The General Idea

So Juanito Bandito pretty much hit it head in so many words. This story will be based on everything that I'm learning in this class, and it's based on two or three dreams that I've had. So, yes, it will probably seem quite remeniscent to our Christmas trip this year. And yes, the below is a poorly written summary.

The story starts out with Eve, a girl of presumeably ten (age will most likely not be mentioned) on a Christmas trip with her parents where they must stay in the spacious and old house of her great aunt, who stays the winter elsewhere, she also mentions how she wishes her brother were there (I have not yet decided whether her brother is off at war or elsewhere). Personality will start out stubborn and bratty, of course, but a bit on the curious side.

She stays in a seperate room than her parents while at her great aunt's house, an old, creaky room with only an old, creaky lamp for a light. And across from the old, creaky bed is a large mirror, faded around the edges from age. As mirrors sometimes do, it catches the light from the room strangely, making it seem as though it comes from another source on that side. Eve as she falls asleep each night starts having half-dreams about the mirror. Dreams that disturb her for no particular reason. Sometimes an earwig will be crawling up and into her hair in the reflection, and she will begin to wildly begin searching through said hair while her reflective self just stares and smiles. Sometimes, the dreams make no sense to her, for example, one time the reflection reaches through the mirror and gives her a Cloak of Midnight, which is, of course, gone in the morning.

Sometime after the dreams this line will be used: "The only thing keeping me from entering the mirror is my own reflection."

Which, following this quote at some time, she will have one of the strange dreams again, but this time her reflection will be missing. In a dreamlike state, she takes the Cloak of Midnight, which is lying on the dresser, and enters the mirror.

The land which she comes out in is cold, grey, desolate; to put it simply- it's completely dead. Far to her left is a hill, probably a small mountain but it's covered in grey grass and is rounded, so it seems a hill. Far in front of her seems a city of marble, beautiful but dead like the rest of this place. But blocking it are miles upon miles of brambles and thorns. Here, she hears a voice to the right just above her head, it turns out to be a spider (who tells her when she's suprised at his ability of speech, "Oh, all spiders can talk, you just must put them up to your ear to hear them. And no one wants to do that.") who agrees to help her to a point.

The spider is Threy, and serves as the 'guardian' archetype, conviniently telling her of the Spectral Lands, and the ruler over it known as the Phantom King. I won't tell much more past this, because there's a few things that I want to keep mysterious about the rest of it, but to really paraphrase it- she meets Nightmare and Reverie, the King's guards, who serve as their namesakes, they tell her that to escape she must play the King's games. Her brother's mind/soul has also been captured as is being held as a prize to ensure her participation. Eve meets many trials along the way, including riddles and facing contagonists (nightmare and reverie themselves, along with Naught) and having continual help from Threy the spider and Mercutial the perpetually hooded/blindfolded violinist of the King.

And I'm too tired to explain any more. Hopefully I'll start posting the actual story soon.

-P.