Mid-Week Flash Challenge - Week 155

This week's photo  is from Silena Lambertini an Italian photographer, and this is not the first time I've used one of her images for MWF. She has some great pics. She calls this one, Mirror, Mirror on the wall. 

This story flipped and flopped as to how it was going to turn out, but finally it gave me the ending. 

The General Guidelines can be found here.

How to create a clickable link in Blogger comments can be found on lasts week's post here.

There is also a Facebook group for Mid-Week Flash, if you fancy getting the prompt there.

Portal

It was still there; she could see it in the wing mirror. But when she adjusted the rear view mirror, it wasn’t. Rae knew what this meant and it wasn’t good. They’d tracked her and managed to come through. Damn!

She thought she’d found sanctuary here, that they couldn’t get through. She was wrong.

Rae glanced in the other wing mirror and could see the other one; they always travelled in pairs. For the moment she had the upper hand; they didn’t know she’d seen them and if she played it cool they wouldn’t know until it was too late.

She rounded the corner into her street, but kept on driving. She glanced wistfully at her front door, but if she went in there, she’d be trapped; remaining in the car meant she still had a chance, if only to lead them out again and keep the people on this plane safe. They might want her, but if they got her then they’d have entry to this dimension, and it would be the end for the people of this world.

She drove into the countryside, a plan forming in her mind. She checked every few minutes to see if they were still with her – they were. 

The houses thinned out as did the villages. She drove out into the middle of the woods – woods she was familiar with. It was where she’d come through and there was a portal there. She hoped she could still open it. She wouldn’t have time for any rituals – once she stopped they’d be on her, so she began incantations while driving. It would loosen her spirit from her body, making it tougher for them to catch her.

She drove up a dirt track. She wouldn’t be able to drive to the clearing, but she wouldn’t have to run as far. She stuck a hand into her handbag on the passenger seat and began rummaging inside while still steering the car. Eventually she felt metal under her hand and pulled out the compact mirror, flipping it open. She moved it to the driver’s side window: they were visible in it.

She hit the dead end and jumped out of the car, running into the woods, keeping the mirror at an angle so she could keep an eye on them. They gave chase. She pushed into a harder run. The human body would only let you go so fast, and in moments like these she missed her native Lenthian body, which would have carried her three times as fast, but that was long gone along with her plane of existence. These demons had seen to that.

Rae arrived in the clearing she knew all too well, having spent her first months here learning how to operate her new body and live in this new world. She’d been free for the first time in eons. Now she had to leave and take these two with her. She knew where she needed to take them, but risked her own life doing so. She only hoped that when they passed through they wouldn’t have a chance to attach to her; that she might survive and return.

She looked at the rings in the tree stump and let her eyes spin with them as she continued incantations. The tree base began to transform and open into a tunnel.

She heard a scream; they’d realised what she was doing. But it was too late, the words she’d spun had tied them to the clearing, they couldn’t retreat, and the portal was open, drawing them all in. She felt her soul being sucked through and the presence of their half souls following her.

The light changed, colours flashed and the temperature rose. They were through to a world ablaze. Their world. Their dominion.

She saw them take their true forms: half-headed, twisted limbed vessels of bile and acid. She saw them extend their limbs towards her, but she was not solid, they could not take her.

She twirled away from them, searching for the portal they’d come through. This plane was normally sealed but the invocation she’d used should have kept it open – if only for a few seconds. She could hear them calling others; enough of them and they’d have her soul.

A glint in the ground. She dove for it.

There was a roar all around her. She felt heat, and heard a popping sound.

She lay on the ground in the woods in her body. She’d made it out.