Mistress of Time & her 12 Mates

7. an answer

After getting over the initial breakdown of having the home screen of my phone outed like an obsessive simp and finding no windows with appropriate enough distance to the ground so I could jump and disintegrate, disappear or escape — I convinced myself that Elvi was not a person to go around and yap about people’s private lives.

He was a poster child and poster children don’t do rumours— right?

Sighing, I plopped my plush arse on the Persian rug set in front of the bed. Holding my left ankle in hand, the one Nova was oh-so-suspiciously inspecting, I stared at the dark crown birthmark—lookalike that was never there before. My mind ran a mile a minute.

How?

Why?

When?

The tick of the grandfather clock indicated passing of time that my brain subconsciously registered.

Things ceased to suddenly make sense and it annoyed me. I am a science major, I like getting concrete answers. Blind spots make me that curious person in a horror movie who dies first because they can’t sit still and accept the circumstances of reality and need to reach the end of everything.

Yeah, that annoying person.

The evening descended with hues of orange bleeding into the blue of the sky. The wind blew at leisure as I stripped down and changed back into my now clean dungaree set. I ripped the vigo off my wrist and contained the blood with my handkerchief.

Can’t have suspicious objects attached to my hand while going home.

I turned open the door knob only to see Nova standing there with my monstrously weighed backpack in hand.

“Oh, thank you so much! You can give that to me! No need to inconvenience yourself with that! It can be quite a burden,” I rambled out, trying to grab a hold of my bag from his grip but he wouldn’t budge.

“It’s never an inconvenience serving you, my lady,” Nova curtsied and gestured for me to move ahead. I made a face of distress but followed nonetheless.

The hallway was lined with mirrors and I took a quick second to check my presentability and yelped.

Absolutely freaked out, I ran up to the stylish glass stuck on the wall and knocked on it to check if it was real or not.

WHAT IN THE NAME OF NUGGETS WAS THIS?!

I raised a hand and my mirror self did too. I poked my tongue out and she copied. I flipped her off and she flipped me in return.

“Are you okay, my Lady?” Nova’s concern came through his words as he eyed my borderline insane antics in front of the mirror.

I was too busy doing a monkey dance to concentrate on his words. Wide eyes and puffed cheeks— I tried pulling off the ugliest faces I made but weirdly I wasn’t me anymore.

I became this...this farfetched idealistic version of myself. A vampire without death, if you may say so. My skin was spotless, the acne blemishes disappearing into nowhere. The saggy eye bags had tightened and lightened under my eyes and as I pushed up my bangs, the scar on the side of my forehead was gone as well. I looked freakishly unrealistic to myself. Like someone used a filter on my life, quite professionally might I add.

“My lady, do you fancy the mirror? Should I have it packed for you? Or are you in need of something else?” Nova questioned again and I did not know how to reply.

‘Hey stranger whom I did not know existed until a few hours ago, I think bewitching things are happening to me. My face looks like someone smudged it on ibispaint, I have a mark that certainly never existed and you somehow seem to know of it, I potentially stopped time and almost died within that suspension, annoyed Mr. Popular of our school out of his wits and worst of all— got my crush to notice me. It’s been a day, can I have a chocolate?’