Broken Mirrors

Day Use Only

During the day, Lake Royale was not much more than a glorified pond. Its only visitors were cliff-diving teens and tag-along siblings with nothing better to do in the hot North Carolina summers. Olivia and Finn were two aforementioned cliff-diving teens.

There was nothing off-putting about the stagnant, cool waters aside from the multiple posted signs reading in brazen block letters "DAY USE ONLY. NO EXCEPTIONS". Simply that, and nothing more. There had been no bloody accidents, no Friday the 13th-esque happenings, not an inkling of horror. The worst thing that happened at the lake was the rock music blaring someone's beat-up pickup that served as a unwilling bike rack for the kids too young for their own cars. Nothing at all out of the ordinary.

During the day, I mean. It was much worse at night.

Our two rebel teenagers, Olivia and Finn, had known each other for about 10 years at the start of our story. Both were out sick today with fevers of 104 degrees, which only seemed to be curable by skipping school and going to the lake. Both sets of parents were on vacation together, meaning that Olivia and Finn had not been to school all week due to various bouts of illness and impromptu appointments. The fact of the matter was that if they didn't want to go to school, they simply weren't going to go. If the school were to call, the adults would never believe that their angelic children could ever be caught playing hooky or smoking in the dark room. Both teens could forge any signature as long as they had a good reference and had, in fact, made a profitable business out of signing report cards and "doctor's notes". There was an air about them—messy hair but clean faces, pleasant smiles but rebel eyes, the laughter that comes with lies but the tears that come with consequences.

And there was no one there to stop them.

"Think they notice we're gone?" Finn asked, gangly and altogether rough-around-the-edges. Although his question was cautious, he didn't seem the least bit worried about being caught.

"They're too busy falling asleep in calc," Olivia replied, a tan girl with sunburn blush and an obvious rebel streak that could be seen from a mile away. Unless, of course, you were Olivia's parents.

"Fuck, I forgot about Mrs. Webster. She had her baby yet?"

"You're asking me like I'd know."

The familiar whizz of tires and rattling of decrepit mechanics was a comforting sound on the otherwise quiet main street in Royale, North Carolina. One car slowly lumbered by, kicking up exhaust fumes as it passed, leaving the two teens even hotter than before. They pedaled faster, eager for the escape of the cool water.

"Sun's going down," Olivia observed as they ditched the two ugliest bikes in the world in the rack.

"No shit." The two teens stood up, ineffectively wiping their faces with ratty t-shirts soaked with sweat that they peeled off to reveal swim suits.

"Fuck off." They had made it to the edge of the relatively low, all-purpose cliff. Many a freshman had been pushed off in sports initiations and many a middle schooler had been thrown into the water by bullies.

"You first." These words had two meanings. Firstly, a quick comeback in a pinch. Secondly, Olivia had been unknowingly nominated to jump in first. She strolled towards the edge, so much higher than it looked from the water. Without much hesitation or fuss, she simply stepped over the edge. Finn followed before she hit the water, leaping off of the cliff's edge, a raucous yell soaring from his lips as he hurtled towards the dark waters.

The plunge was sacred, those first moments in the water when you don't feel like you need to breathe, anyways. Surfacing was always the hard part—the heat on your head and the cold on your feet left a funny feeling in your insides after you got out.