Natalie Yacobson - Mutilated. Crypt of the Seven Angels

«Do not look down!»

And yet she looked to see his burned hands. Digid and poorly existing, because the fingers seemed to be trying to snatch with hot tongs.

Crumpled hands under exquisite sleeves. An unpleasant and even shocking combination. Claire thoughtfully tapping her fingers on the wrist watch bracelet. The time as if returned to reversal somewhere. Claire noted that the tiny hands on the dial froze. Probably the battery ran out. Claire removed a bracelet from the hand. She did not want to wear a stopped clock on his wrist, as if it was bad sign.

She has little time. It’s time to work. It’s time to draw. And there are no absurd sketches or face from sleep, but those illustrations that she ordered.

But instead of focusing, she still remembered the sleep. Dance. Embrace. What sweetness was a feeling of intimacy. But burned hands…

Claire got up and looked out of the window to the street. Along the highway, cars were used at the bottom. Already evening. Bright headlights resembled asterisks. With the memories of those accidents that occurred at her eyes recently, Claire was unwittingly wondered how the highway could be empty. Cars swept past and have not shot down anyone. No corpses with cut-out turtles are not lying on the asphalt. Perhaps everything ended. And she will never again see confused victims, random incidents and a disfigured person who flashed in the crowd to them. If only she did not invent it.

Today she just got up too late. Although, maybe her beautiful sleep and cost the good half of the day to fall into bed. Pleasant thoughts stirred with terrible, as if pink and black paints merged in her mind. Beauty and something ugly in bizarre mesaliance. Clare grinned, presenting how her work could go if she uses in it to fully all the novelty of her fantasies.

The mirror in the bathroom was inexpensive: without frame and jewelry. But Claire loved to look into it. Even with a scarce lighting of one light bulb without lampshar under the ceiling, it was surprisingly clearly reflected. Great glass, though not Venetian.

In the abstract furnishings of the bathroom, the beauty of Claire was especially brightly distinguished. The accurate cheekbones, ash eyebrows, delightful emerald eyes – it was difficult to imagine something more divine. But the Claire got used to her appearance and did not find anything unique in it. Up to that moment. Now she began to watch it, as if the eyes of someone else and the fact that she saw, she had a reverent delight. Hypnotizing beauty The face of an angel with gold curls looked at her from the mirror. It was not impossible to comprehend such beauty nor to see it. And at the same time it was scary to watch. And suddenly all this will disappear. Suddenly beauty is just an illusion?

«You can’t even imagine what treasure you have,» someone’s hoarse whisper from silence suddenly whispered. It burned her. Burned and ears, and consciousness. Although Claire already knew that it did not make sense to turn around the shoulder. There is just no one. But in front of her, the mirror reflected the darkness as if someone was attached in it. Someone mutilated and dangerous. The creature from dreams. It scared her very much and at the same time something strangely excited. Claire imagined how it is to have a beauty, and then lose it.

Together with the question came a desire to find out about it. However, Claire did not even look at the razors folded in a bucket along with toothbrushes. Of course, the blades of the razors were sharp, but they did not excite her. It is completely different that the knife always lying in her pocket. Claire got it and pressed the button, releasing the blade. Almost the same knife like his. She did not know the name of that creature, so only one name whispered out loud:

«Mutilated!»

What to be so? She raised the blade to face. What if she brings with it on the cheek? What then will remain from her beauty? Will she be then like him?

The darkness in the mirror as if she was in a certain bizarre labyrinth. Probably, it was a game of a darkness mixed with poor lighting in the bathroom, but Claire seemed that the images in the mirror were moving along the same luxurious gallery in which she was in the dream. Only its reflection remained in place, golden on the background of the darkness. It attracted demons like light. Such a bright light that it exuded, walked the inhabitants of the kingdom of darkness to life, made them excited and aggressive. And someone waited for her there at the end of the tunnel. Someone who she wanted to see and was afraid of.

The blade in her hand shook. She could not put herself a wound. Could not mutilate herselff. It was attractively and scary. But she lacked courage. But in some one mad moment it seemed to her that she would not only be able to do it. But a strange hoarse voice interrupted her thoughts.

«Cordelia!»

Again the name from the sleep. Claire carefully looked into the depths of the mirror, and the knife fell from her hands. For a moment it seemed to her that she sees a terrible wound face next to her own reflection. How strongly the cuts on it emphasized the contrast with her own skin.

«It is necessary to value what you have,» as if it reported without words. «And then look at me! I didn’t value myself at all. Because of such as you, by the way…»

Claire shuddered. Is it really her dream again. Only now it was a dream in reality. She never smoked in life, did not drink alcohol and did not take drugs, so where then such hallucinations.

She pumped into the sink in front of the mirror so as not to fall down. The fallen knife lay on the tiled floor and as if waiting. Claire lacked the strength to raise it and again encounter doubts.

One moment she looked into the sink to calm down. The remnants of water at the bottom in the semidarkness seemed mixed with blood. But Claire did not shed a drop. She did not have enough courage to cut herself. Nevertheless, she opened the faucet so that clean filtered water washed off something brown and thick from the edge of the sink.

When Claire raised her eyes on the mirror, there was no other reflection in it. Only her own frightened face was in the background of a dense mirror gloom. Here you go. She was just imagined. She reluctantly surprised, the most realistic can be simple hallucination. The same tangible and real as the blade knife on the skin.

The face on the numerous TV screens in the electronics store showcase attracted the attention of Claire. She saw it before. And this face, and this blockbuster. The actor was familiar to her for many films, only she did not remember his name. These American superstars divorced so much that everyone would not remember, and generous to the praise of the press everything puts forward new names and creates regular idols, as if already existingis not enough. Claire never fond of stars that were so willingly encouraged with languishing from loneliness or idleness people. She herself was a star for everyone who saw her. She did not need to be filmed into a movie or bribe journalists to become interesting to people. After all, she had her appearance, which shone as a star without the help of a pawn articles and without a drop of makeup. But such advantages did not let everyone boast.

A strongly applied actor smiled with dozens of screens, depicting some kind of supernatural creature. It was impossible to say about him that he was handsome as often called him in magazines and newspapers. Claire would rather call him pleasant in appearance than beautiful. Previously, she liked to look at him, but now she shuddered. The feeling was like it just broke not only the showcase, but also the screen of one of the working TVs and was touched against bare wires.

How strange! The creature from the screen as if stood near and was one of the raised passers-by, and not another standard product of Hollywood. It seemed even more unusual that one of his appearance hurt her.