Chapter 1

There's an antique mirror in my living room.

My husband and son are always lingering around it.

One day, with my own eyes, I see the two of them touch the mirror, and disappear.

I break down and call the police, but no one believes me.

Between terror and worry, I lost the baby I am carrying.

Then they come back from inside the mirror and see me collapsed on the floor, my lower body soaked in blood.

"Mom, what are you doing here? Aren't you embarrassed?" My son pull away from my hand in disgust.

My husband glanced at me and said indifferently, "Since you've found out, I might as well be honest. We have another home on the other side of the mirror."

"Now you've miscarried, then take good care of my other wife Sage. She's carrying my child too."

I wipe away my tears and walk out the door calmly, stopping at the hardware store and then buying a twenty-pound sledgehammer.

...

The moment I walk through the door, Lucas is already scowling at me.

"Where were you? Why isn't dinner ready? Sage is out there surviving the end of the world, and you can't even handle one simple thing while sitting at home?"

Oliver tilts his chin up and rolls his eyes at me.

"Mom, you're so selfish! If you let Sage go hungry, I'm never calling you Mom again!"

I don't say a word. I take the black plastic bag with the sledgehammer inside and slide it into the very back of the shoe cabinet.

Lucas sighs when I don't react.

"Forget it. You've had it too easy in this peaceful world. You'll never understand how brutal it is over there."

He walks back to the couch and keeps packing things into boxes.

"There's an extreme heatwave in the wasteland. I'm taking apart the AC and the fans. I'll bring them through tonight. You can survive the summer with the windows open."

I walk over and see what he's been packing.

Baby bottles. Burp cloths. A tiny swaddle blanket.

All things I picked out when I was still pregnant. Before I lost the baby.

He notices me staring and pauses for half a second.

"Sage is pregnant. You can't find clean baby supplies in the apocalypse. Yours is gone anyway. Might as well give them to someone who can use them."

He says it like it's nothing.

Before, I would've screamed.

Now I just smile bitterly.

"Lucas, do you even remember how I lost the baby?"

His face darkens.

"The miscarriage was an accident. How long are you going to hold that over me?"

An accident.

Two weeks ago, I slipped while pregnant. Blood everywhere beneath me.

I grabbed his pant leg and begged him to take me to the hospital.

He pried my fingers off.

"Call 911 yourself. Sage said the radiation clouds cleared tonight so that we can see the stars. I promised I'd watch them with her."

I turned to Oliver, begged him to bring me my phone.

He followed Lucas toward the mirror without hesitation.

"No way, Sage is waiting for us. She'll worry if we're late."

That night, I lay in a pool of my own blood for a long time.

The baby didn't make it. And I nearly bled out on the operating table.

"Sage can barely survive over there. Taking care of her is the least we can do."

Lucas tapes the box shut, cutting off my memories.

"Just rest today. No need to cook."

He calls out to Oliver, "Ollie, let's go. Sage got a deer today, we're having barbecue tonight."

Father and son each carry a box and walk toward the mirror on the living room wall.

A flash of light. They vanish.

I stand outside the glass and watch.

Lucas and Oliver shrink down and step into a barren wasteland. At the door of the shelter, a woman with a ponytail comes out to greet them. She ruffles Oliver's hair, then leans against Lucas's shoulder.

The shelter, furnished with everything taken from my home, looks warm and cozy.

A happy little family of three.

I look around at my empty apartment. There's nothing left here that resembles a home.