Smoke and Mirrors//Self Para
They’d finally released him.
The boy— man, perhaps, but not yet, not in his mind— stood in a lifeless dorm room, not a thing stirring from the silent void of air except his footsteps thudding against the hard cold floor. How ironic.
He stared about, bright, clear blue eyes seeming to attempt to disillusion all into thinking him everything he was not—young, innocent, clear of blame—and perhaps they would have, had they not held the wild, primal desperation of one who has seen and felt true suffering.
Your suffering? (suffering?)
You do not suffer. (We don’t think so.)
There was a bed, and the boy sank into it with a sigh, and he did not bother to brush pale brown, recently cut fringe from those same haunted orbs. The blue, blue gaze jumped around the room, flicked from bed to bed, chair to chair. It wasn’t too bad a place. He didn’t deserve it. He should be locked away, far from people everywhere. He’d tried to tell them. The Elites should know that. He looks at his tattoos, branded across his wrist in thick, ugly red lines. Running like stagnant blood.
A flash draws his attention from the lines that tell who he is, blues opening wide—
thick lashes stretching tired purple rings—
There was a mirror.
Roy—the boy—stood, walking slowly to the door that had to lead to a bathroom, behind which he could see the gleam, the hint of reflective glass— and the voices, his only companions whispered—
Look. Look. (look—the mirror) So pretty.(boy)
Look. Look, Roy…you look so much better now.
They’ll like you now. We think you’ll like it
(boy) (you’ll like it)
Your fault if you don’t.
(your fault) (boy, look, killer—)
The door opened, Roy’s pale, strong hands, hands agile from hours, days of gaming from what seems like an age ago, hands pushing open this wooden, sturdy door now, flipping on the light—and the mirror is in front of him, the mirror Death wants him to see. Roy’s gaze bored into the depths, a shiver of almost masochistic anticipation running up his spine.
It was a normal reflection of a thin, tired young man with dark-ringed eyes and floppy brown hair. He breathed out a sigh of relief, feeling a weight come off his chest. Maybe the voices had been helpful for once, maybe they’d wanted to help anchor him in his own skin so he could get up and maybe eat something, walk around, shove someone away as per schedule. Roy turned from the mirror, hand trailing against the counter, and—
Something flickered.
The boy turned back, eyes squeezed shut. He opened them slowly, and as he did his lips parted as well, widening in sheer horror at the thing that had replaced him.
Eroded bone. Empty sockets, glazed, seeing nothing—but seeming to look back at him, bright blues replaced with hollow, cracked darkness. Those strong fingers, or what had been as such, had scraps of cloth hanging from pockmarked bone, red creeping in the sides of his sockets and collarbones. His heart did not beat; instead a sickening mass seemed to crouch in the hollow of his ribs, and he dared not look closer at it lest another look back at him, another worse than the figure already in front of his eyes. Madness was staring at Roy, and Roy was staring back.
His lips were parted in a silent scream, Roy backing away, tumbling back from what he was, what he really was, what was inside him and killing and hurting and he had BROUGHT IT HERE.
Fingers covered in flesh and skin fumbled with the door, with the light switch, anything, and the voices seemed to laugh at his attempts because for the life of him he could not leave, he could not render the figure invisible.
There had to be something to smash the mirror with. The boy looked around desperately, hands scrambling at anything within reach—and—a plunger. It would do.
The plunger was turned so the tip of the pole faced the mirror, and Roy smashed it against the surface once, twice, voices and figure taunting—it cracked, nothing more, until with an inhuman cry Roy brought the pole crashing down again, and slivers, chunks, razors of glittering glass fell around him in violent wind-chime rain. Breathing hard, he stepped back and opened the door.
(Your fault.)