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[crystalxfrost]

First trim and style in years!

[crystalxfrost]

Mirror to Salvation

I don't like looking at myself in the mirror because I've never really liked how I look. I've had low self esteem my whole life, so I actively avoid my reflection most of the time. I could use expensive makeup or name brand cosmetics to "fix" my appearance, but I've never really had anybody to show me how to use those things and was always too shy to ask, so I don't bother trying; I'm positive that whatever I try to use will only make me look like a clown anyway. So when I need to get ready to go out, I usually just pull a brush through my hair and throw it back in a braid or a ponytail and bam! I'm ready.

The only time I ever look in the mirror is the occasional three-second scan for missed random dirt or leftover dippy eggs from breakfast. However, I am extremely familiar with my reflection and my person, having spent so much time alone with it over the years, so it was something of a mighty shock when in the course of getting ready to go pick up my friend Nathan from the library down at the Square, I lifted my eyes to my mirror and saw a complete stranger in perfect mirror image of my own pose and gesture.

I blinked hard, then squeezed my eyes shut tightly and shook my head to make sure I wasn't crazy or seeing things, then opened my eyes, expecting to see my own boring reflection again. But no, the strange woman was still there in my mirror, just staring at me.I leaned forward, now both afraid and intrigued. The woman was stunningly beautiful in comparison to myself: long curly blonde hair sat perched like a golden waterfall over the shoulders of a tall slender porcelain-skinned woman with large sapphire-blue eyes. She was dressed in a black business suit and carried a small blue purse over her shoulder. I'd seen her everywhere. I'd seen her nowhere.

As I leaned closer, forgetting myself in more than a little bewilderment mixed with fear at the sight of this woman there in the mirror where my own reflection should be, something large and fast swung into view from beyond the right edge of the mirror and smashed against the side of the blonde woman's head. I shrieked and jumped back in horror as her head simply disintegrated into a bloody mass of pulp and raw flesh as whatever that thing had been blew her head right off her shoulders. Blood, lots of it and packed with bits of brain matter and fragments of skull, splashed up against the mirror and I cowered, screaming, eyes screwed tightly shut, fully expecting the wave to bathe me in its disgusting carryings. But no warm wave came.

Shaking and still cringing with the extent of my stress, I looked up at the mirror and slowly rose from the floor where I'd been sitting, praying that whatever horrific thing had just happened was now gone from my view. To my surprise, I was greeted once more by my bright blue myopic eyes behind their plastic blue Walmart frames and my messy un-perfect totally REAL hair attached to my own very real head. And never had I been happier to see my own face.

I would have stayed to muse more over the horrible thing I'd just seen, but I was pulled from my walking daymare when my watch beeped. I glanced at my watch and swore loudly to myself; if I didn't leave now, I'd be late. I paused briefly for one last cautious look in the mirror as I threw on my jacket and sighed in relief when all I saw was my own boring reflection. Sparing no more time for musings, I grabbed my keys and was out the door.The drive through the city to the Square was a lengthy one, my attentions now no longer on the horror my mirror had just shown me, but on the asshole drivers and cranky I-hate-Mondayers in a rush to cut me off on their way to whatever hated job they catered to. Thankfully, at this time on a Monday, the Square was mostly deserted with plenty of ideal parking, so I quickly selected a spot and pulled my Cadillac in.

The Square, which sat in the very center of town, was overshadowed by the city's historically monolithic public library. It was a wide open smoothly paved expanse that boasted its own walking path, multiple benches under artistically shaded canopies, and a huge lighted marble sculpture of a knight brandishing a wicked sceptre. This sculpture was normally very impressive, but this time it was surrounded by scaffolding. The talk was that a large crack had surfaced in the narrowest part of the sceptre's handle due to age and the city had been tasked with its repair, yet no workers could be seen anywhere amidst the crowds of people that bustled across the Square going about their days.

It was under this huge sculpture that I normally met Nathan, usually Wednesdays and Fridays since on those days, he let his 17-year-old sister Natalie borrow his car for driving class. This spot had been our designated meeting place for quite some time now and we both knew it well, had spent many a fine day as children playing on and about the feet of the massive statue.

As I stood there under the shadow of the statue, the sunlight disappeared briefly as ominous clouds covered the sun, and I shivered, the hairs on the back of my neck standing at attention. I couldn't shake the ominous feeling of doom that had crept into my mind and nested there. To take my mind off the oppressive notion of impending death, I decided to watch the people instead.

During times of incredible boredom, of which there tended to be many, I liked to watch the denizens of my city walk past and create life scenarios based on their appearances. Here was a rather stout pissed-off looking gentleman in a stiff three-piece suit; he was a farmer by trade but just came from the funeral of his great-great-aunt Bertha in his only good suit that he hated and the old bitch didn't leave him shit in her will. There was a windblown woman with wild hair and a tired expression in jeans and a thick sweater; she'd spent her only day off this week shopping for food so she could feed her three starving cretins and gluttonous bossy husband to keep them quiet while she cleaned. And here was a tall slender blonde woman in a very expensive black business suit talking hurriedly on her cell phone, her small blue purse swinging back and forth as she rushed along on her way.

Wait a second...

The vision my mirror had shown me slammed back into my thoughts, and I panicked as the vision hit me a second time. I looked around wildly, trying to keep the woman in my view and watching for any wayward objects. I watched her bustle right past me even as a deafening crack ripped the silence. Time seemed to slow down as I automatically craned my neck up to gawk at the orb in the king's sceptre that even now was falling, the crack had given way after all this time and the huge marble ball was falling from the sceptre.

I watched as the ball, suspended only by a few thin strong cables in case of this very thing, dropped fast out of the sky, caught at the last second and came swinging down like a wrecking ball, and with something like dulled horror, I realized that the ball would clap the woman directly in the side of the head...just like in my vision. I struggled to reach her, shouting, and just as she turned around, I tackled her to the ground. Her mouth, which had likely been poised to yell at me for interrupting her important phone call, froze in a solid O as the huge marble ball swung safely over us on its cables through the exact spot where her head would have been, mere feet from where we now lay, me panting with fear and exertion and her with fear and the steadily growing realization that I had just saved her life.We stood up, awkwardly brushing off our hair and clothes. She just gaped at me then. "You...you saved my life. That ball would have..."

"It would have smashed your fucking head like a sledgehammer on a watermelon," I snapped, reeling at the unexpected viciousness of my words but finding myself unable to stop. "Maybe next time you should get off your fucking phone and watch where you're going!" Then I spun on my heel and stalked away without a single glance back, much to her shock.

Back at my own home, after dropping Nathan back off at his house, I closed myself in my bedroom and bawled my eyes out in loud unbroken unhindered sobs, the day finally taking its toll on me. I was upset over the statue finally breaking after all these years, exhausted and sore from tackling the woman to the ground, and sorry as hell for the way I had spoken to her after I'd saved her life. I chalked it up to stress I'd never before encountered until a new thought pushed its way through all the rest like a fresh spring daisy: my mirror, my plain old thrift store mirror that I'd had for years, had shown me a life to save. Maybe I could save someone else, bring some form of purpose to my boring little existence.

From then on, every single day I was given a new life to save, a true vision of gore or other means of death always preceding the encounter. They always turned up wherever I happened be no matter where that was; I never had to actively seek out these people. Hell, I didn't even have to know their names. I saved a suave business man from a drug deal gone wrong, a single mother of four kids from an armed robbery, a black woman from drowning at the local pool. And every time, my mirror showed me the way.

Soon I became something of a local celebrity. When asked how I knew about these deaths and how I knew to be there at the right time, I always answered with the truth, that I saw it in my mirror. The rumors began to swirl that I was psychic, that I could see the future, that I was a witch...that I could stop death. All the big talk shows wanted me to discuss my experiences on air with them, one after another. People now recognized me as a person, and for quite a good deed too.

Weeks came and went, then months. I received hundreds of thousands of fan letters from those who wanted me to predict their deaths, dozens of phone calls from alleged directors and producers who saw potential in my weird abilities for the next big prime time or big screen. I never answered any of them; my mirror only showed me who it wanted me to. And still I continued to save life after life, every day one more unknowing soul my responsibility. I took every challenge, all against the better judgment of my own aching and battered body. And I never once realized that this enormous responsibility was killing me slowly.It came to a head one morning, several years later, after another long night where I'd saved a whole family from their burning house, everyone but the fucking dog. I stood in my bedroom in front of my mirror, eyes closed, feeling emotionally and physically drained, my body resisting every movement with a sharp outcry of pain. I barely even felt the thing I now held in my hand; my mind didn't quite fully register the weight of it.

I wearily opened my eyes, expecting to see yet another perfect stranger in my mirror, but this time I only saw myself. I saw my exhausted eyes, the grays at my temple, the lines that aged my face, and all at once the tears began leaking down my cheeks as I realized that quite simply, I was tired...tired of being responsible for other people, tired of pushing myself so hard...tired of being tired. All this attention, fame...I'd never wanted this.

As I gazed back at my reflection, I smiled in spite of my tears as I watched my reflection raise the gun to its head and pull the trigger. My only thought as my arm echoed the motion of my reflection's was that out of all the lives I'd saved, how ironic that the only life I couldn't save was my own.

[crystalxfrost]

My Mother Died Last Night

My mother finally passed away last night. Got the call this morning, just an hour or two ago. They told me she was stabbed to death. Looks like a robbery gone wrong, they said. I'm surprised, actually. Her bad habits dictate she should have been dead years ago. I wish I could say I feel sorrow, or pain, or even regret, but honestly, I don't feel anything at all.

To be fair, it's not like she was World's Greatest Mother, not even close. When she wasn't locked away in her dark bedroom selling her soul for a little crack, she was taking out her neverending anger on me. Countless beatings with the belt, black eyes, bloodied lips cut and scratched so it hurts to speak or smile, bitch slaps and haymaker punches for no reason at all other than she needed her fix and couldn't get it, and apparently, I was the only one who stood in the way of her high.

Most people I know can recall lots of happy memories from their childhoods. Mine? It's mostly blank spots with a couple of random chunks and pieces thrown in. I'm not even sure if I can trust the few clear memories I do have when they all end in blood and tears. I do have one memory I know is true, and I only know it's true because somewhere in my gram's closet amid literal boxes and boxes of dusty photographs is a picture of this memory. It's me when I was seven or eight years old. I'm standing in front of my gram's full length mirror brushing my hair and on the side of my neck is a huge yellowing bruise. I suppose pictures are worth far more than a thousand words.

She never really loved me, not like she loved my only sister. No matter what I did, I was never good enough. My seventh birthday present from her was to be told that I was a mistake and why can't I be more like my sister. I still remember the day she smashed my prize possession, a Casio keyboard they don't even make anymore, into plastic splinters against the wall because I hadn't made my bed. Weirdly enough, that was one of the last times she made me cry not from pain, but from sorrow.

I don't really know why I was the one who always got the brunt of her wrath. My younger sister was always the golden girl, the one I should "be more like". Yeah, sure...I could have had three different kids by three different baby daddies and then thrown my career and my degree right down the toilet to play nursemaid to a walking man-child like she did, but instead, I chose to, y'know...NOT do that. My spineless father was never much help either; on the rare occasions he was actually there, Mom had him wrapped around her finger right up until the day he finally walked out. He thought at sixteen I was big enough to handle my own devices. I guess in some fucked up way he was right.

They expected me to snap, to absolutely flip my shit after all the years of documented abuse. They expected me to give in to the urge to rid my life of the catastrophe that was my relationship with my mother. They were surprised when I swallowed it all down, when I chose to bottle up my emotions instead of snapping loose. I've gotten very good at it over the years, just keeping it all to myself.

To her credit, she tried to reach out to me a few days before she died. Haven't talked to the bitch in years and she got my email address somehow. She wanted to apologize for all the missing years. I took her up on it because my gram says it's always good to forgive. So I drove out to see her a few days ago. I should have gone sooner; I got a pretty fair amount of closure from my final encounter with her.

Oh, excuse me. I need to be on my way now. It's time for me to head on over to the morgue and identify the body. They warned me that "it could be gruesome" and that there isn't much left to identify. They also told me she had enough crack in her system to kill an elephant. Well...they didn't say it like THAT, but I'm paraphrasing.

You know...I changed my mind. I DO feel something. It's still not pain or sorrow, and I don't miss the bitch one bit. She died a lonely old cracked-out bird in a tiny little undecorated boarding room like we always knew she would. I guess if I have to call it something, I can call it regret...because now that my mother's dead, I have to find another victim.

[crystalxfrost]

To Live or To Die

I gripped my steering wheel tightly, knuckles bone-white with tension, shoulders bunched up and sore. The road spun out endlessly under my tires, a strip of slick black silk painted with bold yellow lines. My eyes noticed and then promptly ignored the beauty of the dark-washed scenery around me; there was only one room for one thought in my mind.

I had been at the end of my rope for some time now, but still too much of a coward to just turn out my own lights. I had tried therapy, only for the bitch to laugh and tell me I was beyond help. I had tried talking to the people in my life, but my own parents just shrugged it off. I had even tried drugs and alcohol to drown my depression, but I had found out the hard way that it wasn't the right road to go down. I had been debating over the best method of my execution when a friend of mine I hadn't heard from in years messaged me out of the blue.

After some very emotional pouring out that left me feeling drained but somewhat relieved, my friend gave me some information that had led me to where I am now, driving down Route 236 in the middle of the night. She had told me to come to the beginning of the highway and just drive and think about my feelings and my depression, let it really take me over. Then, she'd said, that's when SHE would come and make it all better.

I remember pressing her on who SHE was, but she wouldn't tell me. She just said that SHE would come only when I was at the very very end and couldn't stand it anymore and that SHE would take all the hurt away. She had made it abundantly clear that for the entire time SHE was with me, I was not to look at her or I would belong to her. As long as I kept my eyes away, I would be fine...I would be healed. Desperate for any relief from the impending shadow of my own death, I had agreed.

I scoured the shadowed landscape around me for any sign of movement but saw nothing. My fingers clenched even tighter as hot tears prickled behind my eyes and my chest hitched, and suddenly I was bawling out loud, great big gasping sobs that racked my body and forced me to struggle for breath. I pulled over blindly on the side of the highway, threw the car in park, buried my face in my hands and just openly sobbed. It was like expressing poison from a snake bite; an enormous weight lifted off my chest in a flood of emotional downpour as I cried out every bit of hurt I'd ever struggled to push down.

In the midst of my sobs, the temperature in my car dropped noticeably, and even in the dry heat of the desert summer, goosebumps rose to prominence on my arms. A cold chill wormed its way up my spine and between my shoulderblades with an icy fingertip and my breath hung in the air like frozen crystal vapors. Then the voice spoke from behind me, murmuring soft things I could almost hear.

Immediately my hair stood on end. The voice, which I had been somewhat expecting to be deep and powerful, was little more than a high-pitched whisper of breath that drifted to my ears from somewhere beyond my vision. But it felt...wrong. My entire being screamed at me to not turn around, not to lay my eyes on whatever was currently occupying my back seat because to do so would mean the instant loss of whatever sanity I had left. And all at once, I knew that SHE had come.

As if in response to my mental acknowledgement of the heavy presence, a soft breath drifted to my ears, but with it came the sickening stench of a thousand rotting corpses under a blanket of desert sun, and I was unable to stop myself. I threw open the car door and emptied the last three days worth of food from my stomach in a splatter on the pavement.

After my stomach had settled, the voice came again. "I can taaaaaste your paaaiiin." Then a hiss like an indrawn breath. "What issss it you waaant from meeee? "

I had had a million things to ask, a million points of hurt I wanted to spill, but that all vanished in an instant, leaving only white hot honesty. With tears threatening to fall again, I sighed brokenly. "I want it to stop hurting."

There was silence, followed by a darkly throaty chuckle that made me want to scream. "Isss that all? Coommme. I want to shhhhooowww you sssomethinnng." The back door of my car opened then and I physically felt the oppressive presence leave my aura. Careful to keep my eyes averted, I followed the voice over to the side of the road. I sensed rather than saw her raise an arm and point down into the darkness. "Look theeerrre."

I squinted out into the darkness and was able to barely make out a pair of glowing taillights far down below. With horror I realized that there was no footing there, only an endless void of darkness down a sheer face. I stepped back, a lump in my throat, and turned back for the comfort of my car, but when I turned around, my car was gone.

Sputtering and stammering, I nearly forgot myself then, turning in the general direction of the voice. I managed to catch myself just as a flash of white flickered into and back out of my view. "Where is my car?"

Again I sensed her point down at those suddenly damning twin spots of flame red so far down in the darkness. "That is yoooouuuu down theerre. You drove yourssssself off the cliiiiffff."

"No, no, no, no..." I pressed my hands hard against my ears and squeezed my eyes shut in a weak attempt to block out her lies, but all at once, freezing cold hands were on mine, forcing my hands down to my sides and unblocking my ears, and her rancid breath flooded my nostrils with the odor of rot. I swallowed my gorge and forced my eyes shut even tighter, my friend's warning standing out in stark white against the blank whirling fury of my mind.

"You wanted to die, did you not?!" The voice was no longer a breathy whisper, but a deep roar of monstrous proportions. The force of the voice blew my hair back and showered my face with foul-smelling spittle. I felt the cold hands move up and grip me by my upper arms, and suddenly I knew what was coming next. I struggled to twist away from those freezing cold hands.

"No, please..."

The voice boomed again, "You wanted to die. So DIE!" And with that, I was thrown violently out off the cliff and into the void of darkness. I snapped my eyes open and screamed, covering my face with my arms and fighting to brace for impact, and when it finally came...

...I crashed against the surface and plummeted down underneath the freezing cold water. Disoriented, sore from the impact and still screaming, I clawed my way up to the surface, my scream choking off when I felt the icy hand grip my ankle and pull me down, hold me down under the water. I kicked at the fingers that dug into the tender skin of my ankle but it was like kicking stone. My lungs burned in my chest and I felt myself start to gray out. My vision went dark, and I opened my mouth to scream. The water poured down my throat and into my lungs, and just as my lungs felt like they were about to explode...

...I was hauled out of the water by more hands I couldn't see, which pulled me to my feet none too gently. I was surrounded by yammering voices, some men and some women, and was soaking wet and gasping for air, but the invisible hands that gripped me forced me along anyway to a wooden pole standing upright all by itself. The voices around me began to clear up even as I felt more hands press my back up against the pole. My hands were then tied behind me with thick rough rope that dug deep and scraped my wrists raw. It was then that I heard the chant begin spreading.

"Burn the witch...burn the witch...burn the witch..."

"Wait...what?!" I cried out, fighting to get free of the ropes that lashed me fast to the hard post behind me, to no avail. "I'm not a witch!"

"Tha's wot they all say," an invisible woman's voice jeered in my ear. "But yer a witch just as clear as I c'n see ya. 'n guess wot? Yer goin ta buuuuurn." The voices around me melted back into a wordless clamor...and then I felt the heat and looked down in horror. A flame had already been drawn to life in the pile of wood that now surrounded my feet, and the yellow-red tongues climbed higher, licking at my feet hungrily. I screamed in pain as my pants caught fire and my skin began to bubble and char as the fabric seared to my very flesh. In mere moments I was reduced to helpless agony as I felt my flesh melting off of my bones, leaving huge exposed sections of sinewy muscle and bone for the fire to take. And still the voices clamored on.

It was when my hair caught fire and my face begin to first grow warm, then melt into liquid puddles of pulpy flesh, that I found a new voice, carried on new waves of fresh pain. The flames consumed my entire body, and as I felt myself dying and was ready to give in to the sweet release of death...

...the car blared its horn as it missed me by a hair, goddamn asshole city drivers. I was no longer wet, nor on fire, but I was terrified nonetheless. I scanned my surroundings wildly but saw only a busy street filled with the hustle and bustle of the city's nightlife. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, so I took a few seconds to prepare myself for whatever horrible thing might happen next.

A footstep next to me made me jerk wildly, and I glanced up to see a large man in a mask staring down at me where I was sitting. That in itself wasn't terrible. What made it much worse was the dark empty tunnel of the gun barrel that was pointed directly at my forehead. The man pulled the hammer back slowly, and when I heard the bullet enter the chamber, I froze.

"Please..." I breathed, every muscle as taut as wire. "Please...don't kill me."

The man's eyes remained locked on mine. His breathing came heavy and ragged, and when he spoke, his voice was deep and gravelly. "Do exactly what I say and I'll let you live." I let out a shaky whimper as he gripped my arm and forced me to my feet, then propelled me into the nearest dark doorway. The next thing I knew, he was on me then, grunting like a beast in heat.

The hand with the gun stayed pointed at my head while the man pushed me down with the other hand onto the hard concrete floor. I struggled to get away, but the icy hands once again gripped me by the shoulders and pinned my legs apart, through the floor somehow, and I found myself powerless to move. The man straddled me then, dripping sweat onto me as he fumbled clumsily for his knife. Almost teasingly, he snapped the blade out, turning it back and forth a few times so the light caught the silver blade's edge. Then with a few unskilled cuts, he cut through my shirt, my bra and my pants, leaving me only in my underwear. And still the hands held me down, that breathy voice now laughing wickedly in my mind.

The man turned the blade then even as I screamed and fought against the hands that pinned me down and slid the blade underneath the bottom of my underwear. With a sudden sharp jerk, he jabbed me lightly with the blade on the inside of my thigh and I bit back a sob of fear. Then he simply turned the blade again and cut through my underwear, leaving me now fully exposed and powerless to escape.

Thankfully, I blacked out before the man was done, but the torture and abuse was something I'd only ever heard about or read in books. I was used several times in several different ways as the man acted out every one of his depraved fantasies on me, and when he was finally finished and was pulling up his jeans, I looked up at him through swollen eyes from where I lay on the floor, bleeding and bruised, and he returned the look, not one of pity, but of disgust. "You probably liked that, didn't you, you filthy whore?" he growled.

Too weak to move, I simply lay there shivering and aching, and he clicked his tongue in disgust. My vision grayed out even as I felt myself fading out, but was brought back swiftly and in sharp relief by the sound of the gun cocking back. I managed to look back at him again to see that the gun was once more trained on my head.

With all my strength, I whispered through battered and cracked lips, "You said...you...wouldn't kill me...if I did...what you wanted."

The man shrugged. "I lied." I somehow found the strength to scream once more, squeezing my eyes shut.

"Nooo! Please, that's enough! I don't want to die anymore!" The gunshot was deafening in the tiny room and I tensed, waiting for the bullet to tear my skull apart...

...but instead, I found myself standing back on the edge of the cliff in the darkness. I was whole, and not naked, or drowned, or burned, but most of all, I was alive, and never before in my life had I been so happy to be on solid ground. I stumbled back in relief, sobbing openly again but with celebration of my life, and felt the familiar and welcome smooth texture of the door of my car.

The voice came then from somewhere in the darkness, once more that terribly wrong high-pitched whisper. "You no looonnngggeer wish to diiiieee?" Unable to answer, I could only keep my head down. "Tell me noooowww!" the voice whispered demandingly. "Will your life become miiiinnne? Make the chooooiiiccce!"

I shook my head back and forth furiously. "No! Never! I want to live! I want to live!" Sobbing harder, I dropped to my knees, and I felt the icy hand touch me gently on the top of my head.

"Then live you shaaaalll. But jussst know that I will allllwwaayys be watching you. And should you eeeeevvveer decide to taaaakkke your own liiiifffe again, I will be theeerre, and you wiiilll belong to meeeee." The hand drew back. "Now goooo. Go and never eeeevvveer come back!"

I needed no more coaching. I leaped into my car, shoved the key into the ignition and slammed my foot down on the pedal, spinning my tires wildly as I peeled off in the direction I had come earlier that night.

I have heard some say that their guardian angel saved them, sat on their shoulder and protected them from some danger. But what about when all the guardian angels are busy? I still say it was a demon that saved my life that night, that pulled me back from my dark thoughts and made me realize that my life is worth it. And who knows? Maybe if someday another one like me happens to feel like their life is as worthless as I thought mine was, maybe they'll find Route 236, and maybe they'll meet HER too. And maybe, just maybe, they'll be braver than I was.