Fractures

//--- Content Warning ---//

This article contains references to self harm.

Larissa storms into the bathroom. Slams the door shut behind her, clicks the lock in place, lets the thickness of the wood drown out the shouting coming from the other side.

For the first minute, constant bangs sound against the door. Thunderous blows that echo through her nerves, a spasming tension coiling in her muscles with every bang, bang, bang. She tries to ignore it by marching over to the sink, grasping tightly at the edges of the marble countertop. Focuses more on the staggered huffs of her breath.

Eventually, the noise subsides and Larissa dares to glance up, catching a glimpse of her reflection.

There’s blood on her lips from a cut, red and sore, swelling under the fresh break in the skin. Her chest heaves up and down. Frantic, infrequent breaths are drawn in like a lifeline, exhaled through gritted teeth. Her eyes - she meets her own gaze in the mirror - are borderline feral, pupils so constricted that they are barely visible in a pool of light blue irises.

Larissa blinks. Suddenly, she doesn’t see her reflection. Her frame is replaced by a woman an inch or two shorter, a lifetime older, red strands of hair mutating into the infamous Ziegler dark blonde and ––

A roar.

The shattering of glass.

Sharp pain shooting through her right hand, her arm, all the way down to her elbow.

She watches the shade. Between the cracks, two figures stare back, eyes alight with anger. The first is her mother, always present, always fucking there, a grimace on her face. The second, hidden in the smaller fractals, is her own face, teeth bared in a snarl even as her lip quivers.

Scarlet specks mar the surface of the mirror, small droplets splatter against the pale marble counter, thin trails slowly seep down from her hand.

Her hand, which is covered in cuts. She barely spares it a glance. Most of them are minor anyway and the two or three major gashes - she can’t really tell behind the underlying anger which seems to submerge the pain - are nothing a medic and a few stitches can’t fix.

I hate you, Larissa thinks, glaring as her gaze flickers from the blood painting patterns against her tan skin to the figures glaring back at her, unsure of who the ire is aimed at. I fucking hate you.

A small part of her mind - the logical part, reeling from her hazardous actions - calls for calm. But Larissa can’t stop seeing two people in her damned reflection. The anger doesn’t die, it just keeps building. A fire left unchecked, eager to grow, to consume all the beautiful things in its path without rhyme or reason.

So she grits her teeth. Slams her fist against the fractured surface, again, and again, and again.