My eyes open to the onslaught of brightness. The lighting in my bathroom was far too bright, though I found myself indifferent to the scenery of my location as my attention was stolen by the mirror facing me.
In the reflection stood a healthy, albeit not a very attractive girl.
Her hair straw-like, with dull brown eyes that took most of the attention from her plain face. Her nose was crooked, stubby, and popped off of her face like an eagle's beak. Lips so thin and pale that one would never remark upon them. The hair that adorned her face was strewn up in small clumps at the sides of her lips, giving the impression of neglect.
This reflection was me.
Placing my hands on either side of the sink that stood before me, my fingers curled around the cold surface of porcelain. However, my eyes could not take away from the reflection.
My hair was so dull. So dry.
My hand grabbed blindly at the brush that I somehow knew was resting on the sink adjacent from my curled fingers. Bringing the instrument to my hair, I let it run through.
As if creating a beautiful melody, the brush continued to play through my hair hypnotically. As though my hands were the instrument being manipulated, and the brush as the manipulator I could not stop brushing my hair.
The brush was the perfectionist, continuing to brush through the dry strands of straw that fell to my shoulders. It was trying to perfect. Trying to heal.
My hair gave rise, like yeast, with much prodding it seemed as though there was hope. Only to see that this spark of hope resulted in the wilting of a flower. My hair.
They fell. Like the fallen angels of heaven. They fell in many, and in poison.
The clumps of my hair continued to fall, though my brush continued to do what it was named for; brush.
It wouldn't stop. The brushing or the falling.
More and more hair continued to fall, I could feel the pile of it starting to tickle the toes of my feet. I felt the whisper of my fallen hair kiss my sides as they made their way down.
The reflection had no expression. Emotionless.
As though the apathy had affected it's body, the reflection grew pale. Paler. And even paler.
Her skin was translucent. I could see the veins that webbed under her skin. It was frightening, she frightened me.
Like a phantom, she was almost see-through. As though her very existence were in question, that if her skin was clear enough, she wouldn't matter to the world at all.
Blood flowed from her nose. Spilling onto any nearby surface, her arms, her blouse, the sink and the hands that continued to brush through her falling hair.
The blood and the departing hair were in sync. Every time a new burst of blood would flow, more hair would fall.
You could clearly see her scalp now, but my arms continued to maneuver the brush through her hair. The blood only poured now.
I couldn't stop, I couldn't clean it up. It was chaos, and I could do nothing about it.
I could feel some of the blood that splattered across the ground start to accumulate, it grew to a puddle of blood around my feet. Like a child on a rainy day, I step in place on the blood.
My steps quicken, as did the blood and the brushing.
It stops. The brushing stops, I rest the brush onto the side of the sink like an overheated engine. The reflection's hair is almost gone, all that's left are small tufts of hair that spot around her scalp.
The blood stops.
Her skin is paler than ever. What was so unbecoming of her appearance before was replaced by beauty. Pure unadulterated beauty.
She was as lovely as death. At this thought, the reflection smirks.
-
I wake up to an unfamiliar room. Everything was dark.
So unbelievably dark. I was afraid of the dark.
There was a floral smell in the air. It hung depressingly and tauntingly, an obvious attempt to take away from the darkness.
My breath quickened, making a beeping noise quicken as well. What was this place?
My mother would not be happy that I was in such a dark and gloomy place. It felt as though the very room would absorb my entire being. I was being eaten alive.
The beasts were in the darkness and they wanted my blood.
"What is this place?" I ask. "Where am I?"
"You're here, Flora," the beasts reply.
"How do you know my name?"
"You're here, Flora," they chorus.
The darkness is interrupted. Light streams through a rectangular hole in the wall.
It automatically illuminates the dark room, there are white roses on the stand next to me.
A beast walks through. This one is dressed in white.
"What is this place? Where am I?" I ask again.
The beast smiles sardonically, "Oh Flora," it answers condescendingly, "Don't you remember?"
I stare.
"You were diagnosed with cancer."