The sound is loud, over and over again, faster, harder, each strike splintering the mirror into a thousand reflections of me. Shards rain down in jagged flashes, but she doesn’t stop.
Her body twitches with every violent blow, each movement too powerful, far too inhuman.
Bright blood blooms across the cracks, rushing down her face—my face—until all I can see is red, flesh, glass and her angry eyes staring through the fractures at me.
“Weak! Bitch! Weak! Bitch! Weak! Bitch!”she repeats, tone deep and dark with each smash.
I finally start to back away, my body trembling so badly it feels like my bones might crack. She continues, each hit more desperate than the last, destroying everything—destroyingus.
“Stop,” I whisper breathlessly, my voice barely there, my head shaking in disbelief. “Stop.”
The pounding grows frantic, echoing through the bathroom like a heartbeat turned to war drums, and still she keeps going, consumed by pure rage.
“STOP IT!” I scream, the words tearing from my throat until it feels sore, until it feels like I’m screaming at myself. “FUCKING STOP IT!”
My knees give out, and I collapse, my reflection’s chaos vibrating through the floor, through me. I clutch my head, hands over my ears, rocking back and forth, desperate to drown out the noise and block her out.
“Stop… please stop,” I mutter again and again, voice breaking into weeps. “Stop it… stop it… stop…”
Lying on the bed, I stare blankly up at the dark ceiling, watching the tree’s outside cast eerie shadows over every surface, rain patting on the boarded up window.
I feel completely numb and fragile.
I don’t know how long it’s been since the bathroom scenario.
Blinking, I drag myself upright, the blanket sliding off my body, and my bare feet meet the floorboards as I move quietly around the bed.
Suddenly, a slow shiver creeps up my spine, like an unseen fingertip tracing the bone, and I stop.
The air changes to freezing cold, turning heavy enough to taste.
Something’s here again and it’s watching me.
My gaze drifts over my shoulder, drawn to the mirrored wall at the back of the room. The reflection quivers in the dim light, warped by shadow. But nothing moves.
I’m starting to think I’ve lost my mind, and the trauma in me has finally dragged its way to the surface, pouring through the fractures I tried so hard to seal.
Maybe this is what madness feels like… when grief turns to darkness, and memory becomes a haunting.
I stand, trying to shake off the unease, and turn toward the boarded window, a pull in my chest, quiet but insistent, urging me closer.
Through the splintered gaps, the night stares back—thick rain slashing through the black. My gaze snags on something shifting in the tree line—figures moving between the shadows, their shapes blurred.
At first, I think it’s a trick of my mind again, another mirage conjured by exhaustion and fear. But then I see them more clearly—bodies drifting aimlessly through the mud, like puppets cut loose from their strings.
I lean closer, fingers trembling as they grip the rotting planks, heart hammering in my throat, and for a second, I can almost convince myself they don’t see me.
Then, all at once, they stop, every single one of them.
Their heads jerk up in perfect sync, eyes black and hollow, snapping toward me through the storm. Their necks bend at impossible angles, bones creaking even from here.
My vision tunnels, and I stumble back from the window, the sound of the rain now drowned out by the thundering of my own heart.
I stand there, chest heaving, lungs scraping for oxygen that doesn’t seem to fill them.
“Krool…” The name slithers from my tongue before I can stop it—a call, a mistake.
Then a voice, low, his and unholy, weaves through the dark.
