Moving On

Mirror rose before the sun. She had not slept, not really, and every part of her ached… but going back to bed would be futile. Her reality felt so surreal that a dream would have been a reprieve, had the universe deigned to allow her one. Weary in every sense of the word, she made the trek to her mirror, where she picked up a makeup brush and looked into the mirror. Her eyes flicked over each feature with increasing confusion. The features refused to resolve into a face - there was one eye, and another. A mouth. All the pieces were there, but it wasn’t a face. It wasn’t her face. She dropped the brush and turned away. Chores. Cleaning. She needed to clean the house. Painstakingly, Mirror made her way through each room, tidying, dusting, occasionally washing items. It was difficult to breathe. Her thoughts kept straying back to the roses which bloomed from her chest, the little leaves and thorns that were fused to her flesh. The roots which tangled together around her heart and through her lungs. It took a while, but eventually she had lost awareness of the shooting pains in her limbs and her chest. As long as she paid no attention to the way her body was fighting against itself, she could pretend she was okay. Then it happened. A searing pain tore through her side, the skin splitting open. For a long moment, she could only stare at the wound and the blood welling up, staining her pale pink fur. She gagged. Her stomach twisted. The broom fell to the floor. Something between anger and determination flooded her system. Mirror limped to the table, to the golden apple that rested on it. Standing before it, she lifted her forearm to her mouth, and with no hesitation she bit down. Taken, though not forcefully, my own blood set free. Her teeth pierced skin. She released the bite, watching blood pool into the indentations her teeth had left. This was it. A sort of peace settled into her. It was the same calm she had felt at the moment she had surrendered her life, a calm of knowing that whatever happened next didn’t matter. She was giving up. Mirror snatched the golden apple, staring into its shiny surface with a hardened glare. To herself, she muttered. “If what we had was love, I don’t want it.” She bit into the apple. Her skin began to tingle. The sensation spread to her muscles and then settled into her bones. Feeling suddenly more weak and helpless than she ever had, the unicorn collapsed to the ground, her vision pulsing. Oh. Something was wrong. She wondered, vaguely, if she was going to die here. Well, why not? She had wasted her life, anyway, with nothing and no one to show for everything she had done and seen. It made sense that she would die alone on a cold floor. But… she was not ready to die. The apple hit the wall with a quiet thud. Had she dropped it? She must have. When Mirror came to, she had no idea how long it had been. Opening her eyes made a curtain of dust fall in. She wiped at her eyes with her hooves, and once they were clear, she realized something. Something big. Nothing hurt. She felt fine. Her legs were fine, her side no longer stung… She could breathe. Mirror clambered to her hooves, wavering only briefly when the blood rushed out of her head. She stretched then made a beeline for the door. It was dark out, but when she looked up, Mirror felt a strange certainty that it was daytime. Branches stretched and tangled together where none had been before. All around were spiky plants, parting only slightly in a couple spots where paths had once laid. She went to one and the shrubbery parted - the forest still recognized her. So why could she not recognize the forest?