They walk right past me. The girl, I've seen her before. The frog-man, he is new. They walk on my well-worn paths and through my mapped out maze of mirrors. They're trapped, but if what my mirror tells me is right, they won't be for long. That can't be right, can it? I would know a way, I would have found it and I would be free. But maybe they are different to me.
I follow them. Not literally of course, but through my shard. It's all I have left of my once-great home of terror, before the angels broke me, before my power broke me, before the witches took my power for their own. Who knows where the dust is now.
The two stop at an old mirror of copper descent. They are different to me then, they can see what is on the other side. But they can't hope to get free, only one has escaped this prison and I felt his life force fade as soon as he broke free. I believe he had help, a witches spell probably. But if being here keeps me alive I would remain here for the rest of my miserable life. Gladly.
The frog-man and the little girl are speaking. I cannot hear their words, but is it possible? No! Do not be silly. You cannot speak to those beyond, I chide myself. And besides, they would not understand my tongue. The language of ancients. The little girl, I twist my head to see, she is smiling encouragingly. What would the other side need? Since I was broken they had nothing to lose, no voice to tell them they were imperfect. I was that voice, that power. But I am reduced to a flicker of what I once was, barely able to think, let alone move and interact.
A beam emerges from the mirror they speak too. A witch, I think. Nothing good comes from witches, not since they harnessed my dust. I should turn away, my eyes are hurting from the power. But the beam is not a witch, it isn't evil. An angel? No, they retreated to heaven when, when. When I broke. So maybe I did affect the outside world. I can feel my dust after all, that's how I knew of witches. But now I think of it, witches cannot spread around the world, and my power hums inside it all. My dust must have rained down. Well that's humanity's problem, not mine.
The beam wraps itself around the girl and knocks her off her feet. She cries out (I think) to the frog-man but then, she is pulled through the mirror! What! How? You cannot escape from this prison, elst I would! The frog man speaks to somebody through the mirror, the girl. I reach out, trying to feel something. I sense my dust in the frog, very little but it's there. Another being, filled with my power, is with the girl on the other side. But I feel nothing of the child. She had my dust. Where is it now?
The frog man slips away through the mirror halls and I follow him. He went into the mirror the way they all do, and he finds his way back to his entrance. I gather all my strength and follow him, even though I am naught but a wisp of dark, evil smoke. The frog man stops, and I hear him speaking to himself. His words make no sense. "Morina, if you drink the potion, the children" Is he talking to this Morina. I can feel myself fading the longer I remain away from my shard. You may say that makes no difference if you are but a shadow, but for a hundred years or so I will lose the ability to think if I fade. When that's all you can do, you don't want to lose that.
Suddenly another beam emerges, it wraps around the frog man and pulls him away, as it did the girl. He gasps, and whispers "A good deed!" I push towards him with the strength I have left, but he is gone from my sight. I sense him no longer. A good deed, he said. A good deed. Oh demons of hell and angels of heaven, what have you done to me?
A being of pure evil cannot form a good deed. I am one such being, I cannot be anything else. The angels, they knew this. All these aeons I thought my conscience had never left the mirror, I had been stuck between the shards unable to escape. I know now I was wrong. I had got free. And this would affect the angels perfect harmony, so they had to put me back and ensure I could never escape.
The angels hadn't fled from the world, they'd died. Died to trap me in a prison that I can never escape from, because I can never perform a good deed. I feel myself floating away but I pull towards the mirror. Can they see me? Am I a faint shadow of a man? A wisp of smoke? Or just nothing. Because that is all I am now, it does not do to dwell upon your past, but in my last murmur of consciousness i cannot help but think back, back to when I was the great mirror of the demons and I spread my evil across the land.
And now look at me. I'm just like all the others who fade away in here. Just another man in the mirror.