Glass Walls

Chapter 16

Glass showers the floor in sharp fragments. The screeching gets louder and turns into a fit of screams. I don't even bother covering my ears, it's too loud. The singular lightbulb starts flickering rapidly.

I scream as I pick a maggot from my hair. My adrenaline races through me, my heart pounds in my chest, and I think it's going to explode any second. Dad knocks over the pile of mirrors and demolishes them. He hits them over and over and over and over.

The screams only get worse and the storm more intense. All the flickering of the lights is giving me a headache.
"Olivia! Upstairs!" dad yells.

"What?!" I scream back.

"The mirror!"
That's right, we never moved the big mirror down here! I hate to leave dad down here alone but I sprint up the basement stairs and look around for something to destroy it with. I notice the sky is a dark black. The lights are flickering up here too.
That's when I hear a cracking sound, not like the lightning, but a different sort of noise.

I turn and see a crack spidering its way down the wall. It grows bigger and I hear the cracking sound get louder. Without waisting another second I dash upstairs to the empty room. Empty except the mirror that almost takes up the whole right wall. Mom stares back at me with a sinister grin stretching from ear to ear.
Everything begins to spin and the walls start to crumble. Without a moment's notice, barbed wire emerges from the floor boards and wrap around my ankles.

It pulls me back so I'm standing in the middle of the room. Wire creeps from the cracks in the walls and wrap around my whole body. It's like a net.
YOU ARE MY DAUGHTER! DO NOT BETRAY ME! YOU CANNOT BEAT ME YOU CANNOT DESTROY ME!

Words written in black liquid form on the floor and spiral around me into a circle.
MIRROR MIRROR ON THE WALL MIRROR MIRROR ON THE WALL
They keep forming until the floor is covered in the same phrase over and over again. The blood spilling over my arms and pouring from cuts all over cover some of the words. A puddle of red surrounds my feet.

Wincing, I try to move my legs but the wire cuts into my skin. I take a deep breath and use all my strength to pull myself towards her. I cry out as my foot slowly moves forwards. The wire buries itself into my ankle. I move my other foot. With each step I scream in excruciating pain. Even so, I keep moving forward not letting up one bit.

It feels like my feet will be cut clean off. My arms are pulled along limply and my wrists pour blood like a waterfall. I've lost so much blood I feel lightheaded and sick to my stomach, but I'm so close. I pull myself forward even more and now, I'm just inches away from her.

My body feels like collapsing and it's getting hard to breath. My lungs are bricks in my chest. Mom laughs at me and her cackling echoes around me sounding like multiple laughs coming from all different angles. There's no way I'll be able to raise my hand to smash the mirror. There's no other way to break it but this.
I hit the glass with my head but nothing happens. I'm too weak to use enough force. So very weak. My vision blurs.

This is my last chance to get rid of her, my own mother. If I don't then the house will collapse and dad and I will die. I don't even know what's happening to him right now. I take in as much air as my body will allow and I smash my head into the mirror. It's not a lot but tiny cracks form at the bottom. 

She whimpers a little and I feel the wires grip weaken ever so slightly. It's barely noticeable but it gives me a bit of hope. I slam myself into the glass again and this time it causes shards to fall from the frame. I won't be able to hold up much longer, I can feel it. My legs are so weak the only thing keeping me on my feet are the wires holding me up.

Blood trickles down my face and I have to close my left eye because there's so much. The wires are much looser compared to before and I think I can move my arm a little. I pull my arm back, ignoring the pain, and it feels heavy. I swing it forward and hit the glass.

Just as the first attempt with my head, my arm doesn't do much. It just bumps into the surface and slides, leaving a bloody trail and some scratches from the wire. My energy and my life are slipping away at an alarming rate. I start to feel myself lose consciousness so I scream to keep myself awake. I yell and then slam my fist into the mirror using all the strength I can muster.

Black spots dance across my field of vision and I'm extremely dizzy. I keep hitting it over and over. Half the time I an too weak to make a dent in it, but other times I smash bits from it.

Cuts crisscross my hand. I can't lose anymore blood but I also can't let her win. At this rate the mirror will still have too much glass left. I grab the frame where I broke the glass out and hang on tight. I let my body go limp and I fall to my knees.

The shaking of the walls combined with the force I used to break the mirror had loosened it from the many big nails holding it in place. I noticed it when I was hitting it. There was more space than usual between it and the wall.

My weight pulls on the gigantic frame. I hear a creak and then watch as it towers over me. I can see my tired pale face above me and the blood leaving my body.
I was going to die.

I close my eyes and let the wall of glass fall onto my broken body.