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24<br />
I pulled away.<br />
I started to run.<br />
The sad, distorted faces hovered in front of me.<br />
I shut my eyes and dodged away from them.<br />
I couldn’t think. Couldn’t breathe.<br />
My legs pumped. My arms flew out at my sides. It was so clear and bright, I couldn’t tell if I<br />
was moving or not. My feet couldn’t feel a floor. There were no walls, no ceiling. There was no air<br />
brushing my face as I ran.<br />
But my fear kept me moving. Through the clear, cold, shimmering light.<br />
He was behind me.<br />
I couldn’t hear him.<br />
He had no shadow.<br />
But I knew he was right behind me.<br />
And I knew that if he caught me, I’d be lost. Lost inside this blank world, unable to see, to hear,<br />
to smell, to touch anything, lost in the cold glass forever.<br />
Another silent, bobbing face.<br />
And so I kept running.<br />
Until the colors returned.<br />
Until light bent to form shapes.<br />
And I saw shadows moving and shifting in front of me.<br />
“Stop, Max!” I heard my reflection’s voice right behind me. “Stop right there!”<br />
But now he sounded worried.<br />
And so I kept running, running into the colors and moving shapes.<br />
Suddenly, Zack turned off the light.<br />
I came bursting out of the mirror, into the tiny attic room, into an explosion of sound, of color, of<br />
hard surfaces, of real things. The real world.<br />
I stood up, panting, gasping for breath. I tested my legs. I stomped on the floor. The solid floor.<br />
I turned my eyes to my friends, who were standing in front of me, startled expressions on their<br />
faces. My mom, I realized, must have retreated back downstairs.<br />
“Did you make the switch?” Zack asked eagerly, his eyes glowing with excitement.<br />
“Are you one of us?” Erin asked at the same time.<br />
“No,” said a voice—my voice—coming from just behind me.<br />
We all stared into the mirror.<br />
Inside it, my reflection, red-faced and angry, glared out at us, his hands pressed against the glass.<br />
“He got away,” my reflection told my friends. “The switch wasn’t made.”<br />
“I don’t understand!” I heard April cry. “What’s going on, guys?”<br />
Zack and Erin ignored her. They stepped up quickly and grabbed me by the arms. They spun me
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