The morning after the mirror incident, the air felt heavier. My skin prickled like I'd been lying in the sun too long, even though the curtains were drawn. Every inch of me felt stretched thin, pulled taut over something restless underneath.
When I touched my face at the sink, my skin was cold. Too cold. But my body burned from the inside, a contradiction that made no sense.
I turned my palms upward. The cut from the broken glass was gone. Not faded—gone. No scar, no trace. Smooth and untouched as if it had never happened.
My stomach twisted.
I pulled at the collar of my shirt, pressing my fingers against my neck where the pulse should've been. It fluttered—weak, uneven, like the beat of a bird trapped in a cage.
---
At school, it only got worse.
During Biology, the teacher held up a heart diagram and droned on about veins and arteries. My own pulse throbbed louder than his voice, echoing in my ears like drums.
Beside me, a classmate tapped his pen against the desk. Tap. Tap. Tap. The rhythm made my head ache.
And then—he pricked his finger. Just a scratch. Just another drop of red.
But this time, the scent didn't just tempt me. It suffocated me.
My throat clenched, saliva flooding my mouth. My chest burned, my teeth ached, my fingernails dug crescent moons into my palms. I pressed my lips together so hard I thought they'd split.
"Are you okay?" Aisha whispered.
I jerked back, too fast, too obvious. My chair screeched across the floor. The whole class turned.
Heat rose to my cheeks, but no blush appeared. Just the same dead pallor.
"I'm fine," I rasped. My voice sounded rough, foreign, like it belonged to someone else.
The teacher frowned but continued. Eyes lingered on me a moment longer before sliding away, but I knew. I knew. They had seen something.
---
By the time I got home, my body felt like it wasn't mine anymore.
The mirror in my room confirmed it.
My eyes looked darker, the irises ringed faintly in crimson. My teeth were sharper—not full fangs, but longer than they'd been yesterday. When I ran my tongue across them, the edges sliced my skin.
And my hands… pale as paper, veins faint blue, but when I clenched them, the bones cracked faintly. Not painful, but wrong. Like they were rearranging themselves.
I staggered back, knocking over my chair. My breath came shallow, chest rising and falling too fast.
"What's happening to me?" The words tore out in a whisper.
But the mirror gave no answer.
---
That night, I dreamed again.
I was standing in a field of white palms—thousands of them, reaching upward, swaying without wind. Their skin was pale like mine, their fingers long and bloodless.
Above them, the moon bled red, dripping into the field like rain. The palms opened, desperate, hungry, soaking up the crimson.
And in the center stood my reflection, her eyes glowing. Her voice was a whisper that shook the ground.
"You can't run from what you are. The cracks are already showing."
When I woke, my mouth tasted of iron. And my sheets—
They were streaked faintly red.
But I hadn't bled.
At least, not that I could remember.