"We're going to the Miller's, you in?" Maggie Fisher asked, leaning across the lab bench, a pair of goggles hung around her neck. 

Her breath smelled like the mint gum she was chewing.

'We' was referring to Jess, Andy, Nat and possibly Susan, but ever since she'd joined the soccer cult they had been seeing her less and less.

"Sure." Caitlin replied.

"We're meeting up after school, Jess's driving," She spun on her heel, flouncing back to her group, long black hair swaying back and forth from its high ponytail. It was thin, reminding Caitlin, briefly, of a rats tail.

The Miller's was a long abandoned house on the edge of town. The windows were boarded and blocked by wood and cardboard, graffiti all over. The lot was covered in overgrown flowers and weeds the size of small trees.

A chain link fence surrounded the property but did little to ward off unwelcome visitors, it was easy enough to scale and even if that somehow wasn't the case at some point someone had cut a hole the size of a large dog

Jess parked down the hill, concealing the car in the bushes, still thick with green leaves.

They approached the house as a unit; Maggie in the front, leading the way, her arm linked to Andy, Jess beside Andy typing something quickly on her phone. Caitlin took up the rear and Nat hung back to walk with her.

For anyone curious, Susan was on the opposite end of town in the middle of a grassy soccer field running drills.

"Who wants to go down the rabbit hole first?" Maggie asked, hands on her hips when they reached the tear in the fence.

"Move." Jess shoved Maggie aside, not hard but enough to cause a stumble, leaping through head-first.

Maggie bound after her, sending Andy, still linked with her, tumbling down after the pair of them.

Nat and Caitlin watched them go, then looked at each other. Nat stepped back, gesturing for the other girl to go ahead.

This may be a good time to pause and explain how this odd little group of friends was formed.

They first came together in their second year of high school when they went on a field trip together, camping overnight at the nature reserve. Back then it had been Maggie and Jess, Andy and Caitlin and finally Nat and Susan.

Maggie was fairly bubbly and a popular girl at heart, she found conversation easy but stirring drama easier.

Jess had been friends with her since middle school but they only started actually hanging out after she got her drivers license.

Andy was quiet and awkward but also easily one of, if not the, smartest girl in their grade.

She and Caitlin used to spend their lunches in classrooms or the library, Andy would study and Caitlin would read. Each in their own little world.

Nat and Susan were very similar, they were both sporty tomboys, both had been rumoured to be gay and both had vehemently denied the label with Susan quickly getting a boyfriend almost out of spite (He's irrelevant by the way).

Susan had quietly been leaving the group for a while, which left Nat in an awkward spot for their senior year, with no one to really talk to within their circle. At least that's why everyone assumed she was so quiet.

Emerging from the fence/rabbit hole the girls found themselves in a garden of white, yellow and pink.

Caitlin plucked one of the white dandelions that had been growing up the fence. It was almost as big as her hand.

"Here!" Maggie called from up ahead. They shoved past the weeds to get to her. 

Nat swatted at her neck, feeling an ant crawling across her shoulders.

The group reformed in front of the side door. Jess tried the handle. It swung open, something that was just as lucky as it was unnerving.

The inside of the house was just as colourful as the outside and in just as terrible shape. Graffiti covered the walls as well as any other available surface.

There was no furniture, one wall between where they stood and the front door, a staircase that led to nowhere and a second set that sprawled down to the basement.

They didn't need to wonder what could be in the basement, there was a large hole in the ground that showed cement and broken glass bottles.

Andy backed up so she was pressed against the wall, as if the rest of the floor would cave in any second. Unfortunately for her, Maggie wasn't good at standing still and chose to continue moving.

"Come on!" She announced, cheerily. "David told me there was a bunch of old stuff saved down here!"

If Caitlin was listening she showed no sign of it, she was staring at the weed in hand. Mind leagues away from whatever was happening in the present.

Nat nudged the back of her elbow, urging her forward.

There was enough room for them to walk side by side without being at risk of falling through, but there was something sinister about it that made the girl want to keep her distance.

They filed down the stairs, wood, rickety and missing steps here and there. It was colder downstairs, and the air smelled wet.

There were random patches of water on the ground where the floor was uneven.

Andy separated from Maggie and put a hand on one of the walls, it was brick and rough to the touch. She walked the border of the square room, tracing a line with her fingers.

A set of boxes were gathered in the darkest corner, blocking off a long stretch of wall.

They wasted no time looking through, tearing the wood and cardboard down from the stack to explore what of its contents they could get into.

Maggie lifted each of her prizes, showing them off one by one to anyone paying attention. A plastic silver crown, an old striped shirt, a bent spoon, a clock missing three of the numbers and other junk.

Caitlin had taken a box for herself but was distracted by something she found much more interesting. What the boxes had been concealing in the first place.

The mirror was old. The frame was some kind of metal with old figures carved into it, fairies, nymphs, queens, and warnings. Long thin cracks spiralled down the length of it, separating into thinner spiderwebs.

Caitlin moved closer, getting a better look at her reflection.

The glass was dirty but she could still make out her appearance, curly brown hair that stopped just above her shoulders and bangs that had been cut much too short.

She could also see Nat behind her, sorting through a collection of empty bottles with Jess hovering over her shoulder.

There was something else there too. Something that wasn't in this room.

It wasn't easy to see, it was like looking at two images layered over one another.

Caitlin stepped closer, trying to make sense of it. Temporarily possessed, captured within the mystery of this strange sheet of glass.

That's it, The mirror breathed. Almost there, just a little closer now,

"Caitlin?" Someone called, but their voice was so distant and blurred and distorted, it was as though she were hearing them from underwater.

She gazed deeper into her reflection. 

Her eyes snapped wide. She could see it now! In the mirror, it was a castle!

Tall twisting towers covered in vines and flowers she didn't recognize. It was hidden between two mountains and a forest of glowing lights.

In the sky she could see a dragon lazily flying around, stretching its wings in the light of the golden sun.

Caitlin reached forward, fingers just barely grazing the glass. It was warm and alive. In a knee-jerk reaction she tried to pull away.

Then the world twisted sideways and she was falling.

From her friends perspective Caitlin had just been eaten by a mirror.

They had a variety of reactions.

Andy screamed, Jess dropped one of the bottles in shock, Maggie cupped her mouth, and finally, Nat, in an act of blind bravery, ran for the mirror, leaping through headfirst after her friend.