The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!

Heart of Glass  
by Kendra Smart  

The looking glass mocked her from the sturdy mahogany casing that framed it. The delicate lines etched into the wood looked like they had burst free but held no mar from the tools that had crafted the lion designs. It was as though the designs were meant to be there.

But the voice?

Surely the creator behind such beauty would never have intended something so malicious.

“You rolled over for him yet again. Did he tell you what a good girl you are?”

An evil routine that had established dominance in her waking moments.

The advice to boost herself with positivity had been met with an equally negative force, twisted and bitter. A voice not hers came at her in fits of unfiltered rage and disgust.

In the beginning it was easy to brush off the harsh words. To chalk it up to just a bad day and her brain being mean to her, that things would get better. But months went by, and bit by bit it became harder to find the joy in herself…let alone life.

“A kind word, laced with false inflection and meaning…and just like that, all is forgiven. “

Silence. A moment of blissful silence.

“Pathetic.”

A solid connection.

“Weak.”

The voice wasn’t cruel. Words that she would have said with intentional venom. But the voice came to her mirrored lips, honey soft and warm but complete with accurate stinger.

She had long ago lost the ability to distinguish if everything was in her mind or truly real. It all felt real.

Looked real.

Sounded real.

The two final words had found their intended target, dead center. She felt the familiar sting as burning flared in the ducts of her eyes.

“Here come the waterworks. Doesn’t the good girl know any new tricks?”

The tears indeed fell but she felt the disconnect sever completely deep inside her core. She no longer cared anymore. What was it all for anyway? She never mattered to them, not truly. If she did, why did they see her pain and immediately dismiss it…proving that she was of no importance to them. Not in the way they were to her.

Not family.

Not friends.

She felt rage burn through her and her hand moved of its own accord. It clenched and went to strike the looking glass, but there was no connection and pain as she had expected.

To her horror instead of shattering, a hand had reached out from the mirror. The light made it clear it was still glass but the colors mirrored humanity. It grabbed her fist and the icy encounter made her veins seize and burn as the cold swept up her body.

As she watched with a hoarse gasp the molten mirror became more fluid and crept up her flesh, covering it in the painful liquid.

Panic set in and it was as though her heart betrayed her entirely, pumping ice into her veins with each fear filled beat, spreading the invasive toxin further. The pain stole her ability to scream and her mouth moved in hollow gasps.

The wooden housing for the mirror began to slither and squirm. The lions looked past her, their ornate manes catching an invisible wind.

Her mind became static as higher and higher the molten glass encased her, it began to brush the surface of her neck. It was like a dance, one she would never leave and the seconds kept spanning. her sense of time warping. Slowly and quickening at their behest.

The voice.

Time was Legion, for there were so many.

The mirror was feasting, savoring the flavors of her. All the sadness, fear, doubts. Sown with painstaking care and consistency. Once encased entirely, she took one final breath and with the exhale the tomb shattered. An incalculable amount of glass dust entered the air where a soul had once stood.

The mirror had claimed another victim. Its surface gleamed, the wood shining as though freshly polished.

But beneath that veneer lay agony. Beneath that surface was evil, poised and coiled, ready for the next feast.

What’s on the menu, Garcon?

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Fiction © Copyright Kendra Smart
Image courtesy of Pixabay.com

More from author Kendra Smart:

Just Emotions:
A Gothic Bite Magazine Anthology

A collection of poetry.

‘Just Emotions‘ is exactly as it states, a group of writers who had feelings they wanted to express in poem form. Inside, there are a range of emotions to explore. Each writer has given a bit of themselves to you, each in their own way.

We hope that you enjoy these writings and that among the poems you may find some thing you can identify with or relate to. Thank you for giving us this chance to open the catacombs and share with you.

Available on Amazon!