Chapter Text
The summer air cooled down as the sun set, making the July sky look like cotton candy. The lights from the tin can alley switched on, the darkened area near the house of mirrors becoming an incandescent yellow. Rey felt the cold painted metal that held them in place. Unlike the rest of the carnival, the hall was left unlit, and her stomach churned at the darkness before her.
Her mother told her that it was her favorite attraction when she was Rey's age. Every year she would traverse the building; the exit path was burned into her memory, she claimed. Determined to impress her, Rey insisted she go alone; she was going to escape in record time.
But Rey was lost.
She faced a mirror that distorted her body, twisting her face so much that she didn't even recognize herself. In the darkness of the house of mirrors, Rey's reflection looked monstrous. For a moment she wondered if she looked like this in her nightmares. But it was just her face- hers alone, in the miles she saw through the mirrors.
She couldn't tell which path would lead to the exit and which would lead her back to the start. The longer she spent in there, the more her head began to spin. Her breathing quickened. Each path she went down either led her to another dead end or a glass wall that met her face. Tears started to form in her eyes, and she admitted to herself that she couldn't do it. She couldn't figure it out. She would be stuck here, with the millions of Reys that made her feel small and insignificant.
Rey sat on the floor, the cold metal stinging her legs. It wasn't the first time she felt overwhelmed. She just had to breathe, slower, and let the feeling pass. She could do it. No matter how long it would take, she would do it.
Rey made her way out, on her own. It definitely wasn't a record breaker, but she was proud nonetheless.
She looked around, but through the bustling evening crowd, her mother and father were nowhere to be found. Time started to slow, with every passing moment an eternity in her young eyes. Her parents were nearby, they had to be. She couldn't even reach a sink properly without them. She needed them.
She waited long into the night, the windchill giving her goosebumps. For hours, she staked her hope-they would find her, and they could go home together, as a family. But now, that hope was nothing but a charred bit of coal, its ember slowly fading into darkness. The white tank top she wore now soaked, and tears fell like rain from her face.
She was alone.