Ghost

Chapter 3

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She was on her feet. She looked around. The narrowness of the bathroom was smaller than she remembered. There was a strange unease crawling up her spine. The chilliness of the floor and walls clung to her skin, beckoning for her to leave. And so, she took a single step forward before abruptly stopping.

Something in the corner of her eyes caught her attention.

There was something moving in the mirror. She turned slowly, an inexplicable horror screaming in her head that this was a terrible decision, and yet she couldn't resist the pull of the unknown. When the mirror finally came in full view, she saw it. A blurry visage of a malformed person stared back at her. Their features were indecipherable except for its array of sterile white teeth.

It was grinning. The edges of its lips quivered. It was laughing at her.

There was a faint whisper in her ears. Each second it grew progressively louder. The noises were incoherent—she couldn't make out the exact the words and sounds, but the rage boiling in her chest was damning.

As the voices grew incessantly loud, the malformed figures in the mirror multiplied. They jeered at her. Mocking. Taunting. Delighting in her suffering.

She knew they were attacking her.

And so, the obvious move was to retaliate. Her arms felt strangely sluggish. Her movements seemed to lag, unresponsive to her mind's command. Finally, she managed to drag her left foot forward. The moment she tried to land a step her view suddenly flipped.

A rush of nausea. A dull buzzing on the side of her head. The tiles of the bathroom floor filled her view. She spun around and glanced down. Where there was suppose to be a leg laid empty instead. Her left leg had turned into a stump. She looked up. The malformed figures in the mirror were gone. Instead, a familiar visage peered back at her. Blue-haired, sapphire pupils, and a face widely adored. They glared at her, their eyes filled with damnation and an accusatory glint.

She was staring at herself.

-----

March 9th, 8AM.

Suisei's eyes snapped open. Her hands immediately reached for her left leg. She grabbed and pinched the skin, tracing the outlines of the limb, trying to convince her panicked mind that it was still intact. When she felt the dull sting and familiar tightness radiating from her knees, she groaned in relief.

The vividness of the nightmare was burned into her head. The sensation of losing a limb felt frighteningly real. Just recalling the uncanny details made her heart race.

Suisei grimaced as the morning sun blasted her with its relentless brilliance. She was still groggy, and she might have decided to go back to sleep—if not for the piercing headaches bombarding the side of her head. Reluctantly, she got up.

Did I fall asleep in the living room?

She was sprawled out on the couch. Her right arm buzzed with a numbed soreness. As she limped to the kitchen for a glass of water, memories of the previous day slowly surfaced.

I kind of wished I didn't remember any of that.

She cringed, her face slowly growing red from the shame and humiliation. Who was this fool in her memories? She was disgusted with herself. This wasn't like her. She would have never allowed herself to get out of control like this.

"Maybe I should have drunk a bit to black out," she mused with a self-deprecating smile.

Bzzzt!