The wardrobe was dark and suffocating, the narrow slit between the doors offering a tin glimpse of the dusty bedroom. Noora and I clung to each other, taking turns peering into the room through the crack.
The corridor outside creaked and the footsteps stopped. I held my breath as Noora gasped softly. “What?” I whispered. Her face drained of colour as she whispered back, “they are anxious…looking towards the door.”
“Who?”
“Our ancestors,” she breathed, gripping my hand tighter. “The portraits on the wall. Yazmin, I'm scared. What do we do?”
“How about you ask Grandma what we can do? We must take back this mansion from the Urzahk. It's ours!” I answered fiercely. Noora's wide gaze shifted from looking through the tiny slit to my face.
I nodded, unshed tears pooled in my eyes, a familiar warning of my foresight at work. “I just saw. The Urzahk wanted Grandma…now it wants us. It's been waiting for many decades.”
BLOOD OF MY BLOOD, DO NOT FEAR IT.
A sudden coldness flooded the wardrobe and I froze, a big shudder rushing through me as my tears fell. Noora gasped softly, her nails digging into my palm as she shared my vision. Fragments of the truth came together in pyramid form before our eyes.
Our gifts had merged through our bond and burden. The voice was grandma's from behind us, somewhere in the darkness among the hanging old coats and I could hear her.
We had inherited the same abilities grandma once used to imprison the creature. When the gifts were not immediately passed down, the Urzahk freed itself somehow and was now after us.
“The mirrors, Yazmin,” Noora whispered, her eyes unfocused as though listening to someone. “The Urzahk cannot survive it's true form—”
The wardrobe doors burst open and Noora yelled. The creature towered before us, it's form bulky and black, tiny electric currents running through it. The hollow eyes gleamed with hunger as it opened its mouth, displaying razor sharp teeth with fangs.
My stomach dropped in that instant and it felt like my heart stopped beating. Noora shook me. “Now, Yazmin! Let's go.”
I wanted to argue that it was suicide. The Urzahk was in our way but somehow we moved through its form like water, making it shriek like it had been pierced with something sharp. The portraits on the wall trembled as our ancestors watched in silent anticipation, their eyes narrowed in anger.
Noora and I stepped towards the oval mirror, standing on either sides. “You can do this, sister,” she whispered, being the strong one while fear rooted me to the floor.
Tears slipped down my cheeks as I forced visions of a stonewalled prison in a dark pit into the glass just as Noora called upon the voices of our ancestors. The vision emitted a strong, bright light that flooded the bedroom, pulling the screaming Urzahk into it. The mirror shattered into million pieces and dissolved into sand.
The silence that followed was unnerving. Noora and I collapsed on the dusty floor, holding each other. Candles lit all around the house at once, chasing away the darkness. The portraits on the wall displayed our ancestors, smiling. The house was right again.
“We did it,” Noora said with a sigh of relief.
“Yes,” I replied. “Its finally ours again.”
I hope you enjoyed reading this short piece. It's inspired by the Freewrite #dailyprompt phrase "hide in the wardrobe".
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