Mirrored Self | Felicest

Snaking Nightmare

It was late at night, rain pounding on the windows of Feliciano's house. He sat in his hallway, staring deeply into the mirror on his wall. He had been staring for the past half an hour, usually a sign of vanity but he had a more unnerving reason: he could swear that his eyes would turn a royal shade of magenta when he'd look away, catching the change out of the corner of his eye.

He had gotten the mirror a few months ago at an antique shop he liked to frequent, the frame consisting of two dulled-gold snakes wrapping around each other had entranced him at first sight. The owner had told him it got returned a lot but he didn't mind - what others didn't love, he could. However, a thick layer of dust was always present, even if he had sworn he just cleaned it. The only thing the dust refused to land on was the jewelled eyes of the snakes, dark rubies that almost glowed in the dim light of the hallway, bringing some form of life to the otherwise dreary mirror.

Gently, he tapped the glass. His reflection did the same. He let out a sigh, trying to rub the sleep out of his eyes, he couldn't even remember if he'd been blinking whilst staring intently at the damned mirror.

The colour flashed again. Magenta. He was sure of it.

His head shot up to stare at his reflection. Nothing. His usual amber eyes stared back at him in shock. This was starting to hurt his head.

"Okay, Feliciano, get yourself together," he mumbled, "it's just a mirror."

He carefully got up, grabbing onto the chest of drawers to help himself up due to his legs trembling from being sat crossed for so long. He shot a final glance towards the mirror before making his way downstairs.

Making his way to the kitchen, he prepared his moka pot and put it on the stove when he got there. He knew that he had work to do, he'd let it pile up for weeks in hopes that it'd magically do itself, calling it a problem for his future self: he now wanted to hit his past self for doing this yet again. His mind wandered back to that same damn mirror, something about it seemed to chip away at his focus, absentmindedly picking at the skin of his lips as he tried to work out exactly what it was that unnerved him about it.

Maybe it was the design of the frame? He never did like real snakes. Perhaps it was those rubies that seemed to glare into his very soul despite just being gems? That always made his skin crawl. Could it be the dust always reappearing whenever he left the room? It was strange that no matter-

The noise of the moka pot gurgling broke him out of his thoughts. Blood stained the tips of his fingers five minutes seemed to fly by fast. He fumbled for the moka pot, pushing it to the other burner stove so the coffee wouldn't foam out the top like the many times he'd made that mistake before turning off the stove. He grabbed a cup from his cupboard and poured out his coffee.

He pulled a square off of his kitchen towels, using it to wipe the blood off of his fingers before picking up his laptop and the cup of coffee and making his way to his living room.

Itabby seemed to be sleeping on the couch, stretched along the cushion that they'd claimed as their own. Feliciano couldn't help but smile at the sight, his mind seeming to calm for a little. He sat down next to them, laptop on his lap and opened on the documents he needed to complete. He mindlessly switched on the TV before he gently scratched their head to rouse them from their sleep.

This caused Itabby to wake up, saunter towards him like the world was made for them, and drop down right on his laptop - causing random letters and symbols to scrawl across the document. They immediately fell asleep after, as always, a little troublemaker in cat form.

"Itabby, get off, I'm trying to work." He chuckled, gently nudging them to keep them awake, feeling their soft fur beneath his fingers. He knew he wouldn't move them, he could never hold anything against the adorable little kitten.