Jo doesn’t give the dream about a cracked mirror any more credence than she does any other dreams she has. It’s weird, but it’s nowhere near the level of cold-sweat blood-chilling snap-awake that so many of her other dreams are from time to time. It’s just weird, which is the least of her problems in this place where everything is weird, and one weird always seems to blend and bleed right into the next weird.
That she spots a cracked mirror once, then twice, that first day is annoying more than comment worthy. Her subconscious snagged on pieces that must have been there when she passed this wall in Mag’s or down that walk of city stalls, and she didn’t see it before. It’s nothing. A coincidence. Obviously.
Until her face distorts in a bathroom mirror. A blur of colors as if a hand had wiped across her features like they were just still-wet paint. She’d left it, rubbing her eyes, fingers tips pressing on the firmness of her cheekbones, the soft wall of her checks, all of it right. Was she seeing things? Was she sick?
Jo’d gotten to breakfast, telling herself she’d just crossed her eyes when she looked down at the breakfast tray the food came on, and her reflection was clear, but wrong — blood on her rent open cheeks and nose, blood dripping from her hair, head lolling to one side, but eyes open and black. She shoved the tray away loudly, the food splashing and her breathing hard while staring at it wildly. “The fuck?”
ᴏᴛᴀ | ᴇᴍᴇʀɢᴇɴᴄᴇ | ᴄᴀᴅᴇɴꜱ
That she spots a cracked mirror once, then twice, that first day is annoying more than comment worthy. Her subconscious snagged on pieces that must have been there when she passed this wall in Mag’s or down that walk of city stalls, and she didn’t see it before. It’s nothing. A coincidence. Obviously.
Until her face distorts in a bathroom mirror. A blur of colors as if a hand had wiped across her features like they were just still-wet paint. She’d left it, rubbing her eyes, fingers tips pressing on the firmness of her cheekbones, the soft wall of her checks, all of it right. Was she seeing things? Was she sick?
Jo’d gotten to breakfast, telling herself she’d just crossed her eyes when she looked down at the breakfast tray the food came on, and her reflection was clear, but wrong — blood on her rent open cheeks and nose, blood dripping from her hair, head lolling to one side, but eyes open and black. She shoved the tray away loudly, the food splashing and her breathing hard while staring at it wildly. “The fuck?”