybe he knows where Joram have been for the last three days..." Nelly tried to explain to her mother. "Nothing good comes from your brother and you know it. That child is the angel of bad things, whenever he shows up, bad things follow...I am not letting him anywhere close to your brother ever again," she said with an angry high pitched voice that almost woke Joram up. Mama Joram had a story to tell. A story about her twin sons. One who only ever wanted to make his mother proud, who worked his ass off for the family company that was almost dying following the death of their father. Then there was the second one. A stubborn boy who ruined everything he ever touched. His name was Leslie but everyone called him Junior. He was one minute younger than Joram and their dad called him Joram junior the very second he was born. Junior was one hell of a crazy kid growing up. He was even rumored to be the cause of his fathers death. Rumors had it that he poisoned his fathers drink as an April fools day prank when he was ten years old. He then got his brother drunk on their eighteenth birthday and then went on to dare him to steal their mothers car. Joram did it and the two were involved in a very bad accident that killed an innocent 22 years old girl. Joram ended up in prison for three years after which he came back home a h****n addict while Junior ren away from home just to come back home four years later to hide from law enforcement. He claimed that he was being wrongly accused of killing his then girlfriend Milley but his mother knee differently. She had had enough of him and she threw him out and asked him never to show up ever again. For some reason, Junior had that influence on Joram. He managed to trick him into doing crazy things. Mama Joram wanted to save Joram and for that, he swore to keep two apart even if it meant visibly casting away her own fresh and blood. Every time she saw him, her heart would break into a million little pieces. "He is beyond saving," she ended up assuring Nelly who was staring at her as her mind wondered down that painful memory lane. Nelly wanted to protest a little more but the look on her mother's face told her it was no use. She held her brother's hand and moved in closer. "I will be back soon brother," she said as she kissed him on his arm. She had to go as she had been there all night long. She was tired, she was hungry and worst of them all, she was smelly. She also had to make a double shift in the office that day since her brother wasn't going to show up for the fifth day in a raw. She had to cover up for him. She walked out of the hospital double heartedly. She feared something bad would happen to her brother while she was gone. She couldn't afford to lose him. She had gone through so much loss in her life. First, it was her father who died when she was twelve, then her last born brother died from drowning on his sixth birthday which was only three years after her fathers death. She then lost her husband to road accident two years ago and she had a Miscarriage on the day of her husbands burial. Through all those loses, Joram was the only one there for her. He assured her everything was going to be fine and even in the darkest of days, he was there to put a smile on her face. Now she was scared that she would lose him as well. There was something about the whole "accident" story that didn't make sense to her. How did her brother, a guy with his own car end up in the middle of the road four buildings away from his car? Where was he for the four days he was missing? How comes he didn't even seem to notice that he had been missing? She had his urine tested for drugs and there were no traces of any form of drugs in his body whatsoever. "What is happening to my brother? an even better question, why is Junior back?" she thought as she made her way through the basement to where she had parked her car. She reached into her handbag and took out her car keys. She then proceeded to click but before she could hit the button, she felt a heavy hand strangle her from the back. She tried to free herself but the grip was too strong for her. She eventually blacked out.