Liberation

Avalon Reid loved music. The dazzling sounds were gentle coos, praises, and pleasant urges of faith and trust--and as her eccentric mother would often say, "And that nice little pinch of pixie dust to start my little girl's day!". Such a simple-minded soul, Caroline Reid was. Or rather, Caroline Gardener. Even since the divorce six years ago, Caroline had reverted back to her maiden name. She was young -too young-, and more or so jumped head first into a marriage with a man she'd known for only a few months. If anything, they'd viewed the marriage as a necessity at the time, rather than a bond. With Caroline's pushy father insisting that the only proper result of finding herself with child in her last high school days, she somehow found her now-ex-husband unwillingly proposing to her. What his parents thought never mattered much for the situation -they could've been anything from alcoholics to close business friends with the President of the United States for all Avalon knew-,  but Caroline’s father probably would've gone so far as to hire a hit man to track down the boy if he didn't have his way. Avalon only found such things out from her dearest friends. Her only friend. The only person who ever -told- her anything.

Hmm...Where was I? Forgive me, this old mind is easily diverted from such an old tale as this. After having told it countless times, one may assume I'd never once fumble through it, yet I find it more difficult each time to recite. Perhaps the results of age are taking a harsher toll than I'd expect...but you never mind that, child. On with the story you came to hear.

Next to her friend, all Avalon had was her iPod, internet access, and television. She was engulfed in a virtual world, sucked into the mindless nonsense that was brought on by the coming century, as many others were. However, there'd always been something...different about Avalon. It was natural for a child to wander about the midst of their boundaries, test their limits, stir a bit of trouble...but, as Avalon often told her mother...there were simply some doors that were -meant- to be locked. Which brings us to the roots of this delicate silk-woven web that has resurfaced another day...Because in a world where she could never quite manage to fit in, young Avalon Reid turned to her own private Kingdom Come for Salvation, and her waiting embrace...

---

"Ms. Reid," An impatient, nasal voice thick with age and wariness lashed against Avalon's headphones. Long, bony fingers extending from wrinkled hands, curling blue with ever-rising veins, drummed against the hard woodwork of the office door. The office itself was neat and tidy enough, papers piled neatly together in small, hand-crafted wooden baskets flitted with "cute" designs, as some elderly teachers liked to note. Rows of computers and comfortable alabaster-toned chairs filled the east wall of the room, phone jacks crawling with wires and blinking lights. The walls were a pale peach, and sparkled with the shadows and explosions of flashing lights from the computers and other electronics located in the room for useful purposes, the only light venting in from the moon's shameful veil through the tall, angled windows opposite the small mahogany chair of which sat the last student remaining for her detention sentence. The teacher rolled her bright blue eyes--darkened with annoyance, Avalon mentally noted--, and repeated herself, "Ms. Reid!"

Avalon sighed irritably under her breath and lifted her headphones from their nearly crowned position atop her midnight hair, instead resting them around her neck, the cool material feeling awkward against her skin that was sheathed with her long hair. "Yes?"

She was generally polite to the teachers, much to the dismay of the students who were frequently ignored by her -she'd often wondered why they would continuously bother to try to speak with her if she refused them from the very beginning-, but her service in detention was becoming more and more of a daily occurrence lately. It wasn't that she minded attending detentions, after all, the only one who ever seemed bored or tortured was the poor teacher who was regarding her detention for the day. They never actually bothered much with her iPod, even though it was her using it during school hours that got her detentions in the first place, it would only make sense for them to remove the article that provoked trouble, yet they let her hold onto it for as long as she wished--and she ALWAYS wished for that.

The teacher, Avalon didn't know her name, she'd never thought it mattered much, so if she was ever told, she would immediately deem it unnecessary information and throw it into the garbage disposal at the back of her mind, sighed loudly. Avalon had better things to fill her mind with, and it was -not- the name of some sickly teacher who happened upon her iPod one day and assigned her a detention that fit under her category of importance. "Yes?" She said again, trying to sweeten her voice with a disturbing honey-coated layer of false security towards the old woman.

"The bell rang almost ten minutes ago, Ms. Reid," The older of the two spoke with a lisp, leaning even more into the doorframe than she needed to, clearly gruff with impatience. "So, if you would so kindly leave..." She made no attempt to act courteous towards Avalon, she merely gestured with her lithe hand that the girl had best leave so that she may as well.

Avalon peeked up from under her bangs that made a successful shield out of hiding her eyes and smiled faintly, still able to hear one of her favorite songs blasting from her mp3 player's headphones that hung around her neck like the most fabulous jewelry ever crafted. "Of course. I'm terribly sorry for making you wait, ma'am," She said evenly, pocketing her tiny iPod in her denim jeans pocket and veering towards the door. Detention, home, the middle of the street...it made no difference to Avalon where she was, just as long as her music was with her. Of course, it would never have quite the effect on her it did at home, for reasons obvious to only her and her mother, but the point still presented itself clearly enough...

Stepping aside to let the girl by, the teacher grumbled under breath about 'pesky kids', but couldn't help but call out to her, asking if she wanted a late bus pass. Even if she was a bit angered by the detention she had been residing over, working with children eased her temper and she felt the maternal need to check on her student. Either the woman's calls were left unanswered, or they fell on deaf ears, for no response was made. Who knew. Avalon was already long gone....

---

Her walk home wasn't too eventful. She managed to listen to a few songs by some old 80's bands and some random heavy metal composed only recently. She was used to walking home from school by now, even though she regularly took the bus in the morning. Taking less than fifteen minutes to reach her destination, Avalon wasn't surprised to find the door unlocked. In fact, she didn't even bother to mull over the thought of whether it was or was not locked at all before she even reached for the knob. Her mother was strict about keys to the house--Avalon would bet Caroline would more than willingly lend her fourteen year old daughter the keys to her BMW M3 convertible than offer up one measly key to their front door. Honestly, she really didn't understand life sometimes. If only there was some convenient rabbit hole she could pop into, she used to muse when she was younger, she'd never again worry about her mother's petty nuisances.

Before she'd even closed the door behind her, relishing in how the warmth of the radiator behind her rumbled and grudgingly soothed her chilled body--she'd only realized how cold it was outside once she'd stepped within the confines of her home--, an expanse of glimmering white teeth and pleasantly glossy eyes flashed and secure arms engulfed her in what one may refer to as a massive bear hug.

"M-Mom," She coughed, her body was extremely frail and not at all as well-built with her mother's athletic frame that was currently crushing her into a hot pink knitted sweater that smelled of cocoa, and just some nice scent that mothers always managed to give off. "Please," She gasped haughtily--wriggling in her parent's grasp and shoving the long arms away.

Caroline simply continued smiling. She was the type of mother that could be easily loved, perhaps easily taken advantage of, but she obviously cared greatly for her child and threw away her life that was still in its earliest stages of blossoming for Avalon. Now, if only her daughter would come to terms with that and stop pushing her away... Avalon, who donned dark clothes that hid most of her skin and was bestowed with disheveled locks of hair that constantly and unevenly fell in clumps around her face like a black mop and dire eyes so deep forest green that they could've been passed for gray, was almost the exact opposite of her kind mom. Caroline indulged in bright, welcoming colors and fashions of all kinds--"The atmosphere's the limit, kiddo, only because you can't breathe if you go any higher than that!" was a phrase said by her mother that Avalon often noticed screaming from the clothes she wore--, hair kissed by the sun and styled in layers, bright baby blue eyes that sparkled happily each day...now that she was in adulthood, there were actually thin, paper-like lines, more profound than ever, at the corners of Caroline's naturally rosy mouth--Avalon's lips were a very, very dull pink, the girl loathed that fact as she noticed it--. "Laugh lines", Caroline called them, and would chuckle heartily afterwards, the paper folds creasing upwards as her eyes crinkled cheerfully.

Avalon tugged her iPod out of her pocket after kicking off her black shoes next to the door on a piece of old newspaper that was already occupying Caroline's white Nike's and quickly waltzed over to the short set of stairs she knew would take her to her bedroom. Her white socks were ordinary enough, but seemed to excessively match her general apparel--black here, black here, black everywhere but in the deep blue jeans--in the way that it was just not the happiest thing in the world to see, the way they were filled with holes from her constantly walking around barefoot.

"Honey," Came her mother's gentle voice from the bottom of the staircase; even from nearing the second floor, Avalon could hear the lock click into place, conforming that Caroline had just locked up. "How was your walk home? You didn't slip on any ice patches, did you, Avie?"

Not even faltering in her steps, Avalon continued up the stairs, grunting a low murmur under her breath of no coherence whatsoever. Her mother could decide for herself whether or not that was a 'yes' grunt or a 'no' grunt. Besides, she didn't quite know what to say. She hadn't even noticed the weather when she'd been outside, and if she had indeed fallen once or twice, she didn't even recall, despite the short amount of time she was out. Oh well. Avalon was 'weird' like that, as most other kids her age tended to say. Subconsciously, Avalon agreed with them. But in a world as 'weird' as this one, who even knew what 'normal' was these days?

---


"A...Ava...lon," A throaty voice called out to her as said girl closed her bedroom door behind her and dashed for her 5-disc Sony stereo, shoving her headphones into the jack and plopping them on her head, obviously in a hurry. Her room was fairly normal, not at all like the strange gothic, black, and evil ritual-type of room one of her classmates may have expected. Her walls were sponged a pale pink, and random colors were blotched about the room for photos hanging along the walls, random knickknacks strewn about her dresser, her bed carefully arranged with dozens of fluffy pillows--oh, and of course there was the large mirror that stretched across her bedroom wall nearly three whole feet.

"Av...Wha...taki...s'long?" Came the voice again. It seemed to echo around her room, bouncing along the walls like there were some invisible people playing ping pong, the source of the voice being the ball, of course...

Avalon rolled her eyes and tossed her hair over her shoulder, hitting the 'play' button and settling against her tan carpet across from the mirror. "Sorry that took so long, Hoc, but you could've waited."

Almost instantaneously, as soon as the music began pumping, a strange boy--the same age as her, Avalon liked to note--, shimmered into view within her mirror, but it appeared as if he were perched at the bottom of the mirror on his back, one arm lazily supporting the back of his head while the other swayed back and forth, dipping in and out of view, staying only visible within the glass areas Avalon could see. Just like magic.

"Really, now," He murmured, a soft, enchanting sound, his voice was. "If you insist on playing Relient K over and over again, I may stop showing up. You're beginning to bore me, dearest Avalon."

The girl seated across from him glared, obviously miffed at his obscured teasing remarks. "Hmm. You say that, but you can't deny that you're the one that's here to keep -me- from falling into boredom, remember?" She felt her lips twitch upwards and she fiddled with the hems of her pant legs. "Besides, you're not the one that's sitting over here on the other side in this ultra boring world of nothing but profound insanity," She kindly pointed out.

The boy, Hoc-vu, threw his head back till only his lower jaw that was still in view as he bellowed a beautiful laughter that brought a wide-spread grin to Avalon's face. He laughed at practically anything she said, because he knew how much she loved his smallest chortles, his greatest of guffaws. And he knew because she told him. And he would always listen. Always remember...

"So," Avalon began, her voice taking on a more casual tone as she picked at a particular hole in her sock where her big toe was prudently sticking out. "Any news from the other side you'd like to let me in on? Or is it just more secrets you'd rather not tell me?" She teased.

Hoc-vu shrugged his shoulder nonchalantly, and began to prattle on about something random, switching topics with ease, going from discussing perhaps Avalon's favorite color of the day, or turning to speculate one of the latest books she'd found herself reading.

---

Caroline hummed as she pranced about the kitchen, bubbly as always. She'd been in the middle of tossing some potatoes into the foil she'd set out when she heard a slow beat pulsating through the floorboards and glanced uneasily towards the front door, which was right across from the staircase. Oh dear...there was no doubt in her mind what Avalon was doing at that moment, but being a mother meant being responsible and gleefully (or in this case, glumly) spying on your child's personal life, so down the hall and quietly up the stairs she went.

"Hoc-vu! Darn it, you said you wouldn't laugh!"

Pausing in mid-step at one of the laugh steps upon hearing her daughter's child-like laughter, Caroline bit her lower lip, coated thick with bright red lipstick. "Oh, Avalon..." She couldn't bring herself to go up and knock on the door, knowing the only retort she'd receive would be a sharp "I'm busy!" or "Go away!". But...how she wished...so very dearly did she wish, this...that Avalon had never told her of her "best friend" so many years ago--how he had a wardrobe of the Mad Hatter and laughter of a prince, eyes of the sun and smile of the moon....how she wished that maybe...a young boy named Hoc-vu was really there. That her reflection wasn't really Avalon's only friend. Wishful thinking. Could it lead to insanity? Caroline wasn't sure, wasn't sure she wanted to know.

---

Hoc-vu chuckled brashly, a low rumble that was found weaving through Avalon's ears as he tipped his torn and patched top-hat towards her. "Forgive me, Avalon," He didn't sound at all sincere, as the laughter continued.

Avalon huffed and crossed her arms, obviously deciding it was time for the cold shoulder treatment. Honestly, she just didn't understand people sometimes!

---

So, you see....this was how it was for Avalon. She never realized how beautiful her home and mother was, only engrossed her curiosity and happiness in this strange boy's presence...of course...Caroline would never come to terms with this. She questioned herself, and wondered many times if she should take Avalon to seek out professional help from a doctor. This couldn't be healthy. She had no friends, was constantly in a depressed mood, and always staring into that mirror, getting detentions and blasting her music without a care in the world for herself or anyone else. Except...for perhaps this Hoc-vu person you've been hearing of as of late. Surely you must wonder, even if only a little, who this boy is...? Well, our story follows him a bit more, but this time...months and months later...on the Ides of March, a surprisingly dreary and rainy day, does our tale pick up.

---

"Do you want me to sing for you?" Hoc-vu chided, rubbing his thumb over the light-colored wood on the other side of the mirror, eyes flashing with amusement as he stared at Avalon. "Or would you rather continue listening to the Goo Goo Dolls?" He faked blanching and hunched up his shoulders, as if the band disgusted him.

Avalon looked horror-struck for a brief moment, then narrowed her eyes and leaned her head back against the wall behind her. "I'd much rather you didn't kill 'Here Is Gone' with whatever you choose to call 'singing', Hoc."

"Oh," He feigned a hurt expression, taking his hat from his head and holding it against his heart, through his tattered clothes. "You wound me so, Avalon."

She rolled her eyes, but couldn't fight the grin that tugged at her lips, "You'll survive."

He nodded. "Very much so, I shall," He agreed solemnly, and tapped the interior of the glass--something he'd never done before--and motioned with his hand for Avalon to approach. "Well, birthday girl, I've known you for..." He stopped, and pretended to think over what he was about to say, really just waiting for her to finally be standing right in front of the mirror, leaning towards the cool glass so her breath fanned against its surface. "Almost seven years now, correct?" When she nodded gleefully, he continued. "And in those seven years, there's always been one thing you've wanted most..." He trailed off, gesturing with his hands for her to pick up where he left off.

"My own rabbit hole," She whispered and licked her lips, wondering if he was really going to give into that wish.

Tapping the glass again, he smiled warmly, his lips pulling back to expose his surprisingly white teeth, as he said, "I think it's time you finally received your present, no?"

When Avalon nodded eagerly in response and closed her eyes, sucking in a deep breath, she extended her arm, her fingers numbing as they reached for the cool glass, and Hoc-vu's waiting hand. Perhaps...if she'd been more observant...more aware, more acute, more perfect--like him--, she wouldn't noticed how his eyes darkened considerably and the smile widened, so instead of just a quaint set of teeth shining before her, was a prompt of sharp fangs, dripping dangerously with venom.

---

When Avalon opened her eyes--when had she closed them?--, all she could see, this is assuming she could see at all in that moment, black. No trace of light anywhere, and if she was being honest, it almost frightened her. She lifted her hand in front of her mouth, a motion that was often interpreted as the person being scared, taken aback, or in the very least, wished to be left alone. An insecure gesture, overall. "Hoc...vu?"

A shaking resounded beneath her feet, and it took Avalon a moment to realize it was Hoc-vu's laughter before she squealed indignantly. The sound nearly threw her out of tune of her music, her headphones surprisingly still intact on the other side of the mirror, even though the cord seemed to be gone. The song was even still playing, very clearly, she might've added.

"Follow the path, Avalon," His voice couldn't be pin-pointed to an exact location, not even the wind knew where he was now, Avalon thought, slightly disturbed by this. She'd always felt better when she could see his bright eyes and slightly reserved smile. When he tried to call out to her before she had the music going, she was scared stiff, the way his voice crackled impudently around her room, no exact figure to trace the source to.

She looked left, then right, then behind her, and finally ahead again. Her voice came out almost a baritone, nervous and breaking constantly. "What path? Hoc, I don't see anyth--" And she stopped. As if the lights to a runway were suddenly flicked on thanks to a man working behind the scenes and fiddling with levers and switches, a strange row of glowing mirrors glimmered in and out of view, as if her eyes were uncertain of what she was seeing, crossed between reality and some perpetual fabric her mind devised just then.

Taking a tentative step forwards, then another when she realized no random creature would jump out and attack her, now confidently striding along. Very confidently, Avalon would've enjoyed remembering that part, surely. Confidently enough, till she reached the mirrors, that was, of course.

The first to her right was oval, very large, only about half a foot shorter than her, framed by black tendrils of marble and hanging on what appeared to be nothing but the endless black that continued on for as far as Avalon's eyes could see. The tendrils were crooked, dark, and strangely mutant to her--if there was one word Avalon had to use to describe them, it would be deathly. It looked as if whoever touched it would be scorched, then wrapped around the tendril's smoldering arms and swallowed into its crystal abyss. However, the most she saw in the mirror was a young girl--of only about four years old, she guessed--laughing cutely, chubby cheeks dimpled as she ran around the grass, her parents--they looked strangely familiar, Avalon noticed--running after her, laughing with her.

Avalon's eyes lingered only for a moment before she started up again, making sure to quicken her pace this time. She glanced to her right to find a rather impish square mirror, also guarded with tendrils, but this time, instead of a pleasant image that caused her unreasonable grief somewhere in the back of her mind, she found something most...peculiar. She could see her parents, arguing quietly at first, then yelling out of frustration and rage, her father grabbing his long work coat and rushing out the door in haste, her mother clamping a hand over her mouth, eyes widening as they turned towards her crying daughter, who'd been watching from the stairs. She said something--apparently the mirrors produced no sound--, and rushed over, hugging her baby so tightly, as if that little girl's heart would shatter if she let go.

Sucking in air through her nose, Avalon forced herself to look away, and not think about how remorse that scene really was. She bit the inside of her cheek and forced herself to walk on. She passed many more mirrors, but ignored the temptation to look--the pain spreading like a poison through her heart was far greater than any ill-will desire to view the mirrors was. But she was forced to gaze into one mirror, at least, when she'd reached the end of this 'hall of mirrors'. A tall rectangle-shaped mirror, again, coiled with strange, dark tendrils, was blocking her path. So, this was the end...? Surely this place wasn't where Hoc-vu resided, he'd described it as something beautiful, with endless skies and things even her wildest imagination couldn't conjure.

Staring at this mirror, which happened to be even taller than her, Avalon tried to peak around it, but to no avail. Only more black, and this time, no mirrors framing it. "Holy crow...Hoc, this seriously isn't funny," She whispered when a small bed suddenly flickered into view in the mirror, a person clad in only a white robe seated beneath the covers. The image snapped closer up to the person's face, which was downcast to the point her short hair covered her face. A rather eerie laughter was bubbling from her throat, and Avalon tensed when she actually heard it. "What the--" She stopped herself, eyes widening apprehensively as the charcoal locks suddenly shortened, and the head lifted.

Hoc-vu smiled pleasantly at her from the mirror, no longer wearing a green coat and top-hat, filthy white pants and gloves, but garbed in the robe that the girl she'd just seen was previously in. He held up his wrist, to show the paper band that was around it, identifying his name and any other essentials that a doctor checking on him may need to know. "You wanted to see the other side, didn't you, Avalon?" He chirped, rather than said. But the way it was spoken had Avalon viewing it as more of a statement than the question it was presented as.

"I..." Avalon seemed to struggle for words. What the heck was going on here?.!
Hoc-vu's smile turned sinister, his eyes darkened, his head slowly careening towards her. He spoke quietly, "Avalon, Avalon, Avalon...this is what you wanted, hmm? The other side." His evil little smirk grew. "Perhaps you should've thought what exactly the other side was before wishing to enter it."

Avalon's eyes only continued to widen, and when she took a step back, a cold arm linked itself around her waist. She blinked, and the bed was empty, the image itself shrouding into the darkness behind the mirror.

Behind her, Hoc-vu snickered in her ear, relentlessly setting his top hat on her head with his free hand and leering at her with an almost unreadable expression. "Welcome, Avalon, to my personal corner in Hell."

Even before Avalon realized screaming was pointless, due to her breath that stubbornly caught in her throat, she felt a shocking warmth slick her cheeks, and she looked expectantly in the now clear mirror before her, only to wish she hadn't.

The breath that had been stuck was nearly stifling her now, and her eyes stung, a warning telling her that soon the tears would be cascading down her eyes in waterfalls. Oh, what a fool she was. There she stood, all alone, no reincarnation of the Mad Hatter behind her--yet she still felt his arm around her, his breath on her skin, his laughter resounding in her ears--, apparently crying already. Then she realized...the pain...it wasn't from the coming of tears...she was already crying. She was crying out her own -blood-.

Then, there was something more to the image--a sliver of light catching in the mirror caught her eye, and she didn't have to turn around to realize what it was. Hoc-vu was pressing a small dagger to her throat, and still smiling against the hollow beneath her ear. "I never did tell you happy birthday, did I?" He mumbled, mostly to himself. Avalon was too stunned to move.

As his gloved hand slowly pressed further to her throat, she was vaguely aware of the mirrors around her shattering, the sound only deafened by his ominous chuckle, the one she'd thought she'd come to love.

---

Caroline whistled an old tune and dropped the groceries next to the door as she stepped inside her house. "Avalon, honey, I'm home!" She called out, as usual. No response. That was something she was used to, all right. She frowned, anyway, though, and quickly made a move towards the stairs. If her daughter was...talking...with herself...what should she do? Confront her? Have her committed? In all honesty, the second one sounded most reasonable.

"Avalon? Sweetie, are you okay?" She'd reached the top stair now, and was about to tell her to lower the volume, when she heard something beneath the louder-than-necessary song's chorus. A wave of panic rushed over her. "Avalon? Avalon!"

Rounding the banner and not bothering to knock on the door, Caroline burst through the door, and was too startled by what she saw to even try speaking her daughter's name again in that demanding, motherly tone she wasn't even well-practiced in. "Oh...good God, Avalon...!"

It was all she could do to clasp a hand over her mouth, trying to stifle her sobs as she reached for the phone she'd had placed in Avalon's room and quickly dialed the infamous number, '911'.

"Oh, God, please, please, Avalon, how could this have happened...." Caroline's shoulders shook from suppressed cries, and she fought so hard to restrain herself. She couldn't look back at her daughter, or she'd lose it. Even if Avalon needed her right now, to be by her...the call needed to be made. And right now, Caroline felt more like an outsider than stumbled in after a bad fight took place, rather than a mother who should be fending for her child.

Avalon's shrieks and screams of pain only hurt her more, and with one glance over, Caroline regretted it.

Her daughter was huddling before her dresser, pulling her hair so hard some strands were falling to the bloodied carpet beneath her as she writhed and moaned in pain, shards of the mirror sticking out of her coated, and sweat-slick skin. Caroline didn't want to think about it, but what else was she to do...? Somehow the mirror had fallen on Avalon while she was day-dreaming and talking to that boy she decided to make up one day, and now....

Caroline had Avalon committed when she was released from the hospital.

---

You see....she was charged with suffering from severe Schizophrenia, that Avalon Reid was. Some people believe that. Others believe some of the more far-fetched stories. No one ever really knew what happened to Avalon that day. All we really know is that Caroline visited that child every day till she died of old age...and Avalon herself? Well, some say she really was a loony, and they tried to ignore her. But...if you happen to believe in something more, something greater--or maybe something worse...you might take a listen to what the rest of us have to say. However, there's one part of this tale that we all know to be completely true, and we're not quite sure what to think of it...because people visiting committed loved ones say that they can still hear Avalon's giddy laughter and loud, bustling iPod as she calls out to Hoc-vu, a young boy who committed suicide in that very same institute only fifteen years before