Into the Mirror World

I remember the day I found it. I had been walking through the park, as I did every morning, trying to jog off my hangover. That was when I saw a glint in the corner of my eye. I turned my head and nearly fell over. A mirror, in the middle of a field. And on the other side of it...

A mirror? How is that even possible? "It couldn't be a wormhole," I said out loud. But if not...well, then how? I didn't know, but at that moment I knew what had to be done. I was going to go through that mirror.

Carefully, I picked up the mirror, which was surprisingly heavy for something so small. I set it down on the ground and positioned myself directly in front of it. Then, with a deep breath, I lifted my hand and placed it on the surface of the mirror. The surface gave way easily, sinking into itself until there was nothing left but an unbroken plane of glass-like material, with no seam or crack between the two sides. Tentatively, I put my foot forward, then took another step forward until finally I was straddling both worlds.

The world around me looked strange at first glance. The trees looked just like they should have; they were symmetrical, and had leaves on them that were different shades of green and yellow. There were deer grazing in the field next to where I stood; they too seemed normal enough. But as soon as you started looking deeper things started seeming wrong. For example: for some reason there were two churches about one hundred yards away from each other on opposite sides of the path leading through the park. There was also a small wooded area where there should have been grass; inside this wooded area was a small building that reminded me of an outpost from the American revolution era (at least from what I could see before it faded away).

But what really confused me was how familiar everything seemed to me. It wasn't like living in this world was any different than living in my own world; it felt perfectly normal to be standing here looking at these deer grazing as if this where their home given right. If anything it was more natural than anything else!

And then I saw him: a man who looked exactly like me, walking along towards me dressed in running clothes (except he wore those little shorts instead of baggy sweatpants). He stared at me suspiciously as he approached, but once he got close enough he broke out into a huge grin and started clapping his hands together in joy! "Dude!" He shouted (in English), "This is amazing! What's your name?" He held out his hand for me to shake; I tried but instead grasped thin air where he had been standing only seconds earlier! My heart skipped a beat as he appeared behind me and began talking rapidly again: "You're from Poland aren't you? You look just like me!" He paused for a second and looked rather puzzled by something before exclaiming "Oh wait does everyone look like us here or something?"

"What are you talking about?" Was all I could say back to him; this man seemed nice enough, but his behavior still made my skin crawl!

"What?! You've never seen yourself before?!" He laughed loudly before continuing: "Well obviously you've got to come with me-we can tell all our friends back home about this!" And with that said we began walking towards one of the churches (the one further away), passing many more people who all looked exactly like us except they all wore different clothes and spoke a different language! Some even wore clothes that I'd never seen before! But nevertheless we continued towards the church until we reached its doors-which appeared identical to those in my own world's church-and walked inside! Inside we found what seemed like an entire town's worth of people wearing our exact same clothes waiting for us; they all cheered loudly when we walked in through the door! They crowded around us and began asking question after question about our lives back home-or wherever this place was supposed to be anyway! We smiled awkwardly at each other as we answered their questions until finally we made our way outside again! As we exited out into the streets again though someone shouted: "Look!" Everyone followed his gaze towards one direction and gasped simultaneously when they saw what he saw: myself standing outside one of their houses talking with someone who looked exactly like myself except dressed differently! For a brief moment everything went silent until suddenly everyone burst into excited chatter again as they rushed towards us asking question after question about our lives in our world ("which one?") while we answered them as best we could without sounding crazy! In time however there came yet another shout: "Look!" This time pointing towards another direction completely where yet another version of myself stood talking with someone who looked exactly like him while others waited inside their homes to talk with them too!