Threads of Dawn

Halle looked at herself in the mirror, letting her fingers run along the edge of her jaw. She blinked rapidly a few times and then bared her teeth. Everything looked as it always did. Just another early morning. She couldn't sleep and even that wasn't out of the ordinary. She shuffled to the window and pulled back the drape to reveal the sun rise. The gold and pink light spilled out from the horizon, painting the clouds and snow in dramatic colors. This should be breath taking, but she felt nothing. Without looking away from the rising sun, she picked up the phone and dialed work. She muttered to them something about being sick and hung up, not waiting for their reply.   The cutain fell back over the window as she turned away from it and she moved into the kitchen where she went about her routine of making breakfast. The kettle had a familar weight to it as she slide it over to the burner and turned on the stove. The heating element slowing turned red and she could feel the warmth radiating off of it. Her fingers hovered near the edge of it and she imagined pushing the kettle aside to press her palm against the heat of it. Closing her eyes, she blew a slow breath out and willed the thought away. An itch spread. Starting at the center of her palm. Slowly it crawled over the surface of her skin. Prickling and biting its way to her fingertips.   The kettle screamed.   She stared at it a moment. Watching the steam billowing out, she felt uncertain about what she was doing with it. She moved it to the back burner and flicked off the stove. The faint clicking of the stove sounded familiar, like a friend calling her from the distance. Looking up at the corner of the room, she watched the spider there moving in its web. For a moment, she thought it was this spider clicking at her and she paused with her hand outstreatched towards the tiny creature. Turning her hand over, she condiered her palm. The creases across her skin were deep.   "What the fuck is wrong with me?" she asked, shoving her hand through her short hair.   A tuft of it came away in her fingers. The light glinted off the blond strands and she let it fall. It fluttered down to the burner and quickly sizzled away. The smell wasn't unpleseant. It seemed like a cleansing. Frantic, she clawed at her hair. It pulled away easily as though it had never been a part of her. Running her hands over her now bald head, she looked down at the hair scattered over the kitchen.   Halle ran back to the bathroom and clutched the sides of the mirror. There were cracks. She followed one with her fingertip, letting the glass cut her. How had this happened? She spun around to look at the small white room. How had any of this happened? Fog obscured her memories. She could not remember being a child nor coming to live in this place.   Small silver strands wafted through the air, catching the light. She lifted her hand to catch one, but saw that they were attached to her skin. She lifted her hand and again examined her palm. The folds of her skin cracked deeply and were flaking on the edges.   She rubbed at the cracks with her thumb. The skin peeled away and curled up in thin ribbons. Beneath it, something shimmered. Wet. Metallic. The faintest suggestion of movement beneath the surface; the beating of a slumbering heart. She felt the itch intensify, spreading from her palm up her wrist, crawling along the tendons. She could hear it now, a faint grinding, the sound of sand shifting inside her veins.   Her knees gave way. She slumped against the sink, clutching her arm to her chest as the first flake of skin fell to the tile. It made a brittle tick against the porcelain, followed by another, and another—until she was raining bits of herself. She stared at her hand, watching the layers peel off like sloughed snakeskin. What was left behind didn’t look like flesh anymore. It glistened. It twitched. The grooves of her palm had deepened into ridges, wet and pink, as though something underneath had been waiting for the permission to breathe.   A smell filled the air. Copper. Steam. Decay. Her stomach rolled, but she couldn’t look away.   “Okay. Okay, just—just stop,” she whispered, as if her body might listen.   But it didn’t. The cracks ran up her forearm now. She was splitting open like the earth under drought. The silver filaments that drifted from her earlier now spilled freely. The thin tendrils rose from beneath her skin, writhing, curling in the air as though tasting it. She tried to swat them away, but her fingers refused to obey. They flexed in strange, alien motions, like a puppet’s hand being tugged by invisible strings.   Her reflection drew her attention again. She pulled herself up by the edge of the sink to her full height so that she could see herself better. The mirror was fully broken now, as if someone had punched it from the other side. Small pieces at the center and large chunks at the edges. Small fragments had fallen down into the sink. The entire surface bowed outward. Her reflection was watching her from one of the larger fragments of glass. Its expression was not her own. The other Halle smiled, the corners of her mouth pulling too wide, the skin at her cheeks dimpling in the wrong places.   “No,” she whispered. “No, no, no.”   The reflection tilted its head and its eyes widened. She watched in horror as it raised a hand—her hand—and pressed it to the glass. The surface of the mirror pushed further out, forcing more of the glass to crumble down into the sink and onto the floor.   Her own hand, trembling, lifted of its own accord. The tendrils sprouting from her wrist danced toward the mirror’s surface. When they touched the broken surface, the glass gave way with a sound like falling rain. A cold wind poured through.   She jerkedd backward, but the tendrils anchored her in place keeping her from moving. The tendrils plunged into the reflection, sinking deep. On the other side of the glass, her twin began to change—its skin sloughing off in thick sheets, exposing a lattice of glistening muscle, each fiber twitching in rhythm with her heartbeat. Halle screamed, but no sound came out. Her throat convulsed; she felt something move there, pushing up from within.   Her mouth opened on its own. A strand of silver unfurled from between her teeth. It stretched, then split into two, then four—each one quivering with purpose. She felt her jaw unhinge slightly as the tendrils poured forth, wrapping around her face, threading over her eyes like a blindfold. When she tried to rip them away, her fingers met the same living cords crawling out from beneath her fingernails.   She sank to her knees. Her skin now hung in ribbons, sliding off her bones like wet parchment. Beneath it, something gleamed—a slick membrane pulsing with faint, inner light. The tendrils from her mouth, her hands, her arms all met at her chest, converging, coiling, forming something—something trying to escape.   The mirror bowed out further and then finally gave way. Glass exploded into the room and rained down in sharp glitter. The reflection stepped through the hole to the reflection. It was her, and not her. Skinless, radiant, perfect. Its smile was soft and maternal. Its eyes were huge.   “You’ve been hiding so long,” it whispered, voice wet and echoing.   Halle tried to answer, but only a strangled sound came—half scream, half gasp—as the reflection bent over her and placed its palm over her heart.   The tendrils froze. The world went silent. For a moment, there was only warmth—radiant and calm. Then her chest split open with a sound like tearing silk. From within, the light poured out.   And something else stepped forward.