She landed hard on her elbows. She rolled over with a curse and caught them. She held them to try dull the sharp, strange pain that comes from hitting the funny bone.

"Nothing funny about it," she muttered as she sat up.

Somehow, she had around turned while falling and managed to land facing away from the mirror. Weird She looked through her window and saw that the street lights were still on.

"Not a black-out then," she said. She groaned and tried to remember where her mother kept the flashlights.

"I guess I'll have to use your damn smelly candles," she said, standing up and walking towards her door.

She opened her door and looked out onto a dark and empty desert. Miriam rubbed her head and closed the door. Then she opened it again. slower. Still, there was nothing but dunes of rolling sand in front of her.

Even weirder, street lights, half-buried by the sand, glowed orange. Miriam put her hands up and searched her scalp. She felt for a warm, sticky spot that would confirm bleeding and a head wound. She hadn't thought she had hit her head.

Miriam closed the door again and instead stared at the poster she had at the back of the door. It had been from a band that she had loved last year, and gotten tired of since. The lead singer still had flowers in her hair and a stupid expression on her face. The guitarist was still posing in a way that did him no favours.

It took her a bit of time to realise what was wrong with it.

She couldn't read any of the words on it. Everything from the name of the band, to the tour dates and one-line reviews from music magazines. All the letters were in the right place but backwards or reversed or something.

"Phone," said Miriam, turning around to grab her phone, to inform someone that she had a concussion.

She stopped and stared at the other person in the room. Her reflection stared back, even though she wasn't looking in the mirror. The mirror was facing the wrong way, and Miriam shouldn't even be able to see it's bare feet.

Her reflection walked towards her with a smile.