I was alone. I thought.
I stood in front of the mirror in the bathroom,
Facing an image I've grown to loathe, yet love.
And suddenly, I noticed something.

A crack.
In the glass?
No...
In my eyes.

The room fell away, as though it was nothing but mist and light. And the man I faced was me, but not me.
Same stained hands.
Same undefined face.
But, shattered eyes.

And he looked at me and smiled,
A single tear rolling down his cheek.
He brushed it away with the tip of his thumb,
But where he touched, his skin turned black.

He closed his eyes, and the dark overtook him.
Starting from that smudge on his cheek.
His ears lengthened, his body became a silhouette, pure void,
But as his hair grew, it turned as white as paper, clouds, snow.
And when he opened his eyes, as white as his hair,
His third eye opened, too.
And he smiled, with teeth of equal white.

He was... everything. And nothing.
Loud and quiet,
Light and dark,
All of a sudden, and never at all.

I called him Paradox.
He called himself Another.

He spread his hand, and a white orb appeared.
A perfect circle, hovering without the slightest bounce to it,
So smooth, you could almost imagine it didn't exist.
Yet, there it was.

He raised his hand, then spun it like that of a clock,
And many more appeared, floating in a circle behind him.
He held out the one he had summoned to me,
Smiling.

And then, I woke.