Ike knew there was something amiss when he saw Elena.

She was supposed to be dead. He hadn't seen his mother in fifteen years.

Still she knelt in the grass, looking down at him in silence. Her eyes were as blue as he remembered them to be, they were his eyes, but they had a quality he could not recall. Neither could he name it. Her face was more gaunt too, her lips thinner and harder.

Slowly, Ike sat up, feeling dizzy for whatever reason, and coughed. A child sees the world through different eyes than an adult does. To his younger self, his mother's cheeks must've looked healthier and her lips happier.

"Mother. How odd to see you."

He remembered how the sun had flared each time his mother had smiled and how the moon had risen to the sound of her lullaby. But Elena's expression remained blank. A shadow crept over her face; Ike looked up. The entire sky, previously so blue, was covered in grey. The only source of natural light was but a pale white spot behind dark clouds.

"Am I dead?" Ike asked, shifting on his knees and looking around. He was still in the same field, that he knew. To the south were the woods, and behind the woods, the mountains of Begnion peeked over the treetops, but before he'd lost consciousness, it had been a warm spring day. "Am I? It's the only explanation, really. The mercenaries wouldn't have left me behind. Mist is a terrific healer, but she's always turned into a nervous wreck when trying to stitch me up. She was bound to slip up someday. I must be dead, that's why I see you."

"The solution is in your hand," she suddenly interrupted her son, leaving him with an open mouth, the next sentence still half-baked on his tongue.

"Literally?" Ike furrowed his brow and gazed upon his lap where his hands lay. One lay relaxed upon his knee, the other clenched something hard and cold, he suddenly realized. "Goddesses," he whispered, his body tensing up in a split second. He pressed a finger against the metal in his hand, confirming his assumption. His flesh recognized the intricate carvings on the dreaded object, an object he'd never touched before, but one he could describe better than the face of his own wife.

Don't move, something screamed in his head, don't blink, don't breathe. Don't do anything! But it was too late, the thing was in his hand, and Ike could not let go of it. "What- what can I do? Mom, please," he whispered, staring at his mother's dress. He couldn't bear looking into her eyes, not with his fingers around that thing, too ashamed of himself. The white of her dress triggered a memory. It was what she'd worn when he'd last seen her so long ago, embracing his father, something silver sticking out of her red and white back.

Lehran's medallion burned itself into his palm.

"Is this how father felt? Did he sit in a field and think about everything under the sun, never knowing this place wasn't real? Will I wake up to see that I murdered my own sister while she tried to save me?"

"You can only save yourself, boy," she said, "you must listen to your heart." She placed her warm palm on his hard cheek.

Ike turned away. "Really, mother? You speak in riddles now? Either don't beat about the bush or admit that you don't know." Ironically the heart she told him to listen to was just as corrupted as the next person's heart. He was not Mist, he couldn't hold the medallion and hope to stay uncorrupted.

His blunt words did nothing to change his mother's neutral expression. A cold gust of wind bit Ike's naked arms. It carried a faint voice, and he turned around, looking in the face that meant both doom and salvation.

He could not tell where his sister had suddenly come from, but he didn't bother to try to understand it. Now that she was here, was she dead too? Had her attempt to retrieve the medallion from him ended fatally?

Mist's big blue looked cold. "Give it to me." Goddesses, her voice was as pure as her heart. She could coax a wild dragon back into its cave, mend a broken heart with the power of her words. "You know I can hold it, Ike, just give it to me- and wake up."

Laying her warm hand upon his fist, she slowly began to slip her fingers under his. Ike recoiled. He could not open his hand; it was physically impossible.

"What is it?"

"I… can't."

"You have to." She didn't smile. In the blink of an eye, Mist's worried expression turned into confusion.

Flexing his muscles and clenching his jaw, Ike turned his full attention to his hand and relaxed his fingers, but his hand had chosen to disregard him today. No amount of force could change its mind; soon Ike's cheeks were red and the veins on his arm bulging from the effort. "It's no use," he said and dropped his hand back into his lap. "It doesn't want to."

"It's a piece of metal, you oaf." No little sister had ever sounded so condescending. "You don't want to." Mist grabbed his hand and began to forcefully pry his fingers apart. Once she freed one finger and moved on to another, it just snapped back down. She looked up at Ike, a tense smile on her face. "Not funny. Give it to me," she insisted and slapped his arm. Hard.

"Ow," Ike shrieked, staring at her in confusion. Mist wouldn't kill a fly, much less slap her brother like that. There was no humor on her face either. Her eyes looked dead. And they had turned red.

All of a sudden, Ike felt cold. He jumped to his feet faster than a jolted deer but slammed right back down into the grass, face first, as Mist tackled him with a wild scream. Her feet painfully dug themselves into his calves, her hands were in his hair, pulling it, and twisting his head, forcing Ike to look upon the spot where Elena had sat. Their mother was gone.

Ike could just duck away from the head butt aimed at him and managed to throw his sister aside. Even in a bad dream, he could not hurt her. He scrambled to his feet and sped away towards the forest, his fist cramped around the cursed metal.

He had to wake up from this nightmare before the medallion could corrupt him, and he had no idea how.

For The Room's May Writing Challenge week 2, Through A Looking Glass.