Chapter 1:
Who knew a little trip to Norway could bring my life to a dead end?
“Moriah! Get dressed quickly! We will miss our flight. I really missed talking to your mom; she treated me like she was mine.” My best friend Aliyah said as she sprang across the room. She was a tall, blonde-haired girl who knew a great deal about fashion. We had been roommates for about three years now; I had known her for much longer. I was just staring at my dresser while combing my hair. Suddenly, I heard the doorbell. “Aliyah! Check the door!!” I wasn’t thinking about anything; my mind was completely blank. I had completely zoned out. I heard Aliyah calling me, but I couldn’t listen to her too well, as if I had cupped my hands against my ears. I felt my eyes closing. I couldn’t open them even if I wanted to, but in that case, I didn’t even try. I started leaning and before I knew it, I started falling. Either Aliyah stopped calling, or I couldn’t hear her anymore. I felt someone grab me before I hit the ground. “Moriah, are you okay? We can cancel this trip if you like!” Aliyah said, “No, no! I’m fine,” I replied, but I wasn’t sure at all. “Who was at the door?” I asked, “No one! Probably some kids trying to ding-dong ditch us,” She replied. I wanted to check for myself, so I got up from my dresser, still dizzy, and my vision was blurred, but I made my way to the front door with questions in my head. “Why did I fall unconscious? Why do I feel so dizzy?” I cleared my mind and went for the door handle.
“What? Why is this here? I thought we had received our tickets a week ago!” I thought as I picked up the odd box and took it inside. “Aliyah! Did you order something?” I asked as my voice echoed in the empty house. “What?” I thought, “No furniture, no people, nothing?” I stood there as the plain, blank white walls stared into my soul. I heard Aliyah’s voice upstairs, “Moriah, come on! Let’s play!” As I made my way to the top of the staircase, I saw Aliyah running to the other staircase. “What? We have a two-story house! There are no more stairs, Aliyah!” I said as I followed her upstairs. “What? Isn’t this the second floor?” I thought as I went up the staircase again, “Aliyah! Where are you?” When I reached, I saw Aliyah covered in blood with a smirk on her face. My heart started racing, and I went back down the staircase, again and again. Where’s the door? Am I stuck on the second floor?
Chapter 2:
I went upstairs looking for an anomaly. “Maybe an anomaly could save my life?” I thought. I walked upstairs for hours and hours, but neither the clock changed nor the sun set.
Everything felt the same, like I was walking in a loop with no end. The walls began to move slightly…were they breathing? Watching me? I shouted Aliyah’s name, but my voice came from afar like it didn’t belong to me. Doors appeared and vanished, some melting into the floor like candle wax. Suddenly, I saw a mirror at the top of the stairs. I looked at myself. My hair looked like a mess, and there were stains on me. My reflection smiled at me; I wasn’t smiling. I walked closer as I wiped the stains from my face. A hand pulled me inside, closer, and closer into the mirror, and I fell into a deep void of darkness. I saw Aliyah in there as I walked closer. She pulled a small, sharp blade out of her pocket and threw it at my arm. I closed my eyes as I felt it submerge into my flesh. She then came closer and pulled it out of my arm. My heart sank deep in my chest as blood poured out, and I fell to my knees. I knew this wasn’t Aliyah. It had to be a doppelganger. I did what needed to be done. I pushed her against the wall by putting my elbow to her neck. “Where is Aliyah!” I screamed. “I AM Aliyah!” she replied, her voice echoing, like five people speaking at once. “No… you’re not,” I whispered, my grip tightening as her skin cracked like old paint.
Dark liquid seeped from the cracks, and her face shattered like glass into pieces, transforming into ashes, filling the room, and making breathing harder. I stumbled back, my arm burning, and my vision blurred from the blood loss.
Suddenly, the mirror was replaced with a door. With no other choice, I dragged myself toward it and opened it slowly. Inside was a hospital room, and Aliyah, unconscious in a bed. “The real Aliyah?” I thought as I turned to the mirror beside the bed and saw the unexpected. Aliyah stood, her lips moved as if she wanted to say something, but her words were silenced. “Let her out now!” I cried, but she didn’t listen. “You’re fast! You figured out on your own how I was a doppelganger, where Aliyah is, and everything. But now forget Aliyah. I am her,” she said as she unplugged the tubes, turned off the machines, and tugged my arm. She opened the door and threw me into a dark void. With no other place to go. No mirrors, no doors, no doppelgangers. Where was I? Just a room with me and my broken thoughts.
Chapter 3:
I heard things I never said, an echoing voice that wasn’t mine.
“It was your fault.”
“You let her die.”
“You killed your best friend.”
I never said these things, but I decided to respond…
“No, I didn’t, whoever you are, wherever you are. Come to my face and tell me who I am.” I shouted as I shivered, not with cold but with fear. I could feel a calm tingle from somewhere nearby. Then I saw a staircase in the corner of the room, calling me to wander the second floor again.
Every step I took, my legs felt heavier. I pulled myself together and clung to the handle. Then suddenly, I felt stronger than ever before, and I felt like this story had to go my way. I walked and walked, and what felt like an eternity finally came to an end. I looked to my right, then to my left. Then, at the end of the hallway, sat a girl with her head on her knees and her hair messed up. I sprinted to her as I felt a sudden relief. I patted her shoulder; she raised her head. “Moriah? I waited for you day and night!” She spoke. Yes! Aliyah! I said with relief, “What do you mean by day and night?” I asked. “It’s been seven months…you left seven months ago. That’s way more than day and night,” she answered. “Seven months? I have been wandering my own house for SEVEN MONTHS?” I sat beside her and soon enough dozed off.
Chapter 4:
When I woke up, my eyes were still shut. I couldn’t open them; I just felt and heard voices as a black void stared into my soul. Neither my arms nor the rest of my body moved. I heard some voices. “Doctor, is she okay?” said a lady who sounded like my mom. “Her condition is critical. The bump on her head isn’t getting any smaller; instead, it’s swelling more inside,” said a deep but calm voice. What was happening? I wondered. The lady got closer and kissed my forehead. She grabbed my hand and cried, crying out loud. Now and then, she asked the doctor questions about my condition, but today something happened. “Is my daughter going to be alright?” she asked, and that made me realize that the lady was my mom. I also realized something had happened to me when I wasn’t conscious because I couldn’t remember anything that had happened to me, and if anything had happened, where was Aliyah? The only thing I knew was that I was locked inside my head, and I couldn’t get out. Thoughts of Aliyah increased, and my condition wasn’t getting any better. I felt Mom was losing hope; minute by minute, she felt hopeless.
“Please! Moriah, stay with me!” Mom said as her voice trembled. “I am trying, Mom; trust me, I’m trying.” Every day, the Doctor told Mom she should recall a memory or a favorite pastime, but I had shifted years ago, and I could tell she didn’t recall anything. He also said she should talk to me as I could hear her, and believe me, I can. The thing worse than that is I couldn’t tell what day it is, how many days I had been here, or whether it was day or night. So, I just spend every day hoping for a better day tomorrow.
Chapter 5:
My body lay still. Machines breathed for me. I couldn’t move, couldn’t speak, but I was there.
Every beep, every sigh, every tear that rolled, I heard it.
I felt my mom’s hand in mine. I heard her pray. I heard her cry. And when she said, “Please wake up, Moriah,” I screamed, inside my mind, “I’m here! I’m trying!”
But my voice was silenced in my head, lost in the silence of my coma. I never thought that a coma would hurt this much, physically and mentally. Some days I would feel like an ant had bitten me, but some days I would feel like a herd of elephants had run over me. Pain came in waves, drowning my confidence like ships in the sea. Time was a darkness, where there was neither a sunrise nor a sunset. Just endless darkness, with sounds that were eating me from inside. Sometimes I heard Aliyah’s name. Sometimes I cried within, but my condition was unchanged. Every time someone said, “She might not wake up,” a crack formed in the walls of my mind, but I held on to what? I didn’t know. A memory, maybe. A promise I made. A girl I left behind.
Sometimes I wondered if I was still alive, or if this was the afterlife. The machines kept singing a sweet song, maybe for me, maybe it was just an illusion. I thought of the staircase again. The second floor. The mirror. I thought of Aliyah’s voice. I hadn’t heard it in days, weeks…forever?
A sound echoed in the silence. I didn’t say that. I looked around in my dream.
A blonde Aliyah whispered, “You’re not done yet.” That made my heart tremble, then roll like waves.
Chapter 6:
I was looking for answers, so I ran behind her. I felt the tension rise as she ran. The sun was setting, and she was laughing. We were running in the fields. An anomaly? She suddenly stopped running. I reached my hand out towards her, and suddenly it all disappeared. My dreams cracked like mirrors. I heard the machines beeping faster, doctors swishing in, and poking all sorts of tools into my body. I heard Aliyah’s voice again, but my dream was over. “Moriah. Please wake up, we miss you.” I felt a tear roll down my cheek. Was it an illusion? Was I dead? I didn’t have the answers to my questions, but I kept wondering and making up false answers for myself. The nurse went to Mom and said, “She cried, it was just a tear, but we are seeing improvement. You both can meet her now.” Both? What did she mean by both? I heard Aliyah’s voice. I moved my finger with all my might, trying to tell her I was there and awake. She held my hand tight, telling me, “I will never leave you. If it wasn’t for our plane crashing, we’d still be together.” I tried to sit, but only my leg twitched. I put all my effort into it and tried to open my eyes to see her again. My eyes begged to see once again. I forced my eyes to part just enough to see a shape, blurry, glowing at the edges.
Aliyah? Or another illusion? I didn’t care. Her hand on mine was real. Her voice trembled. “You were in that field. I saw you.” She had been dreaming, too? Or was she pulled in like me? The machines beeped like a countdown. Faster. Louder. More arrogant than ever. And just before the world faded again, I whispered:
“I remember the mirror.”
She looked at me, more shocked than ever. She told me she had been seeing the same dream every night. But now I was confused. If I saw the dream, and she did too, who was the doppelganger?
Chapter 7:
That night I slept, I had a dream that was haunting me more than ever.
I was there again—the field, the breeze, everything was the same.
Aliyah stood a few steps ahead, her back to me. “You have to move on,” she said softly. “What do you mean? We’re together. Isn’t this what you wanted?” I asked, stepping closer. She turned to me, her eyes filled with both sadness and love.
“Look, Moriah… the story is in your hands now. You still have a story left to live.” I shook my head, tears burning. “This is the life we wanted.” Aliyah stepped closer, placing her hand gently over my heart. “There is no we anymore,” she said, her voice trembling. “I died in the plane crash. But I stayed…because you needed me.” “What?” I whispered. “No…how?”
“I don’t know,” she said, “maybe love holds on longer than life does.”
I fell to my knees. “But I don’t want to forget you.”
“You won’t,” she said, smiling through tears. “Memories aren’t meant to be forgotten. They’re meant to keep us going.”
Then, behind her, the mirror appeared, glowing, whole, and no longer cracked. “You’re waking up, Moriah,” she whispered. “Go home.”
“I’m scared,” I said.
“I’ll be with you,” she said, “just…in a different way.”
I looked at her one last time and whispered, “Thank you for staying.”
“I always will,” she said. And as I stepped through the mirror, a warm light surrounded me. I felt the world change.
I knew I was going to wake up.
Chapter 8:
I asked Mom about Aliyah, “Where is she, Mom?” “In the hospital, the doctors say that there’s still hope, and she can survive, but Aliyah’s sister was hopeless.” “I want to meet her,” I said. We drove to the hospital, and I barged into the room. I saw Aliyah on the hospital bed, just like before, and I saw a mirror beside the bed. The real Aliyah hung inside. The Aliyah on the bed tried to grab hold of me but failed. I jumped into the mirror and held Aliyah’s hand. I pulled her out and put her on the bed, but I still had a role to play. I put my elbow to the neck of the fake Aliyah, causing her to crack and melt once again. I had successfully erased the fake Aliyah from reality, and I knew she was the one dying for me and everybody else. I called the doctors, and they told me to go outside. I agreed and left. The nurse came outside once again and told me and her sister that she was stable and conscious.
It’s been four years, and everything’s fine, but we have made a promise:
Never to climb the second floor again.
THE END
Disclaimer: Any opinions expressed in this story do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Pakistan Education Review. This content is meant for entertainment purposes only.
About the Author:
Rehma is an 11-year-old author who has been writing since she could hold a pencil. Her first published story, The Second Floor, draws inspiration from sleep paralysis. She loves emotional mysteries, fantasy, and haunted figures. Besides writing, she enjoys drawing, crafting, filming videos, collecting plushies, and playing basketball.
