The Mirror
Tall, skinny but cumbersome at the arms. Flowing hair of umber, carob brown, twinkling eyes, a pale complexion with light freckles around the upturned nose, a long, thin neck, leading to a bulky body of muscle. Bulging veins and a defined jawline complete him. That man. That man, perfect for me.
Coincidental instances got us talking, his polite, humble personality shone through his good looks, and I longed to see him every moment of every day. Often seeing him around, perhaps at a field or the forest, at a hunt, and each time, I would notice the subtle intricacies in him that defined his character in such depth. The fiery compassion and determination in his eyes astounded me, and regardless of buckets of sweat that trickled down his shoulder blades, he would consistently work harder than ever.
Weeks passed, and as we agreed on moving in, the relationship we now had, bonded us together, closer than ever. A tiny, little house, at the edge of the town, was quite enough to suffice our basic needs and minimal budget. Through the weeks, we got familiar with our neighbors, barely having any, it seemed right to maintain good relations with them. A retriever they had, his luscious golden locks that flared suggested a sweet personality, however, seemingly senseless whines and growls around my new partner would quite often startle me.
About a month later, the calendar remarked a day of a full moon, something relatively important to him; circled with a red marker. Thick, dense clouds began to pillow up over the blackened sky, as a violent patter stomped over our roof, the sound it made, muddled into a single whirring noise that kept us up for a while. Sleep eventually overcame us, and the events outdoors made a pattern of noises that we used to our advantage. I rubbed my hand against the other pillow, a minor dent it had, a hollow sensation. He wasn’t in bed. He was doing it again, that consistent behavior displayed once every thirty. That strange glint in his eye, the short temper and rotten stench he had off, recited a different perspective on the story I was living in. His excuse of terrible hunts seemed too implausible to believe, which pushed me to think that something was wrong, very wrong…
I trod down the stairs when I heard a stir in the passage, which I stopped to listen to. An abrupt halt to the suspicious activity forced me to go investigate, as I inched towards the now visibly radiant light source which directed me to the kitchen. I stopped. It seemed easy, all too easy to be true. I spun around, scared-looking and stiff, my eyes wide, unable to process the horrifying things I saw.
It was the feet that transformed first. Horrible, outward, textured skin with boils, and claws, that sprang towards the ground from its end. Appearing fleshier than ever, it turned a pale white color, the absolute opposite of the rest of the tanned figure. Next was the body. Hair detached itself as if fried in the nearby light, as it became flat. Flatter and whiter, much like a girthier version of a worm. But truly, it was the face that changed the identity completely. The mouth grew wider, the jaws expanded to hold the pointy teeth, adapted to tear the hardest of flesh, dull and dark from ignorance. The ears disappeared, as the eyes turned a disgusting shade of yellow, outlined with a layer of ivory, like a cataract.
I squinted at the unbelievable happenings and noticed a darkened figure that slid across, its shadow perched on the floor and half a stair, to my right. It held abnormal objects, and those, I couldn’t risk being used against me.
Crash. Glass flew overhead and onto a previously invisible surface, leaving shatters of pieces of shard that individually reflected little parts of the scene, with bits of glass that were used to do so. I picked one up and saw the creature in front of me was what was now reflected on the polished surface. I turned to notice the source, a man with a face of trembling fear, as the bulging veins and muscular arms aimed a round object at me, his flowing brown hair that ran to the woods of the shadows and twilight, as I stared at the blessed night sky that exhibited an ethereal glow…