|| Music || “I have a black mirror. It Never shows my reflection, but it still blinks back at me.” A dark bedroom, illuminated only by candles and a dying fire. Two figures resided within, conversing back and forth with each other. “A feeling akin to that of a flower trapped in constant winter.. A prayer to call forth spring in order to free their petals is met with deafened ears. How does a flower feel when it is wilting? When it is dying?” The softened voice spoke as it’s delicate hands embraced the bushel of flowers that rested within a vase. Their fingers tracing against a single unbloomed bud, it’s petals brittle to the touch for the flowers were long dead.. It kept them there.. For they held a memory, one that they were not ready to forget. A long winter forced the sun to disappear more often in the days, with no sun and an owner who possessed neglectful habits. The flowers stood no chance to enchant the room with its beauty. “If you had paid more attention to them they wouldn’t have died Helena, but you know that already don’t you? You know you’re not going to be able to even keep your own children alive let alone yourself if you can’t even take care of some flowers. A pathetic excuse for a person aren’t you?” A voice spoke in similar tone as the one before, though something seemed off.. Could it be a twin perhaps? Who was this other woman in the room with her? An eerie silence fell upon the room with tension so sharp one could easily cut it with a knife. The only sound came from the crackling of wood from within the fireplace which continued to burn with no intent to offer the both of them any sort of warmth. For no one had offered it anymore wood to engulf and with that it too began to die ever so slowly. “Unempathetic, a bitter taste rests in my mouth everytime you speak such words. You feed upon my remaining happiness like a parasite, you are nothing more than a leech- a vulture in every sense. Are you satisfied with picking at the scraps?” She spoke with coldness ingrained deep within her voice as if she had become acclimated to speaking with no emotion whatsoever. “Why is that? Because I tell you the truth about who you really are? How many times have you tried to run from me? How many times have you lied to yourself about my existence only to see me in every mirror.. Every reflection you saw, I was always right behind you. I am much more than just the common parasite that feeds on sewer rats.” She rose from the chair, a hand wrapped around the vase's neck as she picked it up.. "Don't!" A word the woman was all too eager to hear from the lips of another.. “You should have listened to me and gotten rid of it years ago..” against the wishes of its true owner the vase was thrown, flying into the fireplace as it smashed into thousands of pieces, the flowers becoming consumed within the once dying fire that suddenly became re-ignited by the newly presented food for it to eat. A satisfied smile permanently ingrained upon the woman's face as she watched the fire happily enjoy the free meal. Footsteps interrupted the two as large men adorned in armor bursted through the door, they examined the room with intent to discover someone attempting to break into the house and yet what they found was nothing more than the young woman pale as a ghost and startled by the abrupt entry standing before a fireplace, taking note of the shattered ceramic pieces that littered the floor their demeanor changed from that of a protector determined to save her to that of disgust and resentment, seeing nothing wrong the men began to depart.. Only one stayed behind.. “Looks like someone cares after all about you after all.. I mean you ‘were’ his princess weren’t you? His everything..” The voice cooed as she rose up to stand besides the man himself, looking upon the woman with an equal amount of disgust as she did boast a twisted smile knowing what was going to happen next. He wore no armor and instead appeared to look sharply dressed, approaching the woman with no intent to show sympathy, lunging forwards he went to grab her hair and throw her to the side of the room. There was to be no pity party for the young woman unfortunately.”Break another fucking vase, mirror or window.. Try to escape your room again, throw your dinner at one of the guards attempting to feed you- and i’ll have you fucking sent away. Why can’t you be like your mother!” fire bursted from the man’s voice like a volcano erupting. Raising a single hand to strike the woman’s face. With that the once father figure she looked up to rose himself back up and departed the room- shutting the door behind him with not a single apology to offer for beating his own daughter. “A pity to mark such a beautiful face with such an embarrassing print, perhaps those once lively eyes have lost all their charm- it’s almost like you’ve lost all the magic you had within you to make sure daddy gave you everything you wanted.. You look like a beggar with how you rest on the ground like that- funny, was it not you who said I am the one eating scraps?” A chuckle escaped from the woman's voice as she crouched down before the quivering mess that remained on the floor, with tears beginning to soak the floor.”Is your solution to everything to cry like a child? To behave in such a way that not even your own mother could bear to spend anymore time with you that she died with you in her arms.. You forget you cannot rewrite your own history.” “Who hurt you so much that you have to treat me in such a way? A sick game you play with me in order to make me suffer. Why can’t you just play fair!? I don’t need you to survive.. Like you need me.. I’ll become better and I'll rejoice when you finally die.” She spoke up, a hand clutched against her cheek as she stared at the figure dead in the eyes, their faces close enough together that not one of them could tell which one was truly the original. A manic laughter echoed from the figures mouth as it drew closer to the woman's body, both hands shot forwards as they wrapped themselves around the woman's neck, the attempts to remove those same hands was met with the figure pushing her further into the ground below. Silence consumed the room, with hands crushing her neck there was no option to call for help. From above the woman, the figure who once looked like a twin began to possess a distorted face with black tar dripping from her lips, a voice erupting from it’s mouth akin to that of a banshee's cry.”I’ll live inside you forever! And know that from now and forever, they'll never be able to seperate us.." As minutes turned to hours and the woman who had pinned her to the ground had long since vanished before her eyes, the once lively room now empty as it only continued to darken with the fireplace being the first to die out followed next by the candles. There she lay in darkness. Trapped within a prison of her own mind. Slowly she picked herself up from the floor and walked over towards the shattered mirror of her makeup table, sitting herself down upon the single chair staring into the cracks, for in fact even in the dark room with no light to illuminate her face it was clear she was staring at something.. Looking into the thousands of pieces a much darker image could be made out for there within the mirror revealed a shadowy figure that sat besides the woman, a path of smoke connecting the two as if it were stitches that bound the two like conjoined twins.. It was evident something was feeding on her.. Something stronger than she alone could not fight.
