An Unfamiliar Reflection
She sat up, noticing how the soft white bedding cradled her like an otherworldly mist. Miranda pulled the covers to her chest and glanced toward the vanity mirror at the corner of the room. For a second, she didn’t recognize herself.
The woman in the reflection had long, voluminous blonde hair cascading in waves down her shoulders. Not the dark, short curl Miranda remembered from the night before. Her lips were painted a striking blood red, matching the bikini bottom she now realized hugged her hips. Mascara and eyeliner framed her blue eyes in a way too precise to be a product of any hastily-applied makeup.
“What the hell…” she whispered.
As she rose to approach the mirror, her eyes caught the shift in lighting. The warm orange glow from the vintage lamp had faded, replaced by a pink-tinged violet hue from the neon signs outside her window. The kaleidoscope of colors danced along the curves of her figure, casting her reflection in playful shadows. But there was no joy in her chest, only a growing sense of unease.
The Stranger’s Voice
For a beat, Miranda asked herself the impossible. Could she still be dreaming? As that thought hovered lazily in her mind, she heard it—a voice. Low, distant, but unmistakably directed at none other than herself.
“Miranda,” it echoed, as if bouncing off the vinyl records on the wall. “Remember.”
A shiver crawled down her spine. She spun back toward the bed but found nothing. The room was empty, eerily still. Her heart raced and against her better judgment, she asked aloud, “Who said that?” But the voice, now seemingly silenced, offered no answer.
A Reality Unraveling
She wasn’t sure why, but her hands found themselves searching beneath the covers, beneath the bed, between the pillows. With the erratic rhythm of her pulse in her ears, her fingers brushed against an object—cool, metallic.
A vinyl turntable needle. A small piece, the kind that fit inside a vintage record player. But where it should have simply been an old piece of tech, it pulsed with a strange energy, like a heartbeat against her palm.
It began to hum—a mechanical hum not from this world, filling her ears, vibrating up from the floorboards and through her spine. Miranda stumbled back, clutching the artifact in her hand.
Suddenly, the voice returned, louder now, clearer: “You are caught, Miranda. Between worlds.”
Memories she never experienced washed over her like waves crashing against invisible walls. Past lives—a ballroom in Paris, a desert war, a deep ocean voyage. Faces she didn’t recognize—her own, yet not her own, staring back, calling to her.
The room swirled, shifting and undulating like the flicker of a faulty lightbulb. That neon glow was no longer comforting. It was trapping her, pulling her into a place where nothing was real, least of all herself.
The Impossible Decision
“It’s time,” the voice urged.
The turntable needle pulsed, glowing now a bright electric blue in her hand as the hum grew louder, almost deafening. She had a choice. Stay and fade into the illusion, or press forward—wherever forward might be.
Biting her lip, she squeezed her eyes shut. She hadn’t been Miranda for a while now, had she? Or was she always Miranda? Her identity, her memories, were just one possibility of many, but in this moment of clarity, she realized that it didn’t matter.
She opened her eyes and made her choice. The turntable needle fit into a strange, invisible slot in the air. A long, breathless moment followed as neon lighting exploded around her, brighter now, casting an unfamiliar reflection on her face. And with that single click of connection, Miranda disappeared into the world between worlds.
The vinyl records hummed in the silence that followed, spinning in precise harmony—forever—and then, nothing.
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