Without

At first it's just a flicker.

She blinks to make sure she saw correctly, but her mouth is there in the mirror and she gives herself a preparatory smile. It looks good.

She walks through the day on the safe road that she has paved for herself with lies that glimmer a brilliant white. Some of them are empty and others ooze and fester with the grayness of blind, senseless hatred.

The second time it happens, she's sure of it. For a moment, she doesn't have eyes - just an unblemished strip of skin.

That night she doesn't sleep - the next day she calls in sick, and it's convincing.

She has nothing to say, but Mirror has something to show her; and that soft something cracks a fragile surface she's bled and cried to protect. She clutches at the smooth planes of her visage in terror and screams silently to the unresponsive tiles of the pristine bathroom.

_I need my face!_

She stares ahead eyelessly as a voice speaks in her ear.

"Do you?" it breathes, giggling. "But you threw it away such a long while ago."