With a guttural shout, Max hurled the mirror, encasing the room in its wild clamor. His breath was shallow; his eyes darted with old fury. At his side, his hands hung open; pain and ink oozed from their fingers.
His thoughts ran like quick burns. He'd tried everything, he'd put everything into destroying that mirror, and it was still here. Still thriving, still existing, still taunting him and touching his things and playing that crying image over and over and over-
He clawed at his hair in a half-scream; the pain of doing so merged with the throbbing of his hands. Peering down, he spotted the mirror lying face-up in the middle of his bed; the child inside stared at him with a face covered in globulous tears. Over and over and over with that godforsaken image of his crying. Why. Why that memory? Why did it have to be that...?
Shaking, he met the gaze of his reflection. Its tears welled with nostalgic suffering. It felt as if they were his own tears, running down his own cheeks. Crying and weak. Crying and small and-
NO. No, no, not again, not again. He wasn't a child. He wasn't a useless child.
With a breathless gasp, he pulled his eyes away from the reflection. Out of instinct, his hands reached for the cuffs of his sleeves; glancing down, he noticed them wrinkling and staining the suit. Stop, stop. He commanded himself to stop. Don't touch it. It was far too important to be bleeding over.
He needed to get out of it. Wear something different. Find his old clothes.
In a daze, he stepped over to his closet and threw the door open. Inside, there was... nothing. No shirts, no jackets. Nothing at all.
... Well, alright. He probably had a change of clothes in his drawers. Silent, he wandered pass the mirror to the furniture, pulled out the drawers and found... nothing.
Okay. His clothes weren't there, either. But they had to be here; this was his room, after all. There were always old clothes and forgotten laundry lying about.
In a half-panic, he tore through his room, checking behind the furniture and in the corners underneath his bed. Yet there was nothing. Not a single thing in sight. Where the fry had everything gone? Shell, he must've left them in the wash or... something. Maybe they were... downstairs. Downstairs.
Downstairs.
He froze. Behind him, the mirror watched, bearing into his back with quiet sobs.
Downstairs. That... husk was still downstairs, wasn't it. That parasite- no, y'know what, screw it. He was some fryin' child. He could beat that husk's face in if he wanted. He could break its neck. Rip its tentacles into pieces. He could-
As he moved to grab the doorknob, a contorted screech echoed from the other side of the wood. Max stopped, unmoving and unbreathing, as it squelched along the floor and into some unhearable distance.
After a pause, he breathed. And, slowly releasing his grip on the door, he raised his hands into his tentacles and let out a smothered scream.
Why. WHY. Why was he here, why was Dad here. Why was his stuff gone, why had he been six, why was he wearing his suit, why was the mirror here, why was it playing that image, why was it-
A quiet snifle murmured from the reflection behind him.
"SHUT UP!" Max screamed at the top of his lungs. Furious, he paced around his room, ripping at his tentacles and his sleeves.
"What is wrong with you?!" He snarled into the reflection. "Why are you even-?! Why can't you just...?!"
With a bloodcurling snarl, he collapsed into his desk chair and buried his face in his hands.
Talk: Mirror