The Mirror - a short story
She closed the book, placed it on the table, and finally, decided to walk through the door. She glanced back at the small, leather-bound diary. How many days had she been here? How many times had she pored over the pages upon pages of scrawling, from cover to cover and over again? Every time she re-read the terrifying entries, the already blurred memories became even more obscure. The men in the black suits told her this was her diary, that they found it on her at the scene of the incident. They demanded that she tell them all she knew, and explain her involvement. How could she answer them though, if she did not even know her own name?
Before she could think any more about her situation, one of the suits entered the room, tailed by a lab coat. They spoke in whispers inaudible to me, though I knew I was the subject of whatever conversation they were having, based on the constant gesturing in my direction by the suit. The lab coat approached me, indicated that I should turn my back to them. He brushed aside the hair around my neck, examined the area for some time, making some notes or sketches that I could not see, and then both left the room without a word. I lay down on the cold, hard bed, hoping to get some rest. For some reason I was beginning to feel strangely fatigued. Panic struck me too late as an all too familiar sensation overtook me. It was happening again.
It was the icy metal of the table that woke me. I stared up at the stark white ceiling for an eternity before trying to sit up. The wave of nausea that hit me was nearly crippling, causing me to retch violently. I stopped mid-heave, however, when I saw the poor woman in the mirror. Her hair hung limp and stringy, partially obscuring her pallid, sweating face. The hospital gown clung to her emaciated body, covered in vomit and strange, wet, crimson stains. Her splintered nails and fingers also were dipped in that same hue of red. She turned to me then, flashing the most wicked grin, and lifted a bony, blood-encrusted finger towards me. Frightened, I scrambled off the table, but, tripping over something quite large, I fell to the floor and cracked my head on the solid tile. Shortly before blacking out, I saw, to my horror, that what I stumbled over were the bodies of the suits and the lab coat, shredded by some vicious fiend.
Weeks later, she was still puzzled by the increasingly disturbing entries in the diary. However, it was not so much the contents of the book that bothered her, but the fact that more was being written in it, and the other lab coats kept insisting they were her own writings. She continued to deny these accusations, but more and more the woman began to feel uncertain. She could not even remember what her life had been before waking up in this place, and quite frankly she had no idea where she even was. It frightened her every time she awoke, for her body was always in worse shape than her previous memory. Today she was awakened by the voices of new lab coats, finding out after a bit of eavesdropping that she was apparently healing from some head injury, sustained during an unfortunate fall after an even more unfortunate accident involving other, nameless figures who used to work here. She was not able to make out much past that, except that one of the coats mentioned something about the drug not working, and potentially having to raise the dosage. So they were drugging her… It did not come as much of a surprise, considering she was having some very vivid hallucinations. Whatever substances they were pumping into her must have been the cause.
Two of the lab coats walked in while she was absently chewing off the remains of a torn nail. They murmured to each other, unintelligible things, and the one pulled out a foreign vial and a large syringe. He fixed the needle into the top of the small bottle, drawing the entirety of its contents into the cylinder. The other coat grabbed the woman by the hair, forcing her head forward to expose her neck, where the first one injected the burning liquid. After letting out a few agonizing screams and suffering minor convulsions, the second lab coat clapped a chloroform-soaked rag over her mouth. Her eyes rolled to the side, and she remained conscious long enough for one last thought to pass across her mind. Not the mirror.
I stared at the broken frame on the wall, the shattered fragments littering the floor, and the dark color that was running down my fingertips. There was nothing left of that strange, sad, perplexed woman in the mirror. She was dead. All I could feel now was this insatiable hunger, tearing away at my insides. Suits and coats were strewn everywhere, the walls were spattered with their paint, but it was still not enough. I shrieked, wild from the craving, but no one came. The thick titanium door would not open. Desperate, becoming enraged, I flung myself at the door, pounding and clawing at it with my torn up fingers, but to no avail. Then I saw it, the thin electronic strip next to the door. Crawling on the soaked floor over black suits, I snatched a badge off of one of the lab coats, then swiped it across the access point. It took but one satisfying beep to unlatch the gate barring me from my freedom. As the door swung open, I stepped out into the hallway. I lifted my head, eyes closed, and inhaled deeply. Then, ravenously, I turned, and grinning savagely began shambling towards my next meal.
Author’s Note: This is not necessarily a final version, but rather an experimental story, most of which was created during a single night of letting the imagination go. The first two paragraphs were written well before the rest and, the original idea being long forgotten, the story was completed with what is seen above.
dailybridgerton
origamiaround
prguitarman
gummygunk
areudirty
stormborns
