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ecxhanadi · 7 months ago

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The Cursed Mirror

One day before Hari Raya appeared, everyone in the house was busy preparing traditional cuisines such as Rendang, Lemang, and Lontong. Some of my relatives helped decorate the house with colorful curtains, painted the house, changed the covers of the couch and cleaned the floor while my sisters were wiping the windows. As for me and Sarah, my cousin, we helped our grandma make Ketupat, it was really exhausting until we didn’t realize the time went so fast and we knew everything was already prepared. The joy of everyone in the house can be described as the kids were rustling and playing around, and the atmosphere got crazy. The next morning, Sarah and I woke up earlier and got out of our bedroom. We saw our siblings, parents and relatives already prepared. So, we quickly lined up in front of the bathroom and took a turn to shower. Then, we wore our ‘Baju Kurung’ and sprayed some perfume. We went to the mosque and performed ‘Hari Raya’ prayers. After finishing the prayer and going back to home, we started to apologize to each other if there were any wrong-doings and hopefully will be forgiven. Then, our parents and grandparents gave us ‘Duit Raya’. It was simple yet the recipe of happiness. Anyone have a guess how much Duit Raya I got from my parents? YEAH… It was RM 50, which is too much! But to be HONEST, that’s not what I want for Hari Raya this year because it seems familiar to me every year they’d have to give the same thing and that’s not important. All I wanted was some fun and forgiveness from my parents. I know it’s hard for some people to properly forgive someone if they’ve ever done something cruelly but wishing I was free from the darkness and cruelty. The first thing we had to do was all my relatives gathered in a circle at the dining room to enjoy the meals that were cooked by my aunties and my mother. On the other side of the house, Sarah and I were chatting while eating our food and others were taking a picture of themselves using their cameras and mobile phones because Hari Raya permits you to have an extra time where everybody has got to do something crazy.

In the evening, my family, relatives and I are going to visit some of their friends' houses. Sarah and I were wandering outside while our family was busy talking to their friends, and we found an abandoned house. We decided to enter the house and we found a mirror. It was still good, so we picked it up and brought it home. Inside our room, we noticed there was a piece of letter at the end of the corner of the mirror. The latter contained weird photos of a boy named start with letter K and two girls named Mei and Aoi with strange arms at the back of each of the photos. I gave a surprised response. Sarah mentions that she once saw them, she frequently catches hands growing out of the corner of her eye. She expresses her frustration of these hands prompting concerns from me asking if she is all right. Suddenly, she notices something and points it out. We both turned our backs and saw many hands in the mirror. In panic, Sarah asks what they want, reckoning that they are here to grab her legs. This provoked me to make an attempt to exorcize them by challenging the hands in an arm wrestling. I lost instantly. The hand then disappeared. Sarah notices the hand disappearing from the photos. I suggest they wanted attention. I explained to Sarah that most lesser spirits are satisfied and disappear once their desires are resolved. In order to get rid of the hands in the picture, we have to play with the hands that come out. After that, we played their way through countless hands that stood in their way until there was only one left. Sarah reports that almost all photos have been cleaned out, meanwhile I say that I am worn out. A purple hand grabs Sarah's wrists. A mouth opens up on the hand telling Sarah to come to him with a resounding voice. The hand then slowly dragged her inside the mirror as she screamed for help. I attempted to reach her hands but it started to drag me too.

We were dragged to a dark foggy bathroom with hands in every corner. I notice the water and presume that it is a boundary. We are approached by a boy with an empty and expressionless face. The boy inspects us. We describe him to have silky smooth hair and long lashes, labeling him handsome like a prince. But our anticipation broke when he called us the chaotic people and questioned what food it took to grow it. He says he is let down that someone finally showed up, but it was just a bunch of crackheads. Sarah whines saying that he dragged us in here then says that out of the blue. The boy then leads us to a door, showing a room of many floors and full of mirrors. He tells us that this is a house of Wonder's boundary called Cursed Mirrors, but he doesn't know the details. We both describe the room full of mirrors and say that he has never heard of this. The boy introduces himself as Kaito, he says that he was just getting worried because he couldn't get out of there. We asked how he brought us here. Kaito answers, telling us that he asked for help from the hands to help him. I asked if they were his friends. Kaito bickers and explains that they are accessories for the Wonder and he doesn't own them. He asks if we could help him get out. We both agreed and we all walked to the hall and Sarah explained to him the boundaries.

Sarah tries to move Kaito over to the mirror. The mirror didn't seem to reflect anything. Kaito explains it's been that way since he got here. He speculates that maybe it's because he is a ghost, or maybe because he doesn't have any memories. I asked what he meant by it. Kaito reveals that he doesn't remember his life or how he died. Kaito asks us what they needed to do to get out of here. Sarah answers that they need to break the Wonder's Yorishiro. An image of a boy appears at one of the mirrors and he points out the direction of the Yorishiro which is located in the top ceiling of the boundary. To reach the stairs up to the Yorishiro, they need to pass through the mirror, but the mirror is only for orderly people, the mirror boy says. It seems that the Wonder would need to decide whether to let someone through in order to get to the Yorishiro. Suddenly, the room got darker, and a bell chime can be heard throughout the boundary. The mirror boy tells us that the world would be better off without someone who is annoying and that our life has no value, he transforms into a man, switching to a male voice in the process. The entity who is presumably to be the corporeal form of Wonder of Cursed Mirror asserts that he would take our place. He explains that their goal is to exchange places with the living. Kaito is merely a feeble spirit, and he is not worth replacing. He flicks his finger, causing anthropomorphic minions to come out of the mirror to try and steal both our souls, whichever of them steals it gets to take her place. Arms come out of the ground and grab us, restraining us from movement. A minion was moments away from climbing to the hand to take her soul before Kaito throws a small mirror frame to the minion causing it to fall. The minions then begin to target Kaito instead prompting him to run, but they end up restraining him to the ground. A minion swung a punch to Kaito. The arm around his tightens its grip, making him slightly lose consciousness. Kaito cries for help. A figure to what appears to look like a girl shatters the arm, freeing him from the grasp. She then breaks through the glass, grabbing Wonder's throat as Wonder asks why she is barging in his boundary before ruthlessly smashing his head against the mirror repeatedly. She tells Kaito he is hopeless and that he can't do anything on his own. Kaito starts crying as she pats his head. Sarah and I were shocked as she saw how Wonder was easily beaten by Mei, one of the girls in the photos. Mei walks over to Wonder's corpse and penetrates through her chest with bare hands, extracting his heart in the process. She reiterates to Kaito that if he wants to get stronger he needs to beat a strong apparition and eat it.

A grunting Kaito is heard as Mei has forced his mouth wide open in order to force-feed him with Wonder's heart. Kaito exclaims that he no longer has the desire to do this, and requests Mei to take it away. Mei continues anyway and steadily tries to move the heart onto his mouth, she is interrupted by Sarah and me, who grabs her arm and orders Mei to stop the procedure. Mei grabs both of our heads and seemingly attempts to collide it with the ground. Mei ceases the attempt and reaffirms that she is supposed to be gentler with the girls than the boys. Mei comes to a resolution and uses her ability to put us to sleep.

Mei asks Kaito if he'd rather have his new power taken away and vanish with it, or if he would rather take over the boundary and assume the role as a Wonder. Kaito comes to his decision, giving grounds that he doesn't want to disappear and become nothing, so in order to avoid this he will agree on becoming a Wonder. Mei affirms to this and agrees to grant his wish. She announces that from now on, Kaito will now be known as the new Wonder of Cursed Mirror. Kaito takes on a new form, now wearing a tattered black jacket embellished with eyes. Mei tells him that the boundary now belongs to him. In celebration, she comes to ask him what he wants to be as an apparition. Kaito answers, saying his wish is to be a normal human. He asks Mei if it could be possible. Mei affirms this. Suddenly, a resounding no comes from Aoi, the other girl from the photos. Aoi asserts that apparitions born in the land of the dead are forbidden from living as humans in their world. She demands Kaito to give back his position and urges him not to become the Wonder. Mei chuckles and tells Aoi that Kaito had certainly become very strong, suggesting that it would be enough to crush her like a bug. She adds that Aoi would be unable to defeat him under his own boundary. She looks back and notices Kaito attempting to flee away from the situation. She confronts Kaito who confesses that he wouldn't be able to beat a girl who's slinging a big knife around. In an effort to get him engaged, Mei smacks and forces him to yield. Kaito exclaims that the lives of three are in his hands due to them being in his boundary, and that he can do whatever he wants with them. Mei proceeds to drag Kaito away and pushes him to Aoi, he gets freaked out by her knife prompting his limbs to attack. Aoi began to fend themselves against the ravaging exoskeletons. Aoi suggests that in order to take back his position as a Wonder, they would have to break the Yorishiro, but since we both aren't awake yet she has to resort to getting him under control. Aoi grapples Kaito and once again demands him to let go of his position. In a fit of rage, Kaito's exoskeleton begins to extend across the room, colliding with the top surface. The collision knocked some debris that began to fall on us.

We both woke up, and Kaito seems to have protected us from the falling debris. I suggest that Kaito looks far different from before, in response to his new look. Kaito affirms this and adds that he is stronger now than before. He tells us that he's one of the Wonders now and he gets to run the boundary they are now in. He says that he hopes that we won't try to destroy it, as this would ultimately lead to his harm. He tells them to leave, and suddenly the mirrors shake as pink limbs begin to drag me and Sarah into the mirror leading to outside the boundary. Kaito expresses a call for silence as he tells us to stop struggling, he expresses his farewell to us, expressing that he would meet us again in the future. It is at night-time and we both are transported back to our grandma house where we lay in our room unconscious.

18th May 2021

Total Words: 2,210+

Inspired by Toilet Bound Hanako-kun

I write this story when I was 15 years old. My teacher gave us an assignment during school holiday. It was an individual task, each person given the same plot and the theme is Hari Raya/Eid. The best story gets duit raya(money) from her.

And guess what? I won in the first place! ^^

#short story #school assignment #hari raya #eid al fitr #eid mubarak

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