Reflected sorrows

Prologue

A figure lay, wearily sighing at every trembling footfall outside. Their breaths were ragged and inconsistent, like a homeless man shrouded in only a blanket to hide his shame - the figure coughed up vile crimson ink from grotesque pustules on their face; it was the image of anguish, burned slowly into their gaze as they stared into the mirror. There were yellow skies reflected of an island they could've visited at any time. The sands were sickly, and he mountains breathed rivers and watched as they grew into swirling torrents, before being dried and lashed by a relentless sun, leaving the land to be arid once again. It floated away, its gaze begging as the condescending complexions mocked its loneliness. That was all they saw as they wept for forgiveness; what had they done, they wondered? Their long, uncut hair was a nest of crows and ravens, a comb a careless knife slicing the heads of all the ravens with a cold stare, but watching as they lived on, blood still trickling down from their neck. It was a river of torrents that held a foreboding whisper of grief, and as they wept, staring in detest and disdain at their reflection, they saw nothing but the vile face of a monster, thrashing away from what they had become, the tormented girl lay down. The mirror melting into a puddle, with raindrops dripping onto the floor; like tears, they flowed down wretchedly onto the ground, the sunlight coming in from a crack in the widow's veil mocking the reflected woe that laughed back at them. The rhythm of rugged breaths. Degrading and condescending. A shudder escaping from parched lips, coated in vile rashes, was worse than the voice of death, scraping the throat of the sufferer. Mother's neklace lay beside the perishing soul. Rugged breaths like the joy of a man as he wandered the streets, slowly seeing all the people fade into showers of ash - ash that had once burned so bright in a father's cigar as he laughed, or in a mother's friendly smile as she died; the breaths of perishing souls are the most scraping things one may ever hear, like winds across the arid land, yellow sand lifting and fleeing for moments before falling still like withering corpses from an eternal battle. Falling still along with the rest of the mass of decaying, withering joy. The silence was sickly; almost unrelenting, full of dissonance enough to poison one's ears. The citizens were gone, ashes in an ancient smile carved into the black and white grains of a photograph, or perhaps just a memory everyone had since forgotten. Memories of merriment and joy melting down into the flames in an ancient fireplace. And as the last wind whistled over the land, the sand began to sink through the solid, phlegmatic structure of dirt beneath, rotting and rotting until the neglected soul itself began to wither and die. The cascading torrent of reflected light lay there still, despite it all, and a veil of dust over the shattered grains of a portal couldn't halt the gaunt hand from sending ripples across it, quaking echoes among the forlorn island. And as the last buildings crumpled and fell to their knees, they were like mothers begging to save their children, sand tears falling to the ground and sticks clattering to the grave of cold, unwarmed sand, cascading down with forgotten memories. And the wilting hand was held gently, dragged away from the bed by skin that only just clung on with a limp grasp; and there lay only bones upon the bed, echoing ceaselessly the last rugged breaths. That deathly sound played relentlessly. Mother. Father. Sister. Beloved daughter. They had all died here, and she was simply the last skeleton to perish under the sun's cruel glare. The click-clack of rattling bones was an incessant melody carried in the wind, calling away all visitors and leaving the bones themselves to remain almost too well preserved within the cage of a deathly wolf's lung. And the skin being dragged, entrails leaving a trail of crimson that still coughed up dark ink from welts, and yellow skin still glimmering.