Pale Reflection

Eris Morn knows what she looks like. Her mirror holds nothing her memory cannot furnish for her—all that lives beneath the silvered surface of the glass is the uncanny. Still, she pulls away the cloth covering it and removes her bandage.

Eris looks into her eyes and sees all the ghostly occupants of a haunted house. Her nightmares peer out through the green gleam into a world that will not meet her gaze.

She reaches up and touches her face. Darkness coils around her fingertips and seeps back into her bare skin. Her hairline, her brow, the scars, the unctuous tears that slide eternally down her cheeks.

But they are not tears. She does not weep for her condition. That condition had saved her life. It had granted her strength, access, and time. She'd torn it all from the Hive and turned it against them.

Eris does not see pain. She sees triumph and survival. She sees a future.

She sees power.

Eris retreats from the mirror and covers it again.