Johnny wakes in the well-worn armchair in one corner of his apartment and rises immediately-a mistake. Vertigo overtakes him and he has to sit back down until the world stops spinning. In those few, disorienting seconds, he forgets something, something he's sure was important. Damn. He plucks his keys from the mantle without noticing the fireplace
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Well, he thinks. Well. He could go back to his apartment and get drunk again, or he could... he could find other distractions, better distractions that don't leave him with a headache in the morning. How could he have forgotten about the Machine? He remembers his mother bringing him here when he was just a child, cotton candy making his mouth and fingers sticky, illusions and magicians, roller-coasters he could raise his hands on. Happy memories.
He doesn't feel happy, though, as he approaches the entrance and heads inside, weaving through the crowds. He buys a cotton candy and tries to recreate the life of a ten year old, fails, and then starts to feel... good. There's a several minute delay between the rush of well-being and ( ... )
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Might as well goes in, Johnny figures. "Oh. Scary?" he asks, pulling the lever.
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"It's scary for kids," he says finally. Or at least that's what his brain fills in for him. Wonderful, wonderful confabulations. "I remember enjoying it, but that was a very long time ago." He runs his hand through his hair.
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He steps inside. Music is coming from somewhere deeper in the House, a tune he's absolutely sure he knows but can't place. A few paces farther, the single light directly above him, he turns back to the other man. "You coming?"
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Mirrors. All of those mirrors. The one ahead of him must be dirty because his image is cloudy. Or maybe... or maybe his clothing is dirty? He's wearing clothing that doesn't belong to him in his reflection, covered in plaster and charred wood, but--
The image is gone.
His imagination. His imagination. The world is beautiful. Remember?
"Very nice," he says, a nervous edge to his voice, now, the smile wavering. "Very interesting. I'm sorry, I don't believe I caught your name?"
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One of the good things about Johnny, because not even he's wholly lacking in positive character traits, is that he doesn't panic. He's smoothly talked loaded guns out of his face before. A magic trick isn't going to send him over the edge, screaming and crying. He calmly walks back to the entrance, brushing past the other man, and checks the door. It's closed. And, predictably, there's no knob. A gentle shove makes it rattle slightly.
"O'Brian," he says, turning back. If there's one thing he doesn't want, it's for his chemically-altered companion to panic. Panicking is messy. So he smiles. "Johnny O'Brian. Nice to meet you, Mr....?"
He is completely and willfully ignoring the fact that his clothes in the mirror are wrong. And it doesn't matter, anyway, because now the mirror is swinging open. The only way out is further in.
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It's about then that he catches Johnny's reflection, also fundamentally different. What a clever ride! Obviously they have other bodies - you know, models - and somehow they're merging the two pictures together. Clever. Excellent.
He doesn't even hesitate before stepping into the next room. Whatever was in that cotton candy was obviously good stuff. There's still an edge to the world, though, dipping in and out of his consciousness. A general feeling of malaise he can't quite pin down.
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The next room is brightly lit, with colored lights flashing in time with the song. He cannot place that song, and it is going to drive him nuts, if the lights don't give him a fatal migraine first. And, he realizes after adjusting to the light, they've entered a mirror maze. Oh joy.
"Do you remember these, Dave?" he asks conversationally. "I haven't been in one of these things for... oh, it's probably thirty years now." Because they scared the bejeezus out of him, and still do. You can't talk your way out of a maze. His smile is fixed, but he's still smiling.
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His wedding ring is missing.
It hits him like brick in a chest, air out of his lungs, oh no, oh god no no no no no and suddenly he feels his head spinning and a wild ocean inside his ears, swish swish, this can't be happening this can't--
No, no. It's still on his hand. It's not on his hand in the mirror, but it's on his real hand. (A tiny voice inside him asks, how real?)
"I-- I'm not feeling very well," he says.
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There it is again. It's a different Tillman on the other side of the glass, and a different Johnny. It can't just be a trick, because Johnny may not be a magician but he knows about tricks. Nobody sets up something this elaborate for two men who doesn't even know each other, who were just as likely to go do something else this... What time of day is it, after all?
He looks around. No fire exit sign in sight, of course. He'd call the fire chief if he had his... What? He'd call the fire chief if there was a phone here. Get these people shut down. Or at least get them to shut the bloody music off.
"Listen, it looks like our only way out is through the maze. I'll go first, but can you make it?"
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From how he stares, it's obvious he's either coming off his high or taking a different turn. Lovely. Wonderful.
(Why isn't it there?)
"I-- I, yes." He blinks, finally, and clears his throat. Again, he touches his fingers to the mirror. "I'm ready."
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No no no he's not panicking, but he's not waiting around, either, and he sets off deeper into the maze, not looking too hard into the mirrors. The reflection seems all right, now - at least, his reflection does - but he doesn't want to think too hard about it, because it looks like there are shadows in the mirrors, shadows not cast by Johnny or David. And the shadows look like they just might be following them.
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His legs are weak.
It isn't very long before they hit a dead end. The wall in front of them is covered with as many mirrors as the walls around them, and the entire room seems to bounce and echo off itself. From this angle, he can see at least eight copies of himself.
And all of them are different.
Covered in rubble like before. Labcoat. Suit and tie. Longer hair. Shorter hair. No rings. No bride. A half smirk with confidence he didn't think he had.
He stares ahead numbly.
Okay.
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"There wasn't another turn back there, was there?" he asks. But there wasn't. This maze is decidedly single-pathed. None of the previous dead ends lead any distance from the main path, and he's nearly positive that this is the only place they could have ended up. (That's nearly positive because it's hard to be certain of anything when your own reflection is flashing faces at you: disgust, contempt, anger, sadness, happiness, fear, surprise, one right after the other. He's got his hand on his own face, just to make sure he's not the one doing that.) And the god damned music is still playing ( ... )
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He lets out a nervous titter with Johnny's words, as if he had just told a joke, and then pushes his palm against one of the mirrors.
And pushes. And pushes.
"M-Maybe there's a secret door," he says, doing little to hide the building hysteria in his voice. "Maybe if you... if you..." And again to next mirror. More pushing. Now shoving. Now--
The mirror disconnects from the wall, drops to the ground, cracks, and then spills over onto its side. Through the cracks in the mirror, another room is visible. White. Sterile. A hallway.
The mirror is still on its side. It's only partially propped up against the wall. It's barely even touching it. It's not a trap door.
The ( ... )
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Something moves across the shards of of the broken mirror, something like a shadow. Johnny glances into one, against his better judgment, and his reflection is gone.
"That's our only way out," he says, swallowing, and knocks the remaining glass out of the frame with the side of his fist. Mirror fragments scatter onto the tile floor of the hallway.
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