2.

It rained the day Kay Mitchell buried her husband. No matter what any report said or what anyone told her, there was absolutely no way Darren Mitchell took his own life. No matter too on any debate that can relate as to how well can anyone really know anyone else, Kay knew in her heart and her soul that someone else or something else was responsible for her husband's death. There is no way to prove a feeling, she didn't completely need to prove anything, knowing is what really matters.

Coming home for a first time with her daughter and to a home without her husband was not like coming home at all, a home now just a house and nothing more. Her own mind will not let her forget that her husband is dead and if for any reason it does let up even for the briefest of moments then the house will bring the fact right back that Darren died here, or more precisely was murdered here.

On her first day home as a widow and with baby Anna resting, Kay stands in front of a bathroom mirror. Her reflection is dark and dull; she definitely does not look like a well woman. Still, the reflection shows enhanced deterioration.

With her thoughts constantly on her husband and with an unruly reflection ominously staring back at her, a memory returns, the memory of meeting Darren for the very first time or more precisely the memory of what came right before their meeting. Of course, too, Kay was present for the birth of her daughter, so she knew of what happened, not the why, with the lighting. She knew not of what Darren went through during the hour or two before his death so she couldn't really relate much with his death or connect it to the memory she is about to recall.

Odd however, and not that she could know an oddness, the home hallway mirror with which she looks into is perfectly fine and not cracked or shattered like Darren had been sure it had become moments before his death.

The surfacing memory ... on a rain-soaked day six years prior to a funeral, Kay ducked into a café to get in out of that rain more than anything else and she was to have her own mirror incident. She headed straight for the toilets to dry herself off, and as she looked into the large rectangular mirror, which can be found in many a place like this, to sort out her hair is when things began to get a little different, a little dark.

The reflected room began to darken while the room itself remained quite bright. She looked around to try understand this and though her reflection mirrored her movements it seemed to do so less enthusiastically than how she was actually moving. Her reflection matched but didn't too as if a ratio is off. If she moved five inches, her reflection appeared to move four.

Then something took over, something about the reflection took over as if it hadn't already done so. Kay's reflection was no longer her; the mirror reflected a doppelganger, something that seemed more like an evil twin. It hardly moved, stopped directly reflecting as Kay herself watched the bottom left of the mirror crack, cutting off the corner from the rest of the mirror.

This happened again only to the top left corner before repeating again at the bottom right corner and then the top right corner. That's it. Kay is not hanging around any longer; she doesn't even want to tell of what she witnessed once she is out. She only wants to go home now no matter how hard the rain outside is coming down.

Kay came rushing out of the toilet area and went crashing into a stranger the instant she exited back into the main café area. She fell to the floor, stayed there for a few seconds and looked, to her crash accomplice at least, to be as lost as lost can be.

'Miss' he says reaching for her arm to aid her. 'Are you alright ...?' he is about to ask but is completely taken aback by how she suddenly turns to look up at him. It's like a moment out of a horror movie as her look is temporarily frightening to the point in which she looks possessed. He takes a step back and for a second or two he goes into his own lost mode.

She soon comes round, a little at least, before reaching for his hand which is still slightly outstretched. He aids her up sure that whatever momentarily took a hold of her has gone. She is uneasy on her feet, so he sits her down at the nearest available table.

'Miss, is everything OK? Can you tell me if something is wrong?'

'Over there' she says pointing shakily but not looking towards the ladies' room.

He looks over to where she is pointing, pauses a moment before deciding to go check it out. Had this lady been attacked? If she had, is her attacker still in there? He cautiously enters the ladies' toilet area, opens each stall individually and sees nothing out of the ordinary, no cracks in the room's mirror. A couple others have stayed with the lady who appears more receptive when he returns to her.

'What was it you saw in there, Miss? Did someone harm you?'

She looks at him and doesn't answer.

'Would you like something to drink, Miss? Coffee perhaps?'

She nods and he puts an order in for two coffees and sits back along with that lady. He, off course, so happens to be Darren Mitchell and this is how he and Kay met. She never spoke of what happened in the café ladies' room, well not with him anyhow. Perhaps she had completely forgotten what happened in that rest room on that day until now as she relives the memory in the bathroom of her home. Yeah, it may be a trauma she had locked away until she had a moment to remember it.

If what she remembers is truth, then what is she to do with that truth? Does it connect with her husband's death in any way? More importantly, especially now, does it connect with her daughter in any way? It surely can't connect with her daughter with it being a moment from so long ago. As it is having newly become a mother, there is so much she cannot possibly know. Something else she could not have known, on the day of the café incident and meeting Darren for the first time, the member of staff who brings the coffee's to where Kay and Darren sits so happened to be a lady by the name of Tanya Ferguson.

Over the next few months following her husband's death, Kay Mitchell is extremely protective of her daughter; possibly unnatural protective of her and in years to come there is no wrong little Anna can do in her mother's eyes.

That day of the funeral however, as the burial was occurring, Kay noticed it for the first time, a shadow moving freely. She could feel its presence, its desire, its intent. She could see it moving with ease and without restriction. This is what took her husband, she is sure of it and now it is coming for her daughter, coming for who Anna is rather that to take her life or hurt her in any way. Kay is not having it no matter if this shadow figure too has a claim on the child, even if the shadow in its own right can claim the child as a daughter.

Kay Mitchell is Human, a mere mortal, what kind of say can she have in denying Darkness what he wants. Mortals aren't completely benign, not at all. They ... we aren't always powerless to the supernatural even when it comes to the most powerful of beings.