The Luckiest Girl In The World

Kathy sat in the dark, the small circle of light from her desk lamp providing any illumination at all. It was, of course, trained on the mirror, as it had been since Thursday night, once Kathy realized that the daylight had faded enough to make it difficult to see the images that her mirror was showing her. She hadn't eaten since she'd found half a container of Tic Tacs in a drawer Friday evening. She hadn't drunk anything since she finished the contents of her water bottle yesterday afternoon. She hadn't slept in--well, who was keeping track of that? Kathy wasn't.

( It's like pollen week all over again )

She wasn't hungry, even though her shirt was falling over gaunt shoulders too thin to keep the straps up. She wasn't thirsty, even though her mouth was dry and her lips were cracked. She wasn't tired, for all that the circles under her eyes were dark enough to look like bruises. Instead, with lips that tore and bled from the movement, Kathy was grinning in the dark.

Hours later, though, that smile stopped abruptly--the same time her mirror went dark. "What?" Kathy reached for her mirror with hands that shook. "No," she whimpered. "Please, don't! Please!" Was something wrong? Did she somehow break it? How was she supposed to know what was going to happen to her if she couldn't watch in the mirror?

She needed to talk to Mr. Gaunt. She needed to know what had happened. She needed to get to Needful Things.

[Mirror cut text is NFB, please! Many thanks to theheadkid, not_every_mage, smilestopscars, and gunslingerpose for letting my mod their boys for sexy illusory funtimes. PG-13 rating for material under the cut.]