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"Did you see that?" Rayan sounded excited. The mirror reflected the gleam in his eyes and his full lips stretching in a brilliant, child-like smile.
"See what?" Sameer stood beside his friend, looking in the same mirror. "I don't see anything. Oh, wait, I see an idiot holding a candle and a cup. What are you doing, man? This is ridiculous." He laughed and lightly punched his friend's shoulder, moving away from their reflection.
"Can't you see the girl playing in a garden," Rayan said and turned to look at his friend.
"Yeah, right. Is she your girlfriend then?" Sameer teased, not believing him even for a second. His friend was pulling his legs, no doubt.
He was spending the night at Rayan's house, which was usual for them as they were rarely apart. Attending the same school and living next to each other made it easier. Neither liked to socialize much, and they weren't keen on attending parties or getting involved with the popular crowd.
They had many things in common, but unfortunately, their family situation wasn't one of them. Where Sameer had a perfect family and two parents who loved him, his friend wasn't so lucky.
"Back off," Rayan laughed. "I don't know why you didn't see her. But I'm telling you, this thing works." He raised his arms and waved the items he held in front of Sameer.
"Well, I didn't see any doors opening or anyone coming or going through the mirror." Sameer walked to the far side of the room and switched on the lights. He then plopped on Rayan's bed and stared at the ceiling. "Who told you about this nonsense, anyway?"
"It's not nonsense, and no one told me. I read it in one of the journals I found in the attic."
"That sounds mysterious. What kind of journal is it?" He watched as Rayan sauntered to the dresser, and picked up an old, battered journal.
They looked through it together. There were all kinds of weird stuff in it, most of which sounded fictional to Sameer—stories about fairies, demons, witches, and Grim Reapers. After flipping through various entries. Rayan paused at one about opening doors between the realms. It said if you stood in front of a mirror with a lit candle in one hand and an empty cup in the other and thought hard enough, you could open a door between any two realms you wished for.
"So, this is what you were trying to do?" Sameer said, patting his friend on the back. "Well done, you're acting your age."
"Oh, come on," Rayan said, irritation obvious in his tone. "There was no harm in trying, and for your kind information, I saw a girl in the mirror. She must be in another realm. I'm not sure why the door didn't open completely. It says here that we can come and go between worlds through it. I only saw her playing in a garden. I just didn't know how to get there. And by the way, she saw me too."
"She did?" Sameer still didn't believe him. After all, he had also looked into the same mirror. And all he saw was their reflection. He wondered why Rayan was so willing to trust the journal. It was unlike him to fall for such fantasies. Yet, his friend showed all the signs of a true believer.
"Yeah, she even waved at me and told me her name. But then she was gone." Rayan shrugged, and for a brief moment, a look of utter disappointment passed through his face. Sameer noticed as he composed himself quickly.
"Ooo, was she pretty?" Attuned to his best friend's dark mood, Sameer tried to lighten things.
"Oh, stop it," Rayan chuckled this time. "She was cute and also just a kid."
"So, you have a thing for younger girls."
"You are hilarious, ha ha ha. Now, who is acting his age?" Rayan closed the journal and placed it on his nightstand. "Anyway, it was stupid. I hoped to open some kind of secret door and leave this place for good."
The tone of their conversation changed in an instant. "Hey, man, you don't have to be like this. I mean, I know how you feel about your situation. But we'll be eighteen soon, and then you can go wherever you want."
"You're right. I wish I could go somewhere far away. I mean, don't get me wrong," he said, running his hand through his hair and pulling a little. "I love my mom. Things are mostly okay, but sometimes, I crave a normal life. Like you."
"I understand."
"Only if my mother wouldn't drink so much and stopped thinking about the man who left her years ago."
"She must have loved your father very much," Sameer said softly. He had always felt a little envious of whoever Rayan's father was. Watching how much his mother still loved the man who left before Rayan was even born, he wondered about it. Sometimes, when she was sober and in a talkative mood, she would tell them stories about him. The man who came into her life out of nowhere and left the same way. At those times, Sameer used to watch the look in her eyes and marveled at how anyone could love a ghost. He had never shared his thoughts with Rayan because he knew his friend hated his mother for this very reason – her undying love for a man who didn't stick around long enough to meet his son.
"Yeah," Rayan said and then changed the subject. "You know what? I'm never falling in love. Screw love."
"Not even with that cute little girl in the mirror?" Sameer teased his friend, once again trying to lighten the mood, and it worked. Soon, the two were fake wrestling on the floor and laughing hysterically.
Even though his friend's life wasn't perfect, in those moments, they could almost forget all their worries. Sameer admired Rayan's resilience and readiness to do whatever it took to better his life. He studied hard, hoping one day he would live an independent life. He followed all the rules so that he wouldn't have to live in the shadows of his past. But the past had a way of catching up on us.
"Let's promise that we'll always be best friends. We'll never leave each other and will always have each other's back." Rayan said, panting from all the rolling around.
"That goes without saying," Sameer agreed readily. "Friends forever. Although, why on earth are we acting like a bunch of teenage girls?"
"Be serious, and let's do it like one of the entries in the journal."
"Just to be clear, I'm not cutting by hand to make some kind of weird blood pact or anything."
"Oh, it's nothing like that. It's just a chant. We hold hands and say it together. After that, we will be bound to each other forever, and we'll never be able to betray each other. It's simple. Let me show you."
The instructions were straightforward to follow. The two sixteen-year-old boys lit twelve candles and placed them in a circle. Then, turning off the lights, they sat in the middle of the circle. And holding each other's hands, they chanted the words in the journal entry. Neither of them knew what the words meant, but the journal said they were for making a friendship pact. They would be loyal and never let anyone or anything tear them apart.
∞
Ah, to be young. They forged a bond of friendship that no power in all the realms would be able to break.
Yet, it would take them on a journey neither could anticipate.
