In a Manor of Speaking

The Photograph

Y/N was paraded around the Manor by Yan, Yancy, Bim, and Bing for the rest of the morning. Google left for their workshop, most likely to finish that paperwork he left on the desk. Illinois went back to his nap, thankfully uninterrupted since Wilford left for his studio, and Eric and King were left to clean up the mess in the kitchen. King kept calling bullshit since he wasn't even participating in the 'flour fight,' but no one seemed to hear him.

Y/N was led (and sometimes chased, as Yan seemed to enjoy making Y/N run away and back) through multiple hallways that housed the egos' bedrooms, offices, and special break areas. Some of them were interesting, like King's giant squirrel dome and Yancy's music room. Y/N did indeed have a bedroom, which they gathered from their guides' reactions to when they neared the end of the bedroom hallway.

After a while of standing aimlessly around the new door, Yancy was the first one to comment on it. "Huh. I don't rememba' dis room bein' here before."

The door to said room was in perfect condition and made out of a plain oak wood, completely unlike all of the other bedroom doors. See, each Iplier had a unique door and room, with the exception of Google and Bing, of course. For example, Yan's room theme was 'typical anime schoolgirl,' and her door was made out of Japanese beech wood. And Wilford's was a sickenly bright palette of pink and red. His door was well-used and had various candy wrappers stapled onto it. It was very strange indeed to see a regular door down this hallway.

"Well hurry up, Y/N, open it already! C'mon, c'mon, c'mon, I want to see why it's so different!"

"Oh my God, Yan, calm down," Bim sighed. "How does Eric put up with all this energy..."

Yan just managed to shout an "Ex-fucking-SCUSE me?!" before their attention was diverted to Y/N opening the door to their room.

The room... was basically as plain as the door. The furniture and walls were a very light gray, and the comforter on the queen-sized bed was patterned with gray and white stripes. There were decals of dark clouds along the top half of the wall, and above the dresser sat...

Y/N gasped. The mirror looked exactly like the one from their nightmare, cracks and all. Bim and Bing, having been there when Y/N described the damn thing, looked in and gasped too.

"Uh, dude, is that...? Y'know... the mirror?"

Yancy and Yan gave them all a confused look before Y/N took a step into the room. They didn't reply to Bing as they walked toward the mirror with their eyes closed. Y/N waited for a few tense seconds before they slowly opened their eyes, expecting to be grabbed as soon as they looked into it.

...Of course. Y/N saw only their reflection, not the reflection. Honestly, what were they thinking? It was just a nightmare, it couldn't be real.

"...Is any o' youse gonna fill us in on what da hell dat was?"

Yancy and Yan still looked extremely confused as Y/N breathed a sigh of relief and turned around. "You know how Bing said I couldn't remember anything? That wasn't completely true... I was dreaming before I woke up here." Y/N briefly described the events of the nightmare, leaving out the details of the reflection again. Yancy looked concerned, and Yan looked from Y/N and the mirror a few times before stepping into the room.

She eagerly started inspecting the mirror. "So this mirror was in your nightmare? Whoa, that's kind of freaky. I'd still be a bit creeped out if I were—hey look, a button!"

But before Y/N could ask where it was located or what it looked like, Yan had pushed it. The button opened up the bottom section of the mirror's frame, which was apparently a secret drawer, and inside was a single photograph. Only the back of it was visible.

Y/N gently pushed Yan out of the way, and they seemed to understand that they wanted some space. Perhaps the picture was... personal.

It was personal, but not for whatever reason Yan was thinking of. The back of the photo read, in loopy but legible cursive handwriting, "First day on the job with Dames! June 16 1919." Y/N turned it over and gasped again. It was... them! They were in the picture! Someone else was in the picture too, most likely this 'Dames' individual, but their face had been scribbled out in red pen. The person had their arm around Y/N's shoulder and was waving to the camera shyly, cane in hand. Y/N was waving, too, and both of their hands were blurry from the photo being taken in the middle of it.

Y/N couldn't believe it. That was their face, in a picture from... over a century ago. They felt tears of frustration prick their eyes as they scrambled to remember something, anything, about this event or the other person, or why they had been drawn over. But again, they came up with nothing.

They didn't realize they were fully crying until someone turned them around and wrapped Y/N in a hug. The photo dropped to the carpeted floor as Bim attempted to calm Y/N down. Bing walked in and picked up the picture. "Oh, jeez, dude..."

He showed the picture to Yancy and Yan, and they all examined it as Y/N pulled away from Bim and wiped their eyes. "Sorry. I'm just... I feel weird. I'm supposed to know what that is, or who that is, and I don't, and I guess I'm a hundred years old and I should be dead or something but—"

"Hey hey hey, youse's OK, Y/N. It's gonna be OK. We's gonna help youse figure it out. Promise."

"Yeah, we'd be kind of shit friends if we left you here alone to cry about this."

"You are ever so tactful, Yan."

"I try, Bim!!"

Bing just nodded his head and chose to ignore Yan and Bim's bickering. "Yeah, bruh, we're gonna do whatever it takes to get you to remember this. Maybe we can take this to Doc? Earlier he said he needed a name, and now we have one, dude! ...Kinda."

Y/N smiled at him and nodded their head, but before they could verbally agree their stomach spoke for them.

"...Maybe we should get lunch first, though, bruh."

And the five of them walked back to the kitchen, closing the plain door behind them.