Girl in the Mirror

She leaned over the gray stone sink, her dark eyes empty and unfocussed, seemingly staring at a point beyond her own distorted reflection. A sad lonely song played on in the background, but she seemed oblivious to it. Someone was banging on the fragile wooden door. The girl didn't move. She did not even seem to hear it. Silence filled the air. She kept gazing at whatever it was that only she could see. The song ended and another began. And her eyes filled up with tears.

For a while, she let them swim there and then... she blinked, a confused look flitting across her face. Suddenly, she reached up and angrily wiped away the forming tears with the sleeve of her white too-big T-shirt. As she accidentally dragged the sleeve down her face, the frown changed to a grimace. Her head snapped up to attention and she stared at the girl in the mirror as if seeing her there for the first time. Her eyes drifted over the straggly dark hair that fell over the pale face, down to the dark blank eyes. Her gaze stopped at the red line drawn across her left cheek. She reached up slowly and winced as her fingers brushed against the mark.

Her eyes widened as the screams filled her head once again. The dark kohl had smeared across her pale face and for a moment the girl in the mirror frightened her. The empty lifeless eyes, the lack of expression on her face, the detached pain the bruise was giving her. For a moment, it wasn't her reflection she was staring at, it was her ghost. The banging began again, but she paid no attention. The words in her head drowned out everything else.

The song changed again. People began to shout, in worry, in fear, in panic... but the girl was too busy listenin to the voices in her head, staring into the mirror, afraid to reach out and touch it because she didn't know whether it was the glass that lay shattered or if it was just her reflection. Either way would hurt her, either way she would break. Either way, it didn't matter, because she knew that there was no real difference between her and her reflection.

A faint smile played upon her lips as the blackness swallowed her. Just a little longer.

(original post - 10th June 2008)