Mirror

 

It is an obsession, now, one that I can't stop. One that I don't want to stop.

I stare at my face, trying to replace what I see with what I want to see. But it never changes. The face I always see is reflected reality, and I hate it.

My hands � pale, smooth and shaking � reach out and touch the coolness gently. It flows up my fingers and throughout my hand like an icy caress, one that firmly keeps me in reality. My fingertips glide over the faded scar, the reason for my being. Who would have thought such an ordinary symbol would mean so much?

Ignore it, for it means nothing anymore, I tell myself. Now that He is gone, I am normal and nothing. That is all.

My fingers pass over the rest of my face, attempting to smooth the faint wrinkles. Twenty-nine, and I already have wrinkles. Wonderful.

Of course, they mean nothing compared to the streaks of grey throughout my hair. They are the warning that things are worse than they seem, and that they will continue to be worse. It is a warning I've known for a long time, but can't do anything about. I can't stop what's happening to me.

He's watching me again. I can feel it. He doesn't like the mirror. He fears it, and the pull it has over me. He wanted to get rid of it, once, but I panicked so badly that he let the matter drop. It stayed.

Draco, I whisper to myself. Call him Draco.

We loved each other once, I think. But everything's changed and we're not teenagers anymore. Thanks to the darkness running through my veins, I know we won't be old together. Everything's changed.

I can see his face in the mirror. His grey eyes are carefully neutral, but the flicker of unease is blatant. He trusted me once. I trusted him. Now we live in constant perturbation, as well as fear. We alarm each other, now, because neither of us know the other anymore.

Every day blends into the next, until life is blurred into events and places that never change. This is not living. This is merely waiting for the inevitable end. I am twenty-nine, going into death. Nothing more, nothing less.

The mirror is warm, the heat from my hands making the coated glass steam. One last attempt to prove to me that I still live. Perhaps. I may be alive outside, but inside there is nothing but emptiness.

I look into my eyes, and they are empty and hollow. I am defeated, I know that, and so, so tired. I can feel it in my bones, sense it in my movements, see it in my face. Dead already.

The poison in me is slow and can't be stopped, but in the end all it will destroy is my physical self. There is nothing else left for it.

He wants to hug me. His fingers twitch, but he stays where he is. Silent. Afraid. The only kiss I have to look forward to is the kiss of venom, when it finally triumphs.

I will not die old. I will be young in my coffin. Young, but not immaculate. Too much has happened for me to be pure anymore. Tainted. The word slides through my mind like a disease. My lips curl in a silent snarl. Tainted.

They'll cry and weep, mourning me with heavy, guttering sighs and low wails. But it won't matter to me. Why should it?

I keep on looking.

I don't cry.

 

�� End ��