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He meows at me. I crack a smile, he’s so cute, I can’t help myself. “C’mon,” I say, batting him away. “You know you’re not allowed up there. Get off.”
He does, jumping down at my feet. I lean down and stroke the top of his head. He meows softly under me. This feels normal. This, at least, feels a bit like home. I’vereallymissed my cat.
He never lets me pick him up so I lean down to stroke him on top of the head, between the ears. I think he normally loves that. He tilts his head up and I look in his deep black eyes.
“Hi,” I say. “I’m sorry I was gone for so long. I promise I’ll be home more often from now on.”
He meows at me again, then darts away using the space between my legs. I have no idea where he’s going, but I’m still smiling when I go up to the counter and turn the faucet on. I look at myself in the mirror. I look a bit washed out under the harsh lights of the bathroom, but all things considered, I lookokaydespite the dark shadows under my eyes.
I wash my face with cool water, splashing my skin. When I look up at my reflection again, something isweird. I look like myself, but my reflection looks like it’s getting further away from me. I tell myself it’s just an optical illusion, closing my eyes tightly. I’m overtired; I’m stressed. When I open my eyes again, everything will go back to normal.
I open my eyes again. When I set my gaze on my reflection, the white in my eyes has become black, and my mascara is bleeding down my face.
I can see perfectly fine, but everything about my reflection makes me want to run. Except I can’t. I’m frozen in place. It feels like my hands are glued to the counter under me, like my body is made of lead and I’m not able to move it at all.
All I can do is stand and stare at my own reflection; my skin melting off in dark goo, my eyes still midnight black. I feel like I’m shivering, but something about seeing myself slowly turn into nothing makes it hard to feel anything except primal fear.
I want to scream, but even opening my mouth takes so much effort that I don’t know if I’m screaming. I can hear my own voice, piercing but distant, and then air drafts toward me as the door is opened.
I’m pulled away from the mirror by…someone. Something.
I manage to close my eyes, and when I open them, my reflection looks normal. It looks like me. She looks like me.
There are other people around me; Bryony, Mal, Rei. Even my cat is here.
They all look really concerned.
My reflection is fine. I’m fine. A little pale, but fine.
I just feel like an idiot.
Rei’s fingers are on my shoulder, squeezing reassuringly. When I look at him, there’s a question in his eyes. He doesn’t ask me if I’m okay.
“Something happened,” I say. “I saw myself in the mirror…and it was like I was dying.”
“You’re probably just tired,” Bryony says.
I don’t miss the look between Mal and Rei. “We need to do something,” Mal says. “I know you don’t want to…I know you don’t want to go with what we originally planned, but we need to do something.”
“We need to find the source,” Mal says. “Go to it and take the head of the snake.”
“Right, and what do you suggest?” Rei snaps at him. “We just take an elevator down to hell?”
“No need,” Malon says. “He’s already here.”
“Can you two go argue somewhere else?” Bryony asks humorlessly. “Trine might think it’s very cute, but this bathroom is really tiny, and I’d like to talk to my friend.”
Mal practically growls at her. Rei nods, straightening his glasses as he pushes them up his nose. “Of course,” he says. “Sorry about that.”
He nods toward the exit. Malon glares at him, but he follows Rei’s direction. Once they’re both out of the bathroom, Bryony closes the door. She leans against it, sighs deeply. “Okay, T,” she says in a whisper. “What’s happening here?”
“I don’t know where to start.”
“Start with the fucking terrifying scream in the middle of the night,” she says. “We can work our way backwards from that.”
“I don’t know. I just saw myself but it was, I don’t know, something else. Like my eyes weren’t fucking there. Like I was melting.”
“What?” she asks. She slowly walks toward me. “Maybe you need to go see someone.”
