Nothing. His mind spun out, numb and uncomprehending. The mirror held no image at all. No black, wavy hair framing his tanned face and blue eyes. No square jaw line, or sensitive, full lips. No blood. No wound.
Wait. The mirror did hold something—a large, zigzag crack that ran from side to side. Without reason, bits of a poem Joseph had learned in high school came to mind. Was it Poe? No. Although in light of the grisly scene around him—the broken bodies, the salty smell of blood—Poe would be appropriate.
It was Tennyson. Surprised at the memory, he mumbled the words to himself, “The mirror crack'd from side to side; ‘The curse is come upon me,’ cried The Lady of Shalott.”
Joseph sat on the graveled shoulder of the road and the truth came upon him in a lightening bolt of panic. People weren’t running from him. They were running through him. A cold mist swirled about—a fog that shaped itself into death.
Surely he wasn’t dead … was he?
*© 2007 belongs to author, name currently withheld until the contest conclusion
*© 2007 belongs to author, name currently withheld until the contest conclusion
