Trapped in the confines of this solitary confinement she has put herself into, the girl's broken gaze cannot help but flick back to the one wall of the cage that is unavoidable. The mirror that stretched across the spans of corner to corner was too much to bear sometimes. It gave such an unsettling fear and insanity, a drop in her already-teetering mind that subtly spread like a flood through her being with a deadly quiet. Quiet as the prison she had locked herself away into to begin with.
The mirror reflected, mocked, and loomed. It seemed to have a life of its own, managing to fall through the cracks into her poor, struggling spirit. It had a voice that was ever-present in her consciousness as the mirror itself was ever-present material staple in her prison.
Looking at it threw back the harsh reality of the visible evidence of her broken self on first and foremost, her face. Glimpses could be caught of the fresh and older bruises, varying in color and size on her arms and legs depending on what huddling position she was curled into. Haunted eyes, wide with loneliness, red from crying, dark circles from either too much or not enough sleep, and a mouth that had not smiled in so long it was debatable whether it could remember how to. Complexion was white, or blotchy red from a recent breakdown, and all this was framed by amber-golden brown hair, wavy and telling a story of abuse from restless hands and fingers that needed something to grip to get through a particularly dark part of the path she travelled.
If she chose to face the mirror, she saw the glaring failure in her self laughing back at her in its cold truth, needing nothing exaggerated due to her completely pathetic state. It pointed everything out in the harsh lighting, leaving scrutiny inevitable.
And triggering a fearful question to spring up every time - was someone on the other side of that mirror, watching, laughing perhaps, enjoying her pain and taking amusement in the despair she had fallen into so far this time there seemed not even a glimmer of hope left for escape.
Maybe not even just one person. Maybe a crowd. Maybe a constant stream of visitors, coming specifically to stare with sadistic pleasure in their steel eyes at the creature so broken and lost and hopeless that they left feeling so much better about themselves and their own life.
Maybe the ones who gazed with hate and malice and triumph were those she used to love, to hold on to with all she had, to rely on and protect and defend and reach out to. All those who had grown to know too much about her and now they were left with nothing inside them but loathing and disgust for the girl on display - vindication topping it all as they turned their backs to walk away from the one who used to have a fire, now so lifeless.
And then there were the countless strangers who might be wandering in their own oblivious bliss and stop for a moment just to stare with morbid curiousity at the creature whose sight stirred not a feeling inside their vacant hearts, having no room left to ever consider anyone else outside their own ego. So they stare in stupidity, ignorance, and disinterest before blinking and walking away, forgetting almost immediately the sight they'd just seen.
She could not help but dare once in a while to have a hope so fleeting of a person on the other side who might perhaps be keeping vigil. Watching in silence, but all the while - still there.
So in turn, like everything else she experienced, it was all a cruelly constantly changing "ride" she was led on by only God knew what. The demons plaguing her soul and mind, the people she could not see but who gawked and laughed at her from the other side, the mirror itself becoming the loudest of all the voices that laughed at her pain - all this was not enough, it had to be entirely out of her control. There was no part of this she had any say in. She was trapped. And she had been the one to lock herself in. She had built this with her own jaded and broken heart fueling the design. A prisoner of her own weakness. Keeping everyone out at all costs. Underneath, a sliver might still be waiting for someone to prove she was worth fighting for, worth waiting for, worth the effort - to somehow find a way in to her though she had locked everyone out. Perhaps, under all the wreckage and rubble there remained a bit, surviving. Hidden even to herself, protected from the self-inflicted destruction, mental and physical. Avoiding becoming another one of the bruises on her skin.
The mirror reflected, mocked, and loomed. It seemed to have a life of its own, managing to fall through the cracks into her poor, struggling spirit. It had a voice that was ever-present in her consciousness as the mirror itself was ever-present material staple in her prison.
Looking at it threw back the harsh reality of the visible evidence of her broken self on first and foremost, her face. Glimpses could be caught of the fresh and older bruises, varying in color and size on her arms and legs depending on what huddling position she was curled into. Haunted eyes, wide with loneliness, red from crying, dark circles from either too much or not enough sleep, and a mouth that had not smiled in so long it was debatable whether it could remember how to. Complexion was white, or blotchy red from a recent breakdown, and all this was framed by amber-golden brown hair, wavy and telling a story of abuse from restless hands and fingers that needed something to grip to get through a particularly dark part of the path she travelled.
If she chose to face the mirror, she saw the glaring failure in her self laughing back at her in its cold truth, needing nothing exaggerated due to her completely pathetic state. It pointed everything out in the harsh lighting, leaving scrutiny inevitable.
And triggering a fearful question to spring up every time - was someone on the other side of that mirror, watching, laughing perhaps, enjoying her pain and taking amusement in the despair she had fallen into so far this time there seemed not even a glimmer of hope left for escape.
Maybe not even just one person. Maybe a crowd. Maybe a constant stream of visitors, coming specifically to stare with sadistic pleasure in their steel eyes at the creature so broken and lost and hopeless that they left feeling so much better about themselves and their own life.
Maybe the ones who gazed with hate and malice and triumph were those she used to love, to hold on to with all she had, to rely on and protect and defend and reach out to. All those who had grown to know too much about her and now they were left with nothing inside them but loathing and disgust for the girl on display - vindication topping it all as they turned their backs to walk away from the one who used to have a fire, now so lifeless.
And then there were the countless strangers who might be wandering in their own oblivious bliss and stop for a moment just to stare with morbid curiousity at the creature whose sight stirred not a feeling inside their vacant hearts, having no room left to ever consider anyone else outside their own ego. So they stare in stupidity, ignorance, and disinterest before blinking and walking away, forgetting almost immediately the sight they'd just seen.
She could not help but dare once in a while to have a hope so fleeting of a person on the other side who might perhaps be keeping vigil. Watching in silence, but all the while - still there.
So in turn, like everything else she experienced, it was all a cruelly constantly changing "ride" she was led on by only God knew what. The demons plaguing her soul and mind, the people she could not see but who gawked and laughed at her from the other side, the mirror itself becoming the loudest of all the voices that laughed at her pain - all this was not enough, it had to be entirely out of her control. There was no part of this she had any say in. She was trapped. And she had been the one to lock herself in. She had built this with her own jaded and broken heart fueling the design. A prisoner of her own weakness. Keeping everyone out at all costs. Underneath, a sliver might still be waiting for someone to prove she was worth fighting for, worth waiting for, worth the effort - to somehow find a way in to her though she had locked everyone out. Perhaps, under all the wreckage and rubble there remained a bit, surviving. Hidden even to herself, protected from the self-inflicted destruction, mental and physical. Avoiding becoming another one of the bruises on her skin.
