For Shits and Giggles [2024]

Chapter 13

Felix woke up the next day in his room and in his bed. He wasn't sure who put him there but Felix was thankful for it, even if he was waking up alone.

Fior had left him. She'd left him, albeit temporarily according to her, and he wanted to die for it—really die. He wanted to erase himself from existence for all the pain he had caused his wife and everyone else around him. Any future without Fior wasn't a future he wanted to live through. His cheeks were soaked with tears. Felix needed someone, anyone, to find him in this darkness. He thought about Gracie; the way she always insisted he wasn't a monster and was worthy still of redemption. She would see him. But he had killed her.

Again.

"God damnit!" Felix yelled, sitting up. He screamed into his hands for several seconds, minutes. He screamed until his throat was completely raw and he couldn't scream anymore. When he was done, he threw the covers off his body and walked towards his dresser mirror. He gripped the edges of the dresser and stared into his own eyes—or rather, the eyes of someone who looked remarkably like him.

His reflection slid its hands up the sides of the mirror, then hauled itself up and into Felix's bedroom. Grinning from ear to ear, it pulled itself out of the mirror, taking slow, creaky steps toward Felix.

"This is all your fault," Felix yelled, lunging at his reflection. It dodged him easily, and Felix fell to the floor.

"My fault?" It asked, looking down at Felix who was scrambling back onto his knees.

"But aren't I you?" it jabbed it's foot into Felix's rib cage. Felix doubled in pain and fell onto the floor again with a painful cough.

"You drove away all of your friends," it kicked him again.

"You caused Fior to leave you," and again.

"It's your fault Gracie hates you," and again.

Felix coughed up a glob of blood, his vision blurring. He grabbed the reflection's foot, twisting it around at an unnatural angle. Something (a bone?) snapped.

"That's not true," Felix spat, pulling the reflection down to the floor next to him. Felix scrambled on top of it, pinning its arms down with his knees. It didn't struggle, it simply grinned a bizarre grin, weakened by its now broken foot.

"I'm not a monster!" Felix screamed, punching it as hard as he could. Felix heard a sickly crack and blood burst out of its identical nose, but he punched it again anyway. He imagined himself as Santiago as he did, a true hero, beating up the true villain.

Himself.

"I'm not a murderer," Felix cried.

The mouth of his reflection poured blood, his eyes too. But Felix punched him again and again. Felix needed him dead.

He needed this version of himself dead so that he could have his life, his love, and his friends, back. He was tired of sharing. But behind all of the blood remained that same, cruel grin.

"That's exactly the problem," the man finally laughed, his yellow-red eyes tearing into Felix's soul. He just wouldn't die. He bolted up suddenly. His arms were still pinned under Felix's knees, but he managed to catch Felix's nose with his forehead. There was a loud crunch as Felix fell back yelling, the gash on his nose oozing blood.

Felix grabbed his own face in pain, cursing loud. His reflection grabbed the dresser to help himself up off of the ground, all his weight on his one good foot. Felix did the same with the other end of the dresser, slowly. They both stood still, staring at each other.

"Please," Felix whispered, he had no will to continue. "Why are you doing this? Why won't you just leave me alone?"

The man's grin faded.

"Leave you alone?"

He reached out and grabbed Felix's throat, Felix clawed at his wrists.

"Don't you understand Felix, we are inside of each other. Two souls damned to the same body," his grip tightened on Felix's throat.

"Just because you get to be in control," Felix's eyes rolled back into his head, unable to breath, "doesn't mean I'm not still there."

He finally let go and Felix collapsed onto the floor, gasping desperately for breath.

"I've been stuck here since before the tree," he continued, turning towards the mirror to examine himself. "I was born while you almost died. I had to fight on that battlefield. I had to watch our brothers tortured and killed, and I had keep this body alive." He raised his voice as his fist collided with the dresser mirror, shattering it.

He limped over to Felix and grabbed his hair, bits of glass stuck in his own fist. Once, twice he slammed Felix's head down onto the shards.

"Feliqs, please..." Felix gargled.

"Why do I have to sit back and watch you take all of the glory, huh? You who did nothing, you who hid." He slammed Felix's head again, who was crying, but not fighting. He knew he deservered this cruelty.

"No one knew," Feliqs laughed miserably. "No one knew I existed. They thought it was all you.

"Except for Gracie, of course... I'm the one she fell in love with," he slammed Felix's head until teeth began to fly. "Not you."

It was all true, they had been ambushed. Felix and the rest of the soldiers by his side walked right into the trap. They were being killed, one by one, one after the other. Two feet away one soldier was getting his head bashed in, just a few feet from there someone was being stabbed through the chest, another soldier lay face-down in a puddle, underneath an enemy's boot.

Felix couldn't bare it. He had been petrified. He was scared to die. So he couldn't do it: he couldn't will himself to stand and fight, to protect his brothers. Instead, he blacked out in the middle of and woke up several hours later. Everyone was dead; enemies and allies alike. More than dead, their corpses were scattered and dismembered.

Felix came back a war hero after that. Even though he couldn't remember a second of it, even though he never knew what exactly happened, or the kind of animal had done that to those bodies, Felix still basked in the praise and admiration all the same. He claimed a glory that didn't belong to him, and now he was paying for it. He was a selfish coward, and this is what he deserved.

The man in the mirror wouldn't stop reminding him of that. He continuously slammed his head into the shards of broken glass, scraping, cutting and stabbing his cheeks, nose, lips, forehead, and everything else on the surface of his face. It hurt like hell and Felix wanted nothing more than for the pain to stop. But he needed this punishment. He wanted to die like he should have died that night on the battlefield.

Suddenly, the door to Felix's bedroom swung open and slammed hard against the wall. Someone was yelling for Felix, then there were frantic footsteps. That was the last thing Felix heard before the sweet, too-short relief of death claimed him.