Mirrors are unique things aren't they? Just a simple piece of glass, when you think about it, with a silver backing, and nothing more. So you would think. People can't walk past one without a glance at least. Mirrors have been held as a sacred object, holy and used to tempt out a sulking goddess. If nothing else a person can become so absorbed in studying their reflection in a mirror that time seeps past them l

Like what? Locke thought, pausing in his typing to flip through the spiral bound notebook he wrote down ideas in for his writings. Sometimes it was just a sentence or two, simple words that he wanted to fit into a lyric for Eaan's latest song. Usually Locke was an organized guy, but when it came to the stories, poems, and lyrics he wrote he was all over the place.

He was working on a short story, a horror one specifically. The idea had come when he noticed how many pictures he had of his siblings covering up his mirror now that he had chopped off his hair. Something about mirrors showing monsters, half truths... His plot was slipping away from him and he needed to find where he had written down the rough idea.

Krisz was watching a promising your writer type away on his laptop, furiously, as real professionals do. He clicked his tongue in time with the typing, and followed the words appearing mysteriosuly on the screen, straight out of the guy's imagination. Pure magic.

The bookstore's resident ghost (who brought in almost as many customers as the vampire fiction section) did not even stop to think about reading something so private as a story in progress. He might have, if he had a body, but he was all too glad to leave that behind and float around instead, and in the past months it seemes that together with his physical self, his ethics tended to slip away as well.

Also, it was a promising start for a story. He wanted to find out the rest. and he could have, if the young writerhad not run into a writer's block. Uh.

"... seeps past them like water drips from a faucet left unattended." he chuckled, because he just couldn't help himself "Just kidding. Sorry. Keep up the good work."

"Too cliche," Locke grumbled to the voice, pondering over what he meant by dinosaur fish. Maybe that had been something Eaan had said to describe a song. The problem was that he had to think up a simile and it was breaking up the flow. So far what he had written had an analytical touch to it, and the simile was more poetic. It irritated him that someone had been reading over his shoulder and came up with something halfway decent. Mirrors, bathrooms, sinks, faucets... Locke could see the connection, but he hadn't been the one to think of it first. "Would you mind," he said, turning in the direction of the voice, and realizing that he was talking to air, started to simmer down, "Not reading over my...

The momentum lost he stared at the empty space. Then he looked up. Nobody had been standing behind him, he knew that for sure with one foot on the floor. That left either someone in the air or the possibility that he was hearing voices. "Hell no, I got over my insanity."

>>"Too cliche,"

Krisz huffed. Was the boy calling his idea a cliché? Well, damn. Not like he had any bright ideas himself.

>>"Would you mind, Not reading over my..."

He turned. Krisz chuckled. There, that's what you get for calling the idea cliché. You get haunted by a bodyless voice. Take that, creative mind.

>>"Hell no, I got over my insanity."

"Apparently you did not" he pointed out in a friendly manner "You are still writing. What is it if not insanity, hm? Anyway. If you mean me, I can assure you, you are not insane. I am real."

As real a voice can get. Unfortunately, there was no one else around to vouche for that.

Did the voice Locke was hallucinating just huff at him? Hearing voices is one thing, but to imagine that they are angry at you was another. It meant not only had you gone insane, you also didn't even want to be around yourself. Actually, when put that way, it sounded a great deal like Locke. "Every script is a tiny revolution," he whispered hoarsely to the voice after a minute of silence on his part, "To paraphrase Orwell." Writing wasn't a form of insanity, it was a way to keep it from happening. Isn't that why therapists always suggest keeping a diary to addicts?

"You aren't real or I'd sense you," Locke argued with the voice. Oh great, now not only was the hallucination prone to be agitated, but he was fighting back with it. Kendra would be happy to know that he was slipping, it would give her an excuse to bring him back to San Francisco.

>> "Every script is a tiny revolution. To paraphrase Orwell."

Oh yeah. The kid was a dork. Great minds, and all that. Krisz chuckled again.

>>"You aren't real or I'd sense you,"

"You are sensing me" he pointed that out "You hear me. I am sound. I am the voice of the unseen, I am the ghost in the shelf. Didn't you know this place was haunted?"

Some people knew, and some people didn't. It was good for marketing the bookstore. People who loved dark fiction and horror enjoyed buying it in a place that was potentially haunted. The easiest job Krisz had ever had. Much better than writing.

"Hearing isn't sensing," he argued. Well technically it was, since hearing is one of the five senses, but Locke didn't mean sense like that. What he meant is that the voice left no print on the ground, nothing that he could 'see'. Locke's earth sense didn't lie. It just told him the truth.

"Oh no I've insulted the long departed spirit of a shelf," Locke said dryly. Much to his displeasure he even did jazz hands to emphasize his lack of fear. Now he was talking, no, arguing with himself and gesturing. "You ain't a ghost. I've seen one."

>>"Hearing isn't sensing,"

Technically, it was. And unless the boy had a sixth sense for seeing dead people, it was as good as he would ever get. Krisz huffed again, because the lack of a face makes it hard to pout.

>>"Oh no I've insulted the long departed spirit of a shelf,"

And he totally missed the anime reference. Ten points from Griffindork.

>>"You ain't a ghost. I've seen one."

"Well, that's funny, you know, technically, ghosts can be invisible" he argued back, not impressed that he was not impressed "But, that fun fact aside, I disagree with the notion that I am a figment of your overactive imgaination. I simply don't think you have the juice to imagine someone like me, no offense. So you can either accept I am what I am, or you can go ahead and think you are nuts, in which case, I will have to prove you wrong."

For a delusion the voice was quite capable of emotional display. It was some comfort to Locke that the voice doubted that he had seen a ghost. That meant that it was a part of his brain that hadn't accepted the time Locke got to chat with his dad after the crash. Insanity equaling sanity.

What was troublesome was how the voice, let's call it Vlad, exploded into a string of words that sounded like an attempt at a college essay. Probably philosophy,[/i] Locke thought to himself. "You know you're contradicting yourself Vlad? Either I have an imagination big enough to come up with you or I don't. You keep talking, so that means you exist. Or you say. Sound has to come from someplace, and there's nothing that you're coming from. So that means you're in my head and why am I arguing with myself?" he asked, exasperated. He put the other earbud back into his ear and started to type.

time seeps past them like the first whispers of

"It sucks doesn't it." Locke addressed the voice, pulling out the earbud again.

>>"You know you're contradicting yourself Vlad? Either I have an imagination big enough to come up with you or I don't. You keep talking, so that means you exist. Or you say. Sound has to come from someplace, and there's nothing that you're coming from. So that means you're in my head and why am I arguing with myself?"

"Okay, first of all, my name is NOT Vlad..."

He was not listening. That was ridiculous. You are supposed to pay attention when a ghost is talking to you. Even if you think it is just your unconscious talking. People should listen to their unconscious. Politely.

time seeps past them like the first whispers of

>>"It sucks doesn't it."

"... as I said, my name is not Vlad, although I do get the reference, thank you very much. Now, back to the point, I am not part of your mind, no offense, but I am quite okay with that. I am the bookstore's resident ghost, have you not heard about me? News of the week. A few weeks ago. Anyhow. You are sane, sadly enough, and I am real."

"Hey if you don't name yourself someone else will," Locke certainly wouldn't have burdened himself with the middle name Nicodimus if he could have helped it. Saph had dubbed him Earthwalker. The voice hadn't given a name, so Locke was giving it one.

Was there really no other worthy news then a ghost in a book store? How sad. "Don't read the paper. Just the comics. And it sucks doesn't it. I mean how many stories use mirrors?"

>>"Hey if you don't name yourself someone else will,"

"Just call me Krisz" the ghost sighed, giving up on being mysterious and scary.

>>"Don't read the paper. Just the comics. And it sucks doesn't it. I mean how many stories use mirrors?"

"A bunch of them" he agreed. he was a writer. He knew. "But hey, if you are looking for something no one has used before, you are never going to get anything written. No new topics since the Greeks, you know what I mean? The point is doing it well enough that people feel like they have never read it before a thousand times, even if they have. If you want something original in theme or symbols, better give up right now..."

The voice wanted to be called Krisz. Locke thought for a moment about how many people he knew named Chris and couldn't decide if this was a strange coincidence or if it being named the same thing as his brother meant something. Like maybe he couldn't really think of anything on his own.

That's what had sparked the story! How nobody can exist without being a reflection of someone else, specifically how Locke found his identity in his family. Now remember what the point was he flipped through the notebook with renewed energy, knowing, sort of, what he was looking for.

"Go tell that to Hollywood," he told Krisz, "It's either all retold fairy tales or remakes of old movies and TV shows. Ones that people that are targeted to see it don't remember the original, or just aren't old enough to know about. My problem..." Locke stopped talking as someone shuffled around in front of him, feeling humiliated that he was talking out loud. Being crazy he'd be able to deal with later on, but for now he didn't want anyone seeing the crazy. "My problem is that nothing works for the plot except a mirror."

Now he was whispering, plucking at the fuzzy edges of a sheet that had been pulled out. "And Krisz, can you think of any original stories?"

>>"Go tell that to Hollywood. It's either all retold fairy tales or remakes of old movies and TV shows. Ones that people that are targeted to see it don't remember the original, or just aren't old enough to know about. My problem... My problem is that nothing works for the plot except a mirror."

Oh yeah. Kid was a writer through and through. With all the angst and the cinism. Krisz liked him.

>>"And Krisz, can you think of any original stories?"

"Sometimes I feel like I wrote something original, and then it turns out I am just not educated enough to know the bazillion other books with the same story. But when you think about it, it works both ways. Because readers are not well educated either. If you can pull off sounding original, you win, that's it. And I like the mirror. I think you should stick with it."

"The haunted shelf is an author?" Locke asked. If Krisz wanted to play the part of a ghost then fine, let it think that he was Casper. But to keep that up and claim that it was a writer wasn't cool. A shelf can't write! It can have writing on it, but that comes from someone carving into the shelf, or writing on it. The shelf doesn't do the writing.

Locke found the note that he had been looking for, sandwiched between pre-apocalypse science fiction and mutation theory. Any horror story needed a straight man to be put into the dangerous situation. It was what the reader connected to, the problem was trying to figure out how to put the person into the world of monsters. "Or are you changing your story now Krisz?"