Amour's Void Gallery

It caught me off guard again. The mirror had once more become my enemy. For a couple of seconds, catching a glimpse of my reflection out of the corner of my eye, I froze. Or rather, I went stiff. You know that paralysing sense of awkwardness when you accidentally make eye contact with a random person on the street? That’s roughly what I felt. Except it was a mirror, my own reflection, not a random person on the street. But at first I thought it was someone else, and only after a moment’s confusion did the realisation of the reflection sink in.

It’s scary. It’s just... Bloody scary.

...

I just realized I was sitting on the bed, staring blankly at a single spot. It’s been about two hours since I zoned out. I have no idea what this is, but it’s a little unsettling. Plus, it’s cold again.

It feels like I’m getting dumber. Not only do I speak and write awkwardly and clumsily, but I can’t really read properly either. Well, I can, but the text, you know... It just goes right past me? I’m kind of reading, kind of understanding everything, following the plot, but the next moment I suddenly freeze with the question, “Wait, how did you end up here? What’s this grid? Weren’t you driving?..” And this happens every single time. Even rereading a single page a dozen times doesn’t really help. It’s like my brain is starting to shut down, you know. To die off.

...

It’s still shaking. My fingers are trembling so badly that they’re hard to control, and my whole body is incredibly tense. There’s a nasty, metallic taste on my tongue—either blood or something else... It’s so strong that I get the distinct feeling that if I open my mouth, blood will pour out. But no, there’s no blood.

I don’t know. I don’t know what to say. I don’t know if I should keep doing anything at all. It always feels like I’m doing something wrong, into the void, or just annoying people with my very existence, and I just...

"What's in your backpack?"

I could only hear my own heart beating somewhere in my head, which made my eardrums very unhappy. Attempts to turn around or even move did not bring any particular results — my body seemed to have become part of the environment, or I had been stuck in jelly.

  After some time (it felt like at least an hour had passed), I began to hear some sounds that interrupted the painful pulsing of blood in my head. I heard them, but... I couldn't make them out. Everything sounded muffled, sluggish, as if I were underwater.

  After a while, the sounds that initially seemed like mere noise began to take shape, causing my ears to hurt incredibly: a low hum, coming from all sides and nowhere at the same time, gradually intensifying, and at some point I realized... It wasn't a hum. It was a strange, low, guttural laugh that grew louder with every passing second. I tried to cover my ears, to swim away, but, as you remember, I couldn't move. And the rumbling laughter only grew louder. Soon it reached such a volume that it seemed as if my ears would burst. I tried to scream and felt something terrible — the last of the air left my lungs and...

I think everyone, or at least many people, hear a voice in their head when they read text to themselves, right? Well, when I read from a screen, this inner narrator is always trying to rush ahead, not giving me even a second to comprehend what I've read. I kind of... jump around the text without understanding its essence. And everything - both the author's speech and the characters' direct speech - is read in the same tone, with the same voice. It's all kind of... empty and emotionless, that's it.