“Turn the light on,” I said. “What are we looking for?” she replied. “Truth” I answered. As she turned the flashlight on I could see her hand trembling. The path lighted wasn’t a pretty sight, shadows awaited in every corner and roots seemed to cover the whole way. Slowly and with much care we made our way through. Eyes piercing in the dark and quiet whispers like never ending echoes could be heard. I could hear her heart as we walked and wondered how come I couldn’t hear mine.

As we walked further down the voices became clearer: ”Here come here, this is the way to go”. I could sense she wanted to follow the voice. “It feels safe,” she said. “They have been here longer, so they probably know the way”.

As she started running to the closest voice I stayed still and waited…

She laughed hysterically with a mix of fear and excitement, but the closer she got to the voice, the further away it went.

“Don’t you see you are running after something that isn’t there?”

She stopped. The voice as if recognizing what I had said laughed mischievously and disappeared. She came back to where I was and we continued our walk. We finally came out to what seemed to be the woods into an open space. Everything seemed dry and arid, but at least there were no eyes or voices anymore, I thought. After some time we started to feel thirsty but water was nowhere to be found. Our dry lips stuck to each other until we couldn’t talk anymore and silence was all there was.

We walked quietly wondering…is this it? I know she, as well as I, wanted to turn around and go back. “To hell with truth” I could hear her say and just as I started to doubt myself, there it was. The most amazing Oasis you could ever imagine. Green surrounded it all and sounds of falling water called out for us. “Come on!” she screamed and ran towards it. I couldn’t contain my excitement as well and ran after her. “Yes, this is it” she said, “Something as beautiful as this couldn’t be anything else”. We came close to a mesmerizing cascade and like wolf to meat, devoured it all. We drank and drank as if this beauty could be taken in by each drop. But no matter how much we drank our thirst wasn’t quenched.

“Just one more” she said, “just a little bit more”. As I looked at her I saw it wasn’t water what she drank, it was blood. I turned around in horror to realize what I had seen just minutes ago was no more. This wasn’t an oasis it was a tomb. “Quickly” I said, “get that out of your mouth and turn your flashlight on”. She saw her hand full of blood and screamed; quickly she grabbed the flashlight and came back towards me. “Where do we go now?” she said. ”I don’t know” I said, “but we’ll see”.

I pulled her closer and ventured into the darkness again. Her hand trembling made it difficult to see the way. All of a sudden, I saw a light far away. It was bright, it was beautiful and it was running towards us. I grabbed her by the hand and ran towards it.

“Hurry this is it” I said, “this is really it”. As I came face to face with it, I had no words. It was looking straight at me and I couldn’t do anything but smile, because what I saw that day was… the reflection in a mirror of a girl with a flashlight in her hand.