Rivalry Read Free Page B

shoulder in the mirror.
    I jumped. The mirror slipped from my hands, falling into the sink and breaking in two. I spun around, thinking Doug’s mom had come into the bathroom while I wasn’t looking, but I was alone.
    There was a knock at the bathroom door. “Owen, are you okay? I thought I heard something break.” It was Sharon.
    “ No ma’am, I’m fine - I just dropped something of mine. Everything’s okay.”
    “ All right, I just wanted to make sure.”
    “ Thank you! I’ll be right out.”
    Shaking, I picked the pieces of the mirror out of the sink, careful not to cut myself, and I refused to look directly into their reflections, instead wrapping each piece with a few sheets of toilet paper before tucking them away in the shaving kit.
    That had not been my imagination - something had been in the room behind me, standing by the door, a hand raised up as if to say ‘hi’. It had looked like a girl, but I hadn’t gotten a clear view of its face, just a flash of eyes and hair. I finished packing my kit and took a few deep breaths to calm my nerves before leaving the room.
    Doug was sitting on the edge of his bed, thumbing through a magazine.
    “ Hey, what was that?” he asked.
    “ Uh, nothing, it’s cool.”
    He looked at me funny. “Did you...see something?”
    “ Oh, I just startled myself, that’s all. I guess I’m getting a little spooked out now.”
    Doug nodded and pointed to the Super NES. “Want to play?”
    “ Sure.”
    We sat down on the floor in front of the TV and fired up Super Mario World. We quickly got into the game, and soon we were laughing and joking, ribbing each other when we died and cheering each other on when we pulled off a great move.
    After a while though, I began to notice something odd. Every so often, I’d hit a button on the controller, and whatever I was trying to do, something else would happen. It wasn’t consistent, and it only started after maybe twenty minutes of play, so I didn’t think it was my controller.
    Doug began to notice my frustration. “You okay?”
    “ Yeah, my controller is acting a little funny.”
    “ Oh, yeah. I think that happens sometimes. Want to switch?”
    “ Okay, sure.”
    We saved the game and switched the controllers, but the problem persisted. What was weirder, as time went on, I noticed the sound become a little...distorted. If I hadn’t known better, I would have sworn I heard a girl’s voice coming through the speakers, very faintly. It sounded like an occasional giggle or other unintelligible noise.
    “ Do you hear that?” I asked Doug.
    “ What?”
    “ There’s like, something weird coming through the speakers. Like maybe a program on TV? Could it be bleeding through?”
    “ Uh, I don’t get any reception in here. That’s weird. Here, let’s turn the sound down.”
    Even with the sound turned off, an odd static-like noise came though the speakers. The sound was intermittent, as if someone tried speaking, but with a great deal of difficulty. Doug could see that I was losing all interest in playing the game, instead trying to hear what was being said.
    “ Hey, you’re missing all those coins,” he pointed out.
    “ Yeah, sorry - that sound is so odd.”
    “ Well, how about we turn it off for a while? Maybe break out some comics or something.”
    “ Yeah, sure - it’s getting kinda late anyhow, we don’t want to annoy your folks.”
    Doug turned off the console, then the television. As he pushed the power button on the TV, I could have sworn I heard the word “ wait ” come through the speaker.
    “ Does your TV do that a lot, with the sounds?”
    “ No, I’m not sure what that was. Maybe my dad needs to have someone take a look at it. It’s a few years old and we’ve moved, so maybe it got bumped bad?”
    “ Yeah, I guess. It just sounded, I dunno - like a girl’s voice.”
    Doug got quiet for a moment and looked away.
    “ Hey? Is the ghost...is it a girl?”
    Doug looked at the floor and shrugged.
    “