Eva and the Mirrorverse

The last thing Iris remembered, she'd fallen into a mirror. Things had been kind of a blur after that. She'd been exploring a lead on a story when she'd made her way to a long-abandoned lab, drawn close to a mirror, and then...

Well, that was still a little unclear. It had been like the glass of the mirror itself had reached out and pulled her, though she still wasn't quite sure about that. She seemed to still be standing in the same lab, the same room, it was just a little off. A perfect reflection.

Iris turned around; the mirror was still behind her. She eyed it for a moment, unsure, though it didn't seem to try to reach for her again.

Then the reflection in the mirror flickered. A ghost of a headache passed through Iris, the transition wasn't exactly painful to look at, but it certainly seemed like something she shouldn't see. This whole place was a little like that, just a little bit wrong.

Rather than show the lab, the mirror showed... it took her a second to recognize the location, her home, the room slowly coming into view - and there she saw Barry, her husband.

"Barry!" Iris shouted. "Barry! Can you hear me?"

He didn't react. Iris stared, a slow creeping fear starting to fill her as she realized just how little she understood about what was happening to her. She banged on the mirror again.

Wait. She knew this angle; if she was looking out at her home, then there would be a mirror in this corner. A mirror she was... looking out of? Like she was inside it? Iris hesitated, not sure how to even begin to process that.

"Barry!"

And then she saw someone else in the reflection. It looked like her. It really did; her face, her clothes, and Barry clearly seemed to think it was her. It just... wasn't.

"It's not me! Barry!" Iris said. She called to him, and he didn't seem to notice a thing.

The reflection faded. Iris staggered back, disbelief and bafflement and shock all warring inside her. This couldn't be happening.

"Are you real?"

And then she heard a voice. It was a woman's, shaky, disbelieving in a way that sounded a whole lot more hopeful than Iris's own bafflement. Quickly, Iris turned.

There was a naked woman on the far side of the lab. Iris did a double-take. Dark brown hair down to her shoulders, with light, messy waves, unkempt strands curling inwards, though they did very little to cover up her body. She was slim, angular, certainly the kind of person that most people wouldn't mind seeing naked. It just... wasn't what Iris had expected. Iris's jaw dropped slightly

"No, of course you're not," the woman muttered. "That's it, I've finally lost it."

"It's okay, I'm real," Iris said.

She wasn't sure what to make of the stranger, or of her situation, but her instinct was always to comfort; the stranger stared at her. She took a step closer, staring wonderingly.

Iris waited, and the woman suddenly started beaming, throwing her arms around Iris. Iris jumped, trying not to think too hard about their closeness.

"I... I... I can't believe I'm talking to another person," the woman said. "It's been so long."

It was only then that Iris reminded herself to drag her eyes back up to the woman's face, no matter how surprising the rest of her had been. Wide eyes, an expression that was constantly shifting, twitching, with a look of intelligence mixed in with it. There was something familiar about her.

"Wait. I know you," Iris said, suddenly placing her. "You're Eva McCulloch."

She'd read about her. It had been part of her research on the story, Eva McCulloch, wife to Joseph Carver, who together had founded McCulloch technologies, which she'd been looking into. Eva McCulloch, who... who'd died, six years ago.

"You're supposed to be dead," Iris said.

Eva's expression fell. She faltered.

"Not dead. Just... trapped," Eva said. "And now so are you."

And now she was staring back at Iris. Iris hesitated. When was the right time to bring up the fact that the person she was talking to was stark naked? She had to have noticed, right?

No, priorities. Whether or not a dead scientist was a nudist was a less pressing issue than them actually being alive and trapped in this... place.

"Until now, this place was a whole world with one inhabitant. Me," Eva said. "The same earth, another dimension: a mirror version of Central City."

While Iris struggled to find the words, Eva hurried over to a nearby desk and lifted a hefty textbook. Iris could only half-follow the technobabble Eva uttered; while Iris liked to think she'd become decently scientifically literate after years working with Caitlin, Barry and Cisco, a combination of the advanced concepts, and Eva's unpracticed, disjointed speech made it hard to follow.

Another dimension, a mirror dimension. The same city reflected, with the world there, but utterly empty and devoid of people. Eva had been flung through years ago, on the night of the particle accelerator explosion. Six years ago. And after all that time, she was still trapped her.

Iris's expression creased in sympathy. Even if she didn't fully understand the science of all this, she could understand that loss.

Eva handed the textbook to Iris; Iris stared at it, slowly flicking through the pages. It was mirrored, every letter the wrong way around.

"God it feels so good to have a conversation that isn't one-sided."

String theory, fractal dimensions... All of it might have been meaningless. Eva was a quantum engineer apparently, so it made much more sense to her, even if Iris was lost.

After introducing herself, Iris looked around the mirror-lab, piecing things together. There was a similar ghost-headache to before as her eyes glanced passed a static-covered screen (apparently a side-effect of the dimension), and the mirror she'd entered through was still in place. Apparently it was a portal. Just, a one-way portal.

The mirror. Iris stiffened, remembering the glimpse of the real Central City she'd had through it; Barry, and the woman that wasn't her.

"That's not all," Iris said after a moment. "There was someone else on the other side of that mirror. Another me. How is that possible, Eva?"

The response was more technobabble. Fractals and variables - a mirror duplicate of her, left in the real world. More urgently, Iris turned around, staring back at the mirror. That couldn't be good.

Wait. Okay. Delay the rest of that, one more question.

"So, Eva, er," Iris said.

She still wasn't sure how to broach the subject. She settled for gesturing vaguely to Eva; Eva looked down at herself, not even making a token effort to cover up.

"What?" Eva said.

"You aren't, er, wearing anything," Iris said.

Eva stared back, not reacting in any way Iris expected. Instead of shock, she just sighed.

"The mirror world is empty," Eva said. "There aren't any more clothes out there, and nothing to wash or repair them. It's been six years. Gave up after the first few months."

"What?" Iris said.

"There's no one here. Why be shy?" Eva said. She shook her head, unconsciously scratching at her arm. "You probably should. Better to get used to it sooner rather than later."

Iris tentatively adjusted her jacket, closing it a little bit more.

"I don't think that's necessary," Iris said.

"Not fun to wear the same thing non-stop for weeks. Trust me," Eva said. "You won't need it here."

"I'm not staying in here," Iris said. "I'll find a way out - you can come too, we'll get you out of here. With, er, whatever's left of the clothes you came in."

"Don't," Eva said. She flinched. "Hope. It's.. not a good thing."

"We have to get out of here," Iris said.

"I've tried!" Eva said, more insistently. "For six years!"

She stared at Iris; Iris stared back, suddenly unsure. Isolation had clearly taken its toll on Eva, but she'd been a genius before she'd been trapped here, and apparently this was her field. And she hadn't been able to find a way out over six years. What could Iris bring to the table that she hadn't already tried? And while STAR Labs might help, there was that duplicate of her in the real world who seemed to be making sure that they wouldn't even know she needed their help.

Was she really trapped her indefinitely? Her only company a naked woman, destined to need to surrender her own outfit herself to age and damage and overuse, wearing nothing for years and years to come?

No. Iris shook her head, steadying herself. She wouldn't give up - that was what she brought to the table. She wouldn't give up hope.

"Eva, I have to get out of here," Iris said more firmly. Eva smiled, almost in sympathy.

"I'm sorry you're stuck here, but I thought I was going to die here alone," Eva said. She offered what passed for a glimmer of optimism in her expression. "At least now there's two of us."

Nervously, Iris turned back around to face the mirror.

If she couldn't get out, was this really all that awaited her?