The lights of the safe room grow dimmer, but stay the same shade of red they've turned. The hue of the room reminds me of Darth Vader and Sith villains. It's just so eerie and evil like...

Well, on the bright side, the ghosts cannot get us here. But now I'm trapped with no way out if the boy tries something. He doesn't seem the sort to do that, from the hour or two I've known him, except that amount of time is too little to really know somebody.

"I don't plan on doing anything but sitting here awaiting my impending doom," The boy declares adjusting his body and leaning against the wall.

"Did I say that aloud?" I ask, my cheeks burn, surely red enough to be visible even in red cast light.

He nods, before his eyes focus on the chest in the middle of the room. I follow his gaze and stroll towards it. "What do you think is inside? Ghost fighting weapons? Snacks?"

The boy shrugs, "Maybe bedding, water, food. Necessities seem the likeliest thing to put in a safe room chest. But this is Maximus we're talking about, the man who predicted my coming and engraved my name on bullets."

My mouth involuntarily drops open. I stutter for a moment before I regain control of my tongue. "H-he what? Wait, that would mean the note wasn't just a warning to kill some rando falling out of the mirror. Maximus wants to kill you specifically."

The walls around me seem to close in at this realization. Sprinting the the opposite side of the room, I grab the bars in front of the door, pulling on them to no avail. My breathing gets faster, until I feel as though I've run a marathon.

I'm trapped in this room with a dude that Maximus wants dead. Why does he want him killed? Is that guy a monster? Did he eat babies? Oh my god what a nasty thing to do. Maybe he's not that bad and just killed someone... As if that's better.

"Why does he want you dead? What did you do...dude?" I ask, shifting my focus between him and the chest.

Maybe there's a way to unlock the door in there. But then what? I leave the stranger in here and walk out to have a ghost make me holier than swiss cheese? Getting murdered by strangulation sounds like a better option. Even though I'd rather not die at all, if I had to chose, it'd be that as opposed to those supernatural creepers.

"I'd prefer Grayson, if that's okay with you. A years worth of my life is missing, I could've done millions of vile things within that time. Whatever happened got me kicked from Edipeis and put on the execution board. That's why I came here." Grayson states.

I narrow my eyes, "You're wanted with a death penalty? Only terrorists and serial killers get that."

"Not in my world. I could've been chosen for no particular reason. A year ago, I was protected from it, because I got accepted into Edipeis. I woke up in my condition with no recollection beyond walking through the gates last year. Maybe if Maximus doesn't kill me right away, I can ask him what I did." Grayson says, slumping further against the wall.

"What the hell is an Edipeis?" I ask, walking up to the chest.

I feel around it, checking for locks and obvious booby trap triggers. Most chests sitting in the center of a room for no apparent reason almost always have something dangerous attached to them... at least in most books I've read. I can't say I have much experience in real things like this.

"It's a school for the intelligent. Only a few are chosen to be educated in necessary industries to run the planet. But I think they only let me in to stop their loss in profits." Grayson replies.

I look over to see regret flash in his eyes. "Did you steal from them?"

He shakes his head, "I created affordable medicine for those of us who weren't lucky enough to be chosen."

"Your planet sounds crappy." I say, finally satisfied that the chest is safe to open. "What the... why!"

Stored within the chest is one threadbare blanket, a cheap plastic bowl, and unpopped microwave popcorn.

"What is it? Is something wrong?" Grayson asks alarmed, and rather out of it.

Did he doze off? Or is his condition worsening to make him loopy?

"There's nothing useful in here, it's all.. Wait a moment." After removing the blanket, a lever with a finger print scanner became visible at the bottom right hand corner of the chest.

I lean in, having to lift my feet off the ground behind me to reach it. Perhaps this button will open the locked door and let us out. Or it could deny me access and kill us with poisonous gas. Maybe I shouldn't touch this button.

My body weights shifts too far forward, I fall into the chest, touching the button on the way down. "Ah! Crap."

Machinery noises start from somewhere outside the box I am stuck upside down in. Please tell me it isn't poison, I don't want to die in this position. There would be weird blood flow all over my body making the open casket far too disturbing for my family.... Or I guess just Maximus. He's the only family I have left.

I draw my legs into the box, freezing before I right myself when a familiar voice fills the room.

"Max! Get that camera out of my face. You know how I hate being recorded while working."

Mom.

"But this discovery may be buried with us before we get to try it out. With how often you blow everything up. We must keep records of what we do, to share with the sciencing world!"

Maximus sounds much younger. I wonder how old this recording is.

"What you mean by 'sciencing world' is your fathers company. I don't trust him with this." My mother declares.

There's a long pause. "But he's the one funding our research. It wouldn't be fair to keep it a secret."

Finally getting out of my strange position, I find my attention drawn to the screen on the far left wall. My mom looks to be just barely an adult. The too large size of lab coat ages her further back in appearance, but I know she is simply little like me.

Before she disappeared, we'd joke about being able to swap wardrobes with only our age to tell us apart. I inherited nothing from my father, other than the ability to walk into a room and forget why I came there in the first place.

"I don't know if this is a discovery we should share." She states, jumping back as a bright light flashes. Static fills the screen before coming back with the lights considerably dimmer.

Whatever she was working on did a number on the electric.

"Vidya! Can you hear me?" Maximus calls, setting down the camera and coming into view.

My eyebrows raise slightly. In this he looks younger than my mom, if I didn't know better, I'd assume he was no older than me.

"Max, we did it, look," My mom says, gesturing to something off screen while she coughs.

Tears begin to fall involuntarily down my cheeks. It's been so long since I last heard her voice. I would trade every book I ever read just to be wrapped in one of her hugs again.

"I know her."

I jolt, Graysons voice snaps me out of whatever trance I found myself in. "What do you mean? How do you know her?"

He stares at the screen, "I have no idea. But I'm positive I met her some time during the year I cannot remember. It's all hazy bits and pieces." 

The gears in my head start to spin out of control. How would my mom have met a kid from another dimension? Was there a way to travel through the mirror from my side, just as Grayson had done from his? Is that where she disappeared to?

Maybe she's still alive out there somewhere, but stuck and unable to get back. I bet Dad is there with her, just waiting for Maximus to find and bring them home. But... They've been gone so long. What if they are dead? Or simply don't want to be found?

"If you don't remember anything from the past year, then how can you know that she was there at some point?" I ask, wiping away the tears.

Never let anyone see you're weak.

Grayson stares at the screen, puzzled. "To be honest, I have no idea. Maybe it's possible that I will regain the memories over time, or certain elements will trigger them to resurface."

I watch the screen go black moments before another video begins to play. The location is no longer a lab this time. My mother walks ahead with a hiking pack, vibrant green grass covers the ground they trump forward on.

"This is amazing, I can't believe we've actually done it." She states, faltering in her steps when the ground shifts to scorched dirt.

The camera raises to display a heavily guarded facility, with tall strange looking gates. Men dressed like soldiers mill about, instantly becoming aware of my moms presence.

Shouts are picked up by the cameras microphone before the screen goes black.

"That facility, I woke up there. It's worn down and likely abandoned now, but I recognize the structure. That woman and Maximus recorded this in my world. But I can tell by the season it is not anywhere near midnight of a new year, so how did they get there?" Grayson asks.

He stands up, dragging his obviously weary body to my side. With a sharp inhale, he stumbles slightly, using the chest for support.

The camera turns back on, both of us immediately focus on it.

A man I don't recognize appears on the screen. "If anything should happen to us, I want Maximus to know and remember that Edipeis is a lie. No one who enters through those gates is guaranteed safety of any kind. Most of the children are selected because they are healthy, or fit the criteria for particular experiments. As a teacher I didn't know. They kept us in the dark."

The man pauses, his crazed eyes dart around the room. He drops his voice lower before speaking again. "I started noticing weird absences from my students ever since that new facility was built. They come back with no knowledge of where they've been and unexplained scars."

"My wife, Silva told me she found proof, said you, Maximus helped her locate it. She never came home, and I looked out the window to find her name on the execution board. We work for Edipeis, they promised us safety, full lives. It's a lie, everything is...."

The man froze, explosions and bright flashes of light filled the screen. He dropped the camera, fleeing as additional booted feet followed after.

"What was Maximus involved in on your world?" I ask, turning to Grayson. 

He averts his eyes, and focuses far too much attention on the floor."That man who was on the screen is Landon Dwides, the leader of the last civil war. It ended the year I was born, with the massacre of thousands."

Landon's words echo in my head. Maximus helped her locate it. "I think Maximus started the civil war. Why else would he be involved with its leaders? The question is why. Was he playing some hero and attempting a form of justice?"

"If he did, more harm than good came of it. Last year I went in with a similar mindset of changing things from the inside. Then woke up injured and alone. I just hope no one else has to suffer consequences for whatever I did." Grayson says and hangs his head low.

I reach down and grab his hand to give it a gentle squeeze, "If there weren't any bodies around where you were, I doubt you anyone got killed."

Guilt ebbs away at me, as I think of how confused and lost he must feel. He came here to run from death, only to have a someone else plotting his demise. Nothing that I see in him leads to any indication that he's lying about the memory loss. But I've been judging him, assuming he's guilty unless proven innocent.

"I'm sorry." I say, while maintaining eye contact.

I never noticed what beautiful color of dark green his eyes are. A rare and gorgeous color. He's tall, has curls, eyes that stand out, the perfect swoon worthy teen fiction boyfriend. Oof, did use the word boyfriend? Well, in teen fiction maybe, but in reality, this is a dude I barely know who has injuries that still need to be treated.

But if Maximus gets home soon he'll kill him... That's if he can find him.

I squeak as the bars on the door begin to raise. He's here.

"Do you trust me Grayson?" I ask quietly.

He glances between the door and me, panic starting to show in his expression. "More than most strangers from other worlds."

"I need you to get into the chest. And promise not to make a sound."