The glass of the mirror wasn't cold. It was warm, like living skin. The fluorescents above buzzed like angry flies, their light bleeding a sickly yellow onto the linoleum floor. I stared, and my reflection stared back. We were the same, for a breath. Same tired eyes, same hair clinging to damp skin.

She didn't smile. She just looked at me with the same bottomless exhaustion that had been piling up inside me for years. Every morning, every evening, every sleepless night the same ritual. A gaze into the glass, an attempt to recognize the one looking back. And every time a quiet alienation. This wasn't frightening in the usual sense. It was worse. It was the truth.

And then I saw it. Slowly, almost lazily, a thick scarlet streak began to crawl from her right temple. Slowly, like viscous resin, the blood trickled down her cheek, crossing the line of her cheekbone and getting lost in the shadows of her neck. It was bright, almost unnatural against her pale, gaunt face. She didn't even flinch, showed no pain or surprise. She just kept looking at me with the same empty, weary gaze, as if this bleeding was as much a part of her as the wrinkles around her eyes or the mole on her neck.