Alone and desolate, the girl stands idly in front of a full-body length mirror to scrutinize her reflection. It was difficult. She hated peering at every part of her goddamn body and hated even more of the thought of being stuck with it forever until the day that she parted from this earth. The girl glanced away with a scornful click of her tongue and cursed her existence. What was the point anyway? Was her existence only to be toyed with by the God up above? Or did she mess with the wrong people in a past life to be cursed this way. It didn't matter, she cruelly told herself, none of it matters when you're a piece of shit. She swiftly turned away from the detested looking glass, away from her grotesque self, and went off to try and find herself once again.

The next night, it was the same. The girl stood in front of the mirror yet again and forced herself to peer at her hideous self. A scream of dissatisfaction rose in her until it swelled into a bubble of self-loathing ready to burst inside of her like an atomic bomb. Why can't you just die already? The young woman wanted to yell out to the mirror. But the reflection continued to stare at her with the eyes of the soulless. Sick and physically nauseous, the girl stumbled back and tripped over her feet causing her to fall backwards onto the floor. In mid-flight, she caught a glimpse of her reflection apathetically watching her sail to the ground. The young girl hit the floor with a sharp impact that made her cry out in pain. Her eyes squeezed shut in anger and discomfort as she rubbed the sore spot. She bit back a grimace as the never-ending voice of her complex swirled up inside of her calling her the usual names of bitch, pig, whore, etc. and insulting her on her clumsiness. Shut up, shut up, shut up. The girl stood up with re-flared determination and stormed off to the kitchen—her shadow still watching in indifferent silence.

The young woman only gathered up the courage again to return the next night with a knife. The tool already appeared slightly bloodstained as the girl allowed herself to wince at the stinging coming from her upper left arm. It tingled and felt unnaturally warm as it signaled to her that it wanted more and more and more. It wanted retribution that it deserved in the form of her pain. It knew and she knew that the girl deserved far worse than this. Her shadow appeared to know as well for the reflection staring back at her only conveyed the deepest level of knowing. The girl scowled at it. You don't know me. No one knows me. You're just a bitch inside of me ready to take over and kill me like the devil you are. These thoughts invaded the girl as she poised her already blood-dripped knife towards herself. The reflection blinked calmly but said nothing. It never said anything, but it didn't have to. The young woman already knew the shadow was born from her unconscious. An unconscious of inferiority that was ready to tear her soul apart and consume carnivorously like the beast in the shadows. She glanced at her knife and hesitated like the coward she already was but then she heard that sickening voice again. It flowed through her head knocking on her frontal lobe and pouring into her bloodstream like a virus. It was poison. Without delay, the girl blindly thrusted her knife into the mirror and allowed the sharp blade to dig into the glass.

Surprisingly, the mirror accepted the blood, hitting her reflection in her left eye. Once again, the girl found herself knocking herself backwards and slamming herself against the unforgiving wall. She crumbled to the floor in time to witness her reflection standing as vigilant as ever with the knife stuck in its left eye. I wanted to kill myself and I finally think I did it. Or so the girl thought, when she was caught off guard by the blood. The thick colour of red was highlighted by the girl's pale surroundings as the liquid slowly left her reflection's damaged eye. She noticed her own left eye heating up as if boiling up from the self-hatred. All her thoughts, her hesitations, her misgivings, her hatred, and anger meshed into one as her shadow slowly broke down crying its guts out in blood. The river flowed from the left eye quickly advanced to other sectors of her body to slowly but steadily become engulfed by the substance of life. The girl keenly felt it too. Her own left eye was tearing up followed by it letting go of a stream of the red liquid. As it slide down her face, the sensations of warmth trailed behind it. It dripped into her mouth and contrary to what she had believed before, the blood wasn't salty but sweet like a saccharine baked good. But it was disturbing. Seeing her own blood and tasting it like this wasn't normal. It wasn't normal. Was she mad? With jerky movements, the young woman rose with the grace of an old lady on her deathbed and sluggishly moved towards the mirror once again.

Perhaps, if she removed the knife then she wouldn't feel like this. She wouldn't feel like she was going mental. She would feel sane again. Her mind zoned in on thoughts of relieving her insanity until she caught sight of her reflection. There it was again. That alien. That monster. It was only a shell her already broken up soul would take shelter in until she expired. How screwed up was that? She didn't want this. She didn't ask to be brought into this messed up world. She didn't want to be with these people. People who didn't care for her well-being. People that didn't understand her because they were too busy living their own superficial lives. What the hell was she supposed to do? Almost instantly, the girl regretted having such thoughts and turned furiously at her reflection. It greeted her with an uncharacteristic sadistic smile that burned into the last remaining sanity she had. It flitted away just as the girl's left eye cracked and seared with a pain not describable even in the midst of death. It sort of just popped although it remained intact only to let more blood flow out as the whole eye turned a greasy shade of red. The girl screamed in excruciating pain and fell to her knees at the mercy of her shadow who watched in pleasure at already winning the game.

The girl started to let out shaky gasps of pain as she clutched her burning eye while blood continued to circulate outside of her body. It was warm and sticky, scenting the air with what smelled like cookies laced in iron. It still tasted sweet, even sweeter than sugar. This was wrong, she mused halfheartedly, already giving into the temptations of her shadow. Her head throbbed and as she clutched it, the girl could tangibly feel her veins pumping futilely through her fingers. When she drew her hand back, the blood was there etched into her palm like a mark of ownership. The young girl was basically swimming in her own blood with her own body breaking down like a rusted robot. And there, clawing her way out of her mother's womb was her equally decimated reflection. Once free, her image rose onto her feet, stumbled a bit, and then launched herself at the girl. Without warning, her reflection drove her nails into the girl's face and raked it almost motherly across the girl's right cheek, over her eyes, and onto her left cheek.

"You deserve a fate worse than death. Do you know that, you slut?" her image spoke in hollow but condescending tones, "You are a coward who can't even properly take her own life."

The tangible reflection pulled the girl up and proceeded to slam her against the ground hard enough for a sharp gasp to escape the young women's lips.

"S-stop..." the girl murmured weakly. I'm actually afraid to die.

"Shut the fuck up! You have no right to say anything, bitch!" the reflection slapped her hard across the face and stood up, dragging the girl by the hair with her, "It's time."

"N..no..." the young woman whimpered.

Her image ignored her and dragged her towards the mirror but not before slamming the girl into the wall and commanding her to shut up again.

"You deserve this, remember?" the image reminded her, almost gently.

"I-I deserve this," the girl shakily agreed. Broken and destroyed inside, the young woman could only come to comply with the wishes of her master—her mind.

She let herself be dragged into the mirror to a world that she couldn't escape from with an enemy that she couldn't escape from—herself.