Ari clutched the sink as she looked into the mirror. The cracks on the glass spread like spider-webs across the dirty surface. Insects gathered around the flickering light weakly illuminating the dingy bathroom. The little girl traced her line of sight from the reflection of the bulb down a crack which ran through the middle of the glass, obscuring one of her eyes. Looking as deeply as she could into the other, she noted that not even the slightest speck of light was visible in her completely black iris. There never was. She continued this staring contest with her mirror for a little while, before breathing hard through her nose and finally looking down into the sink. The drops of blood she had just coughed up were pooling near the drain. Taking her hand off the cold porcelain, she reached for the faucet and let the incoming stream of water wash the stain away.
"Everything okay in there?" A voice called out from outside the door. It wasn't her mother. Ari closed her eyes to prevent her reflection from staring back at her.
"Yes!" She called back, clenching her jaw as she did so.
After a minute of attempting to adjust her new dress, Ari wrung her hand in frustration before walking outside. Her mother hadn't taken the size before she had bought it, resulting in the folds hanging extremely loosely over her thin frame. The night before, there had been an attempt to fix it, but when Mrs Jeong realized no scissor on earth would help she had given up and left Ari to figure out the fitting on her own.
She clearly hadn't done an impressive job as the woman outside wrinkled her face at the sight of the child.
"Ah, c'mere," Yarane bent down next to Ari, before embarking on an attempt to use her shawl as some sort of wrapping. "Stuff like this looks prettier when you cinch it at the waist."
"Thank you," Ari whispered through her embarrassment.
Yarane was one of the outsiders who had come to Norock for the wedding. She had arrived with her boyfriend, having been invited by some distant relative who lived in the town. Lodgings had been short - families lived in their house for generations, after all - and Mrs Jeong had offered up theirs for both of them to stay there for the last few nights leading up to the wedding. They had graciously accepted the offer, though neither of them spent much time in the shabby house. Ari couldn't fault them for that. Anyhow, it had turned out in her favour, as after her fight with Imti, she had been spending most of her day there whereas Mrs Jeong was spending hers in the other household. This had resulted in her coming to Yarane's attention. The woman had spent much of the previous day helping Ari with the wedding preparations.
After accomplishing the wardrobe modifications she was hoping for, the woman looked up at Ari. Something was wordlessly exchanged between them, and Yarane's smile was replaced with a frown. She stood up, adjusting the same leather jacket she had been wearing for the past week. Ari thought it smelled a little too much like cleaning chemicals.
"You know you can speak up when you feel down," Yarane grumbled before pulling the little girl in for a hug. They stood there for a little while, both of them trying to fight the awkward realization that Ari's emaciated body was shaking with the effort to keep her tears in. "It'll be... alright. Now let's get outta here."
YOU ARE READING
FALTER
Mystery / Thriller"Do you remember what we used to say?" "Never falter." "Yeah. Forever after." When a familiar cult emerges from the shadows of Youth City, underground rockstar Imti has to choose between hiding his demons behind a mask or finally facing everyone bur...
