MirrorMirror

41 / Bobby and the Box

Cassidy felt weightless.

He was adrift, with all sensations removed. No sight or sound. No sensation of anything touching his body.

Was this death?

Would he, at some point, come across Amy? Perhaps he'd see her, a light in the darkness, except it wasn't that. If it were, he would be able to see it. Darkness had colour, not a lack of it. Wherever he was, there was no colour. No substance. It was, literally, nothing.

He called out.

"Amy!"

The word was only in his mind. The tether from brain to mouth had been severed alongside that of spirit to body. Was this how it felt for Amy? To be floating endlessly, with no anchor keeping her in place? Was the mirror some sort of closed door that allowed her to see through into his world but not enter?

Cassidy knew he wasn't dreaming because he knew he wasn't dreaming. The awareness of the fact rendered the possibility impossible.

He'd said that to Elise once. Early in their relationship, when love was still blossoming, she'd taken him out for one of the best steaks he'd ever had. He'd told her he thought he could be dreaming, then went on to say something akin to not being able to because of impossible possibilities. That was, perhaps, the first time she'd frowned at him. Elise didn't understand what he meant. She didn't think at all of philosophy or poetry. Her focus was on her nails. Her eyebrows. Which shoes went with which outfit. She posted selfies hoping for likes and comments about how great she looked. Life and reality and the mind were things she cared little about.

And death. Elise was never going to die. She would live forever in the following she was gaining on social media.

While they were separating, Cass would wonder what he saw in her. They were so ideologically different. But that was one of the things he liked. He thought their differences might bring them together. Give them things to talk about. They didn't. They gave them reasons to be different.

None of this excluded the happiness they had shared. It did, though, taint it.

He must be dead. If he wasn't dreaming, there was only death remaining, and death was a limitless limbo, where one drifted whilst contemplating the mistakes made during...

CASS CASS!

Cassidy's eyes opened and, after his heartbeat stuttered back into its usual rhythm, the colour returned to the milky irises. His blue lips reddened. The white streaks shocking through his hair darkened until they were back to his natural shade.

He sat up, the fog of his mind suddenly clear, and the attack from the intruder painfully marching at its forefront. From where he was sitting, between the bed and the wall, it was difficult to see the rest of the bedroom, but he did see the pillow that had been pressed against his face. He could also see a foot. Not his own and not Bobby's.

Bobby!

Cass scrambled up, using the bed for leverage, and told his smart speaker to illuminate the room. He blinked back against the glare, and looked across to where Bobby was laying.

"Bobby!" he cried, running across to his obviously injured dog.

Without noticing, he jumped over an obstacle on the floor and collapsed beside the puppy. Gently, he placed his hand on Bobby's chest and whispered his name.

There was no response. The absence of any movement under his palm, from either breathing or the heart beating rapidly, told him there couldn't be, but he tried again, anyway.

"Bobby?"

There was an odd bend in the dog's spine that shouldn't be there. Blood trickled from his mouth. One leg was twisted sharply.