Autumn was released from the hospital, but even when she got home she was still passing in and out of a relentless nightmare. Her eyes had only opened a few times, but even then she wasn't completely there. They would look past everything but nothing at once- like something beyond our world and nothing that could be conjured by our own matter was calling to her.

My mother said that Autumn simply had the flu- something passed down from the bat.

But after what happened yesterday, I knew that wasn't the case. Maybe the being that had possessed her yesterday was speaking to her internally.

I honestly had no clue. I stopped asking questions last night and made no effort to remove the blanket I draped across my mirror a few days ago. My brain was in shock and made every effort to block out any further questions or concerns. And honestly, I didn't mind. Being momentarily oblivious finally enabled me to have the first good night's sleep I had after seeing the blue orb.

It's true what they say. Ignorance is bliss.

The delicate scratching of my pencil against the vast whiteness of paper helped clear my mind. All that mattered now were the gentle strokes of the line curving up to meet the head of the beast I encountered yesterday. With a quick brush of my hand, I cleared any eraser crumbs and blew the rest away, holding the picture above the homework I had to do and looking at my finished piece under the light on my desk. It was exactly how I remembered it- a towering, skeletal shadow with fingers that whipped around in the air like wisps of string but with the edge of sharpened steel, an open, sinister tear at the bottom of it's head that acted as a wicked grin, and lengthy legs that stretched across the floor and into infinity.

Now that I transferred my memory onto paper and could look at it for a while longer, the more the monstrous figure matched the shadows that attacked me in my childhood nightmares.

But why was I seeing them again? It had almost been ten years, and it was in plain daylight. I had also been fully awake, and the spirit mentioned that 'they' were coming.

Before I was able to wander any further into that path of unanswerable questions, I took my mind off it by sketching my sister when she was possessed by the mysterious being, propped upright in bed with legs crossed- leaning in with intrigue yet picking at Autumn's nails with disinterest.

Most of the shading was done in black and white, but I took a red colored pencil and filled in the eyes. Chills fevered my body as my drawing reminded me of all I went through yesterday.

Kalum. Jodah. I was Kalum, which could only mean that my sister was Jodah. Those seemed to be the names that we were given. And the colors, what did they have to do with anything? Once I punched Julian, I noticed that my arm was glowing blue. Before the spirit inhabited Autumn's body, my sister was radiating with an orange light.

"Matthew!" My mother hollered from the bottom steps of the stairs, "Aren't you going to eat?"

The frantic ticking hands of my desk clock suddenly caught my attention, and apparently I ended up drawing from early morning to late noon. Time passed way faster than I anticipated, but I honestly wished it would go faster. Sleeping at night was the only way to relieve me from the constant cycle of mystery and questioning, but I guess a good bowl of hot soup would do for now.

So I yelled back to my mom to let her know I was coming down and trotted down the steps to see a steaming bowl of chicken noodle soup waiting for me on the kitchen counter. Usually, I don't like soup, but due to the recent and foggy weather the idea of it seemed alright.

"After you're done, bring a bowl of soup up to your sister." mindlessly muttered my mother as she rustled around in the kitchen cleaning things up.

Setting my hands around the bowl and enjoying the warmth radiating from it, I stared up at my mother incredulously. "She's still asleep."

"I know that."

Whatever. Shrugging my shoulders and digging into the soup with my spoon, I mindlessly started eating away and thought about other things- homecoming, my friend Sean, and what we were going to do after. We would usually go to IHOP with the crew, but I kind of wanted to do something new. Anyways, it was a good week and a half away. I don't see how I was worrying about it- especially after all that was happening now.

Hell, I didn't even have a date yet. My spoon hovered mid-air as I let the daunting matter churn around in my brain.

I could go solo, since I had never really cared to look for date material after Sarah, but all my other friends had dates. Screw it, I'd be fine. If anything, I would find someone to dance with when I got there.

Finishing up the thought, I pulled the spoon up to my lips but abruptly pulled it away once noticing how cold it was- the broth jumping out from my spoon and splattering all over my lap. The soup wasn't luke-warm, it was freezing like it had been sitting in the refrigerator this whole entire time. My eyes widened as I backed my seat away from the table and wildly looked around the room.

I couldn't have been thinking about homecoming this whole entire time, was I?

The clock showed that it had only been a minute, but I could swear that a few seconds ago the soup was searing hot.

Wandering my watchful gaze over to my mother, who was still laboring away at the sink and cleaning all the dirty dishes, I skillfully went around the table and snuck over to the microwave so I could warm up my bowl. While I was at it, I peered over at the pot on the stove and noticed that it was still boiling, despite that there was no heat. Odd.

Once it was ready, I took it out, expecting it to be steaming, but instead it was cold.

Still staring down at the bowl, I called out to my mom questioningly. "Mom?"

"Yes, Matt?"

"Is the microwave working?" I asked with a slight pause of hesitation.

She turned around looking at me quite confused. "Yeah, it should. I just warmed up my breakfast this morning. Why?"

The cold bowl of soup in my hands numbed my fingers as I held it, and it was almost as if it was reminding me how odd and abnormal this was- abnormal like the blue orb I tried to show my mother a few days ago. She didn't believe me then. If she was unable to feel how cold this was, I would start getting her concerned. She would prod me for answers that I knew she wouldn't understand, and then she would get a third party involved, who would then deem me insane.

No, it couldn't happen like that. For once, I finally knew how to handle the situation. The mysterious spirit told me only four, including my sister and I, were involved in this 'prophecy', and after seeing how my mom couldn't see the orb in the picture- even when it was clear as day- I could only assume that it was only the four of us who could see these phenomenons.

I smiled at my mother. "No, nothing. It's just so old, you know?" And as casually as I could, I lifted up my bowl and drank it all to dispose of any evidence.

The answer seemed to be good enough for her because she nodded along and turned back to washing the dishes, extending her hand out and taking my bowl from me. "Yeah, it's pretty old, isn't it? But as long as it's still kicking, we're using it."

"Of course. Of course." I agreed. It was our family mentality- to never dispose of anything until it was absolutely useless, rusted, and completely broken.

While most families transferred over to those flat screens that are said to disappear when you look at them from the side, we still had our black, humpback TV. It's almost a relic. The Parker tweens that Autumn babysits once every two weeks seem to think so. It's always on their snapchat story.

"Take this tray up to Autumn, please. And take care of your sister. I'll be leaving to the store in a few minutes."

I nodded, took the tray, and before I carefully ascended the stairs I thanked her for the meal. But once I was out of sight, all the questions I tried to bat off all morning came back. There were only four of us who could see all these strange things. So far, it was only me and my sister. We were hardly adults and clueless on how to defend ourselves. What if the other two were our age as well?

Who would we ask for help?

Of course, the spirit yesterday sort of helped me out by giving me riddled answers, but even then I didn't feel completely comfortable with trusting that thing. It possessed my sister at one point. Anything with red eyes that uses humans as hosts does not exactly stand out as something with good character.

I was worrying again. Fear would not do anything with this situation, so I tried my best to shake it off and enter Autumn's room by ramming my back against her door.

"Autumn!" I exclaimed happily once I saw her sitting up in bed and reading up on some of the assignments she missed yesterday. Autumn weakly smirked back at me, and I didn't hesitate to quickly set the tray of food on her lap and take seat on the floor by her bed. All my fear dissipated the moment I sat in the room with my sister- even though for the beginning half she was silent and eating.

Mostly, I was glad to have someone I trusted going through the same crazy things I was. The most stressful part about Tuesday afternoon- seeing the blue orb- was doubting myself and reality itself.

It was just nice to be around my sister at this time in general, even though she was making me slave away at her every request. Autumn didn't even have to ask for me to take her dishes away. Like royalty, she simply nodded as a signal for me to take the tray off her lap and set it on her dresser.

But before I could sit back down, Autumn let out a small cough and pointed a limp hand towards her door. "Can you close that? Seems like a cold draft followed you into my room." She laughed with her voice groggy and torn.

Though I didn't really understand what she was talking about, since the room seemed to be the same luke-warm temperature it was before I walked in, I closed it for her.

"And Matt, how long was that soup sitting around for?" Autumn asked again with another broken chuckle.

I made a face before I shook my head and laughed along with her- confused. "It hasn't been sitting around at all. I mean, yeah, maybe. Like for a minute or so, but it was pretty hot when I brought it up here."

Her face fell into a sour and peeved scowl. "Matt, this is no time for pranks. I'm freakin' sick. Those noodles were borderline frozen."

My eyebrows popped up to my forehead in surprise. "What are you talking about? Autumn, the bowl was literally steaming when I brought it up here. And if it was frozen, why the hell did you eat it and not tell me?"

Autumn was unamused and crossed her arms in front of her chest. "I was hungry and didn't want you going all the way back downstairs to reheat it. I know you already knew and was just getting back at me for dying your hair. But to be honest, you look better as a brunette than a blonde-"

"Wait, hold up." I interrupted and went back to the dresser to hold the bowl in my hands. "It's cold."

"Good job, Sherlock, with solving your own prank."

"No. Autumn, I'm serious. Something weird is happening." Her mouth dropped as I said this, and this time she began to realize that this was something more than a petty sibling argument.

Autumn attempted to get out of bed to see for herself, but I rushed over to her with the bowl and watched her face carefully as she laid her hand along the side of it. Her honey brown eyes seemed to widen in fear, and she quickly withdrew her hand and slipped it under her leg to warm her fingers.

Both of us feared to say anything, but enough words were exchanged when she looked back up at me- eyes widened with uncertainty. But her concerned gaze soon turned into something of horror, and the corner of her lips fell and her arms nervously shuffled behind her like she was trying to distance herself away from danger.

"Matt-"

I spun around and looked at the wall, to see if there was a monstrous shadow looming behind me, but there were only Autumn's pastel pink walls and decade old posters worn at the edges and peeling away.

"Matt, you are glowing blue."

Again, with the colors. Like how a cool breeze seemed to emit out from Autumn yesterday, I must have brought this cold draft Autumn mentioned earlier. But before she became possessed, her body shimmered with a strange, orange aura. If I was to go through the same exact thing that she went through, I only had a few seconds left. Breathing hard and feeling my body tingle with alarm, I made sure to put as much distance between my sister and I as possible.

"Autumn!" I shouted desperately, "Get away from me, quick!"

The spirit that inhabited Autumn may have been friendly, but who knows what this being had in store. I was not ready for this in any sense- to experience what would happen to me if something else inhabited my body. Would my spirit or mind just dissipate into oblivion until I could regain my body?

Though she didn't have much strength, she managed to scramble out of her bed and limp towards the door. Her knuckles, gripping the wall for support, were white like her terror-stricken eyes. "What the hell is going on?"

I just started to notice how frigidly bitter the room had gotten after Autumn noticed that I was glowing. And as I called out to answer her, a plume of smoke escaped my mouth and floated up to the ceiling of her room. In awe, my eyes followed it up and then fluttered down the the carpet. There should have been snow; it was cold like winter.

Winter. That was it.

Everything I had touched turned cold today, which would mean that I had something associated with the season winter, and the chilly breeze and yellow leaf following Autumn around yesterday must have meant that she had something associated with the season fall. We were involved with two other people that would represent the two other seasons. That's why there were four of us. Four humans for seasons.

How could I have been so stupid and not caught onto this sooner? Blue for winter and orange for fall, of course! So much more of it began to make sense.

However, I had to share my ill-timed epiphone with Autumn as soon as I could. A daunting numbness quickly crawled up from my feet to my head once my vision progressively transitioned into pure darkness. But as I tried to speak and gather my thoughts, they were pulled apart at the seams and left like disconnected strands in the midst of a black void. With all my power, I tried pulling them back together, but an invisible force seemed to come right through the middle and tear them apart.

"Winter. Fall. Seasons." I grunted out with the last of my strength, in hopes that Autumn was still in the room.

"What does that even mean? Matt, what's happening? Are you okay?" My sister was panicking, just like I did when I saw her eyes turn red. I wonder if it would be the same being. Hopefully, Autumn would gather herself and do what was most important right now- ask questions to find out what was happening to us.

"Seasons!" I exclaimed and repeated with a roar until I no longer had a voice or thoughts of my own.

* * *

Time itself ceased to exist- not even a empty chasm of endless darkness kept my company. My eyes opened the moment they closed, except I ended up being on the opposite side of the room with my back to the floor.

Air slowly filled my chest, and although I did not recall losing any time the warmth flooding back through my body and my heart pounding soundly in my chest was foreign to me. Even having substance in my lungs so that it expand felt odd. As I was processing breathing like I was doing it for the first time all over again, I felt my sister's hands slide under my back and help scoop me into a sitting position.

"Matthew!" She clambered nervously and patted my face to shake me from this daze. "Are you back?"

Closing my eyes and trying to refocus them on Autumn, I stared groggily at her four heads. I squinted again and reduced the hazy world around me into double vision. "Autumn?" I croaked.

"Oh my god, you are back." She wailed as she threw her arms around me and embraced me with a choking hug. "Your eyes were icy blue, your voice changed, and you- I mean he- was speaking about things I didn't understand-"

I clasped my sister's shoulders and pulled her back so I could look her eye to eye. "What did he say?"

Autumn let out a scoff of surprise. "Is that what really matters to you right now? You were freaking possessed, and I thought you were dead. You were so cold. None of this is making any sense now."

She could not have been more right about that, but we had to do our best to find out. We were stuck in this hell of a situation and the only 'quit' option would be to die- that was the vibe I got from this whole thing.

"You were possessed too, back at the hospital. However, your eyes were red and the voice was female." I said quietly. I didn't really know where I was going with this statement. Instead of answering her questions, it was only making more.

I was right when I thought Autumn would explode in anger. "So I was possessed too and you never told me about it?" She hollered with her voice squeaking in horror at the end.

My hands involuntary went up in defense to shield me from her flailing arms. "Autumn, calm down. This is the first time I had seen you awake; I would have told you soon enough. I just didn't expect this to happen."

Autumn let out an impatient sigh, wringing out her hands in distress. "What the hell are we supposed to do? He said the door has been open to darkness, but we must protect ourselves from our own reflections. And he wouldn't stop talking about the 'Other' or something. It literally repeated, 'Spill its blood to fix what is broken. If it spills its own, a certain death of one', twice. Matt, I can't stress enough how creepy this all is."

Creepy was not even where I would begin to describe these chilling series of events. I didn't know whether we should take any of these pieces of scrambled advice literally or metaphorically. And what was up with all the spilling and taking of blood?

However, I pondered more on the first part of information. "I was told that yesterday too, to avoid our reflections. But then it left because something was coming, which ended up being this unimaginably disturbing shadow. But I was pretty tired-"

My sister's face paled at the mention of it. "Those." She muttered quietly. "Matt, you remember the imaginary nightmares you and I suffered from as children. I'm afraid they aren't imaginary after all. They were what attacked me."

That couldn't be right. It shouldn't. If they were, it could only mean that even before we knew what was going on we were already involved in this messed up reality- perhaps being watched the whole entire time. It gave me chills just thinking about it.

"So the scratches all over your arms and legs were when they were trying to grab you?" I asked with a pause of hesitation.

In all honesty, I was afraid to hear the answer. But with Autumn's reluctant nod, I grew to understand how critically in danger we were. "But they aren't just limited to the night," I added in growing panic, "I saw one in plain daylight. And when this spirit told you that a door had been opened to darkness, this has to be it. It would explain why we haven't seen them after so many years."

"Reflections." My sister stated as a revelation dawned on her. "Mirrors."

Both my sister and I warily turned our heads towards her dresser mirror, which stood completely uncovered. When we were children and used to chase the shadows away by shuffling them back to the mirror and later covering every inch of it with a blanket, it was not simply child's play. We were somehow able to discover that was the way to defeat and avoid them as kids, and to think if we hadn't was horrifying. But thinking of what might have happened was the least of our concerns right now. We had to find out how to cover Autumn's mirror, but to cover it now seemed to be out of utter paranoia. I had already stooped so low under fear; I was tired of being so weak, helpless, and afraid.

I lowered my voice into a hush. "Should we cover it?" I asked with uncertainty.

"Why take the damn chance?" Autumn snapped and almost broke her whisper. "He said do not trust our reflection, so we don't trust mirrors. And we know that covering it helps. We should do it."

Then reluctantly, I followed Autumn to the corner of her room, where she grabbed a spare blanket and and tossed one corner of the blanket to me. Our backs remained towards the mirror, but I felt a strong urge to look back and see if there was anything creeping up behind us. Something was watching us. The hair on the nape of my neck standing on edge was telling me so.

Without my sister's consent, I spun around and stared at the mirror, only greeted by my own scraggly reflection- tall as a toothpick, awkwardly tan from the summer, and a narrow face with a mess of brown hair on top. There were no shadows leaping out towards us. There was only my reflection staring back at me and the mirroring image of Autumn crouched over, trying to untangle the blanket she chosen from a pile of other unfolded blankets.

I should have been helping her, but the mirror had me entranced. Awe, wonder, and curiosity overwhelmed my senses as I stared longer at my reflection, and adrenaline quickly pumped through my veins knowing that there was danger involved. It was a fascination of horror- like wandering to the very edge of a cliff and peering down at the ground way, way below.

Mirrors had always interested me. Sometimes, with how they catch the depth of our world, it was like another replicate dimension that lives by an alternate reality existed behind it. My sister had told me my thoughts on mirrors were ridiculous, but authors like Lewis Carroll seemed to have the same idea. But to finally know that mirrors were somewhat a gateway was terrifying but oddly satisfying my lifelong fascination and imagination about them.

What was behind them- or in them?

Autumn had finally turned around, and through the mirror I could see her face pale and fall aghast. Her hand quickly reached out for my shoulder and spun me around.

"What were you thinking?" Autumn hissed quietly, like all hell would break lose if she didn't keep quiet.

"I just-" I paused. I didn't even know myself.

Instead of finishing my answer and explaining myself, I went silent and began helping her with taking the other corner of the blanket.

We were just about to cover it until Autumn paused and tilted her head as she looked into the mirror. Now that we knew there was something odd about reflections and we should avoid them, something about the mirror and the new meaning behind them was captivating and intriguingly mysterious. Maybe there was something drawing us too it, like a moth to a flame.

I let her stare for a while. I didn't see the hurt in it. After all, I took some time to delve into my own mind and ponder what could be behind it that was so dangerous, but she seemed to stare at it for a little too long.

"Something is off." She said with her voice faltering.

Curving my eyebrows, I leaned in to see what she was looking at. Everything looked normal at first glance, but when I looked more at Autumn's reflection something was off. Yet I couldn't tell what. However, it was only when I looked back at my sister that I noticed her reflection was a lot paler than how she actually was. I used myself to contrast, but I looked exactly the same.

What the hell?

We stared at it for a moment longer, but then her reflection snapped into a toothy, demented grin without Autumn smiling herself.

"Cover it!" I screamed in alarm, and we frantically did our best to pull the blanket over the dresser, but Autumn's reflection drew closer as to attack us and stuck it's arm out from the mirror, which molded it's seemingly two-dimensional appearance into a long, skeletal arm covered in chunky tar and sappy, black oil.

Despite our best efforts, the arm demonstrated inhuman strength and held the blanket open so that a myriad of black shapes flew out and traveled across the walls. They looked exactly like the shadow I had encountered in the hospital and had drawn on my paper, except there were more of them. They had Autumn and I surrounded, and the tears across their faces were all sneering up at us.

The hand that held the blanket open soon retreated back and slipped away, and we were left with these beings crouching, sneering, and mocking us.

I had no idea what they were going to do or what they wanted, but I knew we were in danger.

Autumn and I kept quiet as we slowly retreated to the center of the room. "I don't think they can reach us here." I whispered quietly. From what I remember, they could only travel across the walls and ceiling.

My sister didn't respond. She remained petrified, making quick glances around the room to take a count of how many were around us. There were nine, and they clearly outranked us in numbers and strength. Although they looked sickly skeletal, their long wispy fingers that had edges like knives looked like it could cut right through us if they somehow managed to reach out and catch us. And if my memories served me right, they could at some points.

"There are eight of them." Autumn finally managed to whisper while she leaned into me. "I think if we can cause a distraction, make a break for it, and run outside. There will be no walls for them to travel across on there."

I gave my sister a quizzical look. "Eight? I counted nine."

Silence ate away at us as I twisted my head to recount them once more. Eight. However, I swear there was nine.

"Matthew!" My sister screeched and pointed to the floor.

My eyes immediately followed her finger and found a shadow stretching along the floor, reaching out to us with its crooked and wavy tendrils. A wicked, large smirk loomed up at us when it reached out took a hold of Autumn's ankle; its black, tar oozing fingers wrapped around her leg like tentacles to secure a grip. For a brief moment, it's head popped out from the floor and let out an ear-splitting scream of victory and command.

This whole time Autumn was screaming too, and I started to notice that the other shadows disappeared from the walls and began to stretch and grow along the floor.

Before I could help her or grab anything in hopes to bat at the monster's fingers and make them release my sister, they started to drag her across the floor. One by one, their fingers tore scrapes and cuts into Autumn's skin, and she howled after each one.

Without thinking, I dove after her and quickly scrambled to my feet and stopped on them, which seemed to do something but very little.

"Let her go!" I demanded. I felt absolutely helpless and afraid at the same time, but in my head I kept wishing over and over again how I could just wash their horrid figures off the floor in one sudden sweep, to erase them like I could erase lead from paper, to freeze the monsters themselves and shatter their image.

However, my dreaming and wishing did nothing.

They were dragging my sister closer and closer to the wall, and trying to pull Autumn against them would only make the cuts on her body deeper and more lethal.

I was absolutely helpless, and everything that I was doing was not working. Falling back behind, I fell on my knees and pounded the floor out of frustration and anger. I kept apologizing to my sister because I didn't know what to do. I kept apologizing because whatever would happen to her was all on me. However, when Autumn's screaming reduced to moaning, I looked up and found the monsters scrambling across the walls without hands and a shadow writhing across the wall missing a torso. It looked like their missing parts were shattered like ice.

Also, none of them were reaching up from the ground. They were temporarily disarmed.

Not taking a moment to breathe, I ran to the mirror and swatted them towards it. Some didn't even have to wait for me to scare them off. They willingly retreated themselves, and once all nine of them were in I wrapped the mirror with the blanket and rushed to Autumn's side.

She took a lot of damage, and she wasn't saying much. She was wounded terribly and blood seeped out from the gashes across her clothes.

"Autumn," I muttered nervously while patting her cheek to keep her conscious, "I'm so sorry. Hang in there. I'm going to call an ambulance right now. Please, stay with me." I pleaded that over and over again, but my sister wasn't completely there.

Her eyes would flutter heavily and momentarily close, but she seemed to fight off the darkness by squinting her eyes and focus on the ceiling.

Cradling my sister's head in my arms, I grabbed my phone from my pocket, but I couldn't stop shaking to dial 9-1-1. My fingers wouldn't press the right keys, and I would have to go back and retype over and over again. Why couldn't I stop shaking? The fear was over now. I had to get help or else she could lose too much blood.

"I'm getting help, Autumn. They're almost here. Just stay with me for a few minutes." I begged again, noticing that her eyes were growing heavy and closing more often.

Though I had finally managed to dial the number, my gut seemed to be pulled towards the direction of the window- like my being itself was attached to a string. My senses were harnessed down to that exact location outside like I was there and here at once. I could feel the cold, fall air of outside nipping at my skin but the stable, luke-warm temperature of our house warming me on the outside.

I slowly stood up to my feet to see what was outside, and there it was: the blue orb.

"Nine-one-one, what's your emergency?"

My mouth fell open in surprise, and I stared at it in shock. The blue orb flared out a bit and bobbed impatiently in the air with urgency- almost like it was calling me to come over.

"Hello?" The dispatcher called out hesitantly.

The voice drew me back into reality, and I looked down at my phone to speak.

"Kalum." A deep voice rumbled from around me. "Come. Bring your sister. She must be healed now. Let us help her."

The other voice caught me off guard, and despite what should have been an easy choice I was torn. Although I had been shown time and time again that this unrealistic nightmare was real, I was afraid to believe it was. What if I carried my sister out and discovered that I had just been insane this whole entire time? I was only wasting time, and I should just go with the ambulance.

No. My sister was torn up and in this mess because of a beast that shouldn't exist. The blue orb was there, and it will help. It has helped before, so I apologized to the dispatcher, hung up, carried Autumn as best I could, and ran to it.

On the way there, I kept scolding myself for this reckless decision, but I somehow knew that the blue orb will help.

It had to. 

A/N: The picture is Matt's unfinished drawing of the shadows that are after him. (Keep note that's actually my horrendous drawing job. My dear Matt is 10x more talented. I can't do him justice xP)

Yessss, so whatchya' guys thinking? Any of this making sense? Is it still intriguing?

Comments will help 😂. Stars much appreciated 😅😉.

Love you guys. Thanks for all the support! ❤😚❤