The mirror was cracked. It bothered her. A line snaking along the side, unnoticed then suddenly veering into view. It was ugly. To her eyes, it was an abomination of the sickest nature. Her mother said that she was being too picky, she knew what she felt. She felt angry at the mirror, like it was the reason her parents divorced and she would never see her brother again. She wanted her life to be complete and whole again. She wanted the mirror to be fixed.

The mirror had stains. Splattered on the surface and set in. She tried to wash them out, but they would just show up again. Dreams, hopes, relationships; all crumbling to the ground. They never bothered to fix them. They just curled up in their beds. She cried herself to sleep. Her mother sobbed in the night. A river of tears floods the house every night. When she wakes, new stains are on the mirror. She hates them too.

The mirror has a rope on it. That does not bother her. Her mother does not complain. They do not leave the house. Pale, thin, ghosts of their former selves, they hide from the pains of the world. The house is no longer a home to the living, but a crypt for the dead. The coarse rope hangs there, swinging slowly, like the girl in the mirror.