With some difficulty, Shinkuu opened her eyes and slowly sat on the cold floor. Scratching the back of her head, she asked herself where she could possibly be. “The last thing I remember is that I was walking on the endless path until… a feeling of… falling down…!” Suddenly she realized she had fell somewhere. “Perhaps… fifty meters? Or even more? It’s incredible I fell that much and I’m still ali- No, it’s because I’m no more alive that this makes sense”, she concluded. Standing up, she looked around and noticed she fell in some kind of dark cave. While the terrain was like any cave she has seen before on the TV, there were walls made of crystal, reflecting Shinkuu’s figure as she walked around the mysterious place. Those walls, added to the multiple stalagmites and stalactites made of that place a real labyrinth. The girl walked around the place, finding various paths, closed roads, often returning to the same spot. When she was a child, she enjoyed playing around in places like that and, indeed, she quite enjoyed her little adventure through the labyrinth, at least for some time. “This takes me back to those days… I usually played a lot in the fields of our grandfather’s farm. Even if I like this kind of games, having my reflection on every corner of it is getting pretty annoying. Like that one time in the house of mirrors of that amusement park… Is it really the afterlife this hard for us who killed themselves?”

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!

Shinkuu was paralyzed in fear after hearing the echoing laugh. She tried to find the source of it, but through the huge maze of crystal, she found only the image of herself, confusing her even more.

- Who’s there?! – she shouted, finding the courage to let her voice out of her chest.

- HAHAHAHAHAHAH! – was the only answer she received.

As she searched for the scorner, she saw how her various reflections around the cavern turned into amorphous shadows, all of them with what it was clear to be a smile on their ‘faces’: a smile of scorn, irony, sarcasm, sadism. The laughs echoed again through the crystal cave and the confused girl realized were those strange shadows on the walls the source of the laughs. They laughed and laughed and keep laughing, without rest. Shinkuu felt a tremendous headache, as if her head was about to explode. “STOP!”, she shouted with all her strength, but this only made the shadows laugh even more, as if they were amused by the suffering of the girl.

- What is so funny?! Are you… mocking me?

The rising rage was replaced with sorrow, as she realized the sadistic laugh was towards her. She knew the shadows were laughing at her, laughing for her suffering. This awareness made her lost any strength. She fell on her knees, trying to ignore the laughs covering her ears with both hands. “Stop it, please…”, she begged to those shadows, but hey had no ears to hear her lament. Tears started to flow from her left eye, as the memories of a past trauma was evocated before her.

- Why the sad face? Isn’t the first time someone laughs at you, right? – said an unfamiliar feminine voice out of nowhere.

- Who’s there? Who has talked?! – shouted in desperation the girl, hearing for the first time since she fell down a voice that wasn’t laughing at her.

- What about look in front of you? – said with sarcasm the voice.

Looking before her, Shinkuu observed her reflection, the only one to not be distorted into a shadow. This reflection has nonetheless something odd: the hair was oddly larger than the original’s, while little locks of hair were standing with a curious curve on both sides of its head. But the most odd thing about this reflection was that it was smiling, and ironic and strange smile, completely opposed to the expression of astonishment Shinkuu felt seeing her own reflection acting with a will of its own.

- Are you… my reflection? – asked shyly the girl towards her, apparently, own face.

- Uhm, more or less.

- It talked! – startled Shinkuu. She noticed her reflection also moved on its own.

- Surprised? I told ya, I’m not exactly your reflection.

- Then… who or what are you?

- Is that the only thing you’re going to ask?

- Uhm…

- Anyway, you shouldn’t cry like a baby for two or three anonymous heartless shadows laughing at you, ya know?

- You’re right… Reflection. I shouldn’t. After all, I’ve heard so many times that hurtful melody… But even so…

- You know what? You should laugh at them too!

- Laugh… at them? – asked confused the girl – Why should I?

- Why? WHY? Ah, c’mon! Do you really need a reason to laugh at heartless creatures like those? Do you think there is a real reason why they keep laughing at you in this very moment?

- Even so…

- Is that all you have to say? Let me show ya how to do it:

HAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!

All those laughing shadows stopped their scorn in the moment the strong voice of the reflection rose over all of their voices, silencing all of them. After the huge laugh finished, followed some seconds of total silence, in which Shinkuu finally found some peace. Peace that not lasted long, as the shadows filled the silence once again with their annoying presence.