Glass

Glass . 🖤

TW: mentions of death, mild descriptions of gore.

characters:

amaryllis. - the star.

opal. - the soon to be.

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Nobody would suspect, her cold and uninviting stare never allowed people to trespass into her blackened soul, filled to the brim with succulent anguish and the illusion of normalcy. As her mechanical footwork let loose the beauty of her character without strain, arms held out feeling the air beneath her wings of deceit. Opal was transfixed upon this Renaissance painting before her, the mirrored walls of transparency feeling tighter now, ready to shatter and allow her to inhale the very same air. The walls felt nonexistent, Amaryllis was the only one for her to watch, to adapt to, become her kind of perfection one day, to witness her beauty behind the scenes, they were such precious, fleeting moments. The way she danced so effortlessly, as if she was really a part of Swan Lake herself, encapsulated everything and everyone within the olive palms of her hands and kept them in a loving choke-hold, making life feel hazy and soft. It must have been pure genius, Opal thought, tonight's show was destined to be heavenly as Amaryllis’s wondrous face. Perhaps she was hiding her loveliness behind that laughless look within her bored eyes.

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Upon entering the very same room backstage, Opal’s reverence was vividly expressed through the unfeeling emotions of her arms mirroring the poise of her pointed feet, pirouettes performed with ease, reflecting Opal’s clouded mind, consumed by Amaryllis’s admirable sense of dispassion. The mere mimicry of her expertise was enough to make Opal feel closer. The room was perfect, mirrors were cracked, fragments laid hopelessly on the floor, along with Amaryllis’s bobby pin. It was her work, and as Opal saw it, her prowess. Miniscule shards of broken glass scarred the hardwood floors, staining the desolate room with eggshells that numbed one's feet from the pain. What a beautiful mess of Amaryllis she has made herself out to be, so reflective of her turmoiled and lovely, wrecked head, and with this in mind Opal swept her arms across the abrasive surface, graceful and intentional as a swan, achieving various teeming cuts within her palms, tender and bloodied once the fragments were surely all over the floor, stinging, wonderfully so that she was forced to draw in a sharp breath. Somehow, Amaryllis’s insanity seemed exquisite, pulchritudinous only to those who were losing themselves on the inside and to those whose minds were frail. With the rehearsal being finished, Amaryllis’s deluded doppelganger shut off the lights and left, an empty smile infecting her face. Lovely.

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Two nights of rehearsal later, the once cream walls of the dance studio reflected the degradation of the performers, Amaryllis and Opal in each other’s presence, in perfect synchronisation, as their robotic plies and jetés proceeded, repetitively, without breaks, consecutively, perfectly. It may as well have been Amaryllis’s reflection in the fragmented mirrored walls that she refused to acknowledge. Once the piano ceased its song, her velvet red gaze shifted to her partner, polluted with the hostility of being forced to repeat this monotonous dance, over and over again. Opal on the other hand met her gaze with reverence. What a dear, as a s sheep gazes upon its wolf, almost resigned to its somber fate.

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‘Why must I be forced to further blacken my heart by dancing with one whose heart is so untainted by time’, Amaryllis wondered jealously, as the studio started to blur around the edges and her hands closed around a pocketed dagger before she could think, it was meticulously carved at the blade, clean. ”Such a being, she is indeed infatuated, not much younger, but at the cost of my sanity. Playing this part and being expected to memorise my positions without fail, vanquishing the eyes of the audience with the way I dance like a machine, it makes my world swirl, it threatens to spill from the eyes and mouth, twisting my body inside out, we are both subject to being entertainers like contortionists to appease the entertained.” Amaryllis’s whispers were heard, Opal was surely oblivious to her utter heartbreak as she only smiled. Alas, they were being called out to the stage, shuddering Amaryllis out of her temporary rage and a loud clatter rang out as the innocent dagger dropped to the floor. Her legs worked before her head, running to ready for the rising curtains, while Opal waited behind for a while, in the dark where only light was a witness. She then proceeded to follow out, shutting the battered door gently behind her. The dagger was nowhere to be found.

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Enveloped in the cool gaze of the stage lights, bathing Amaryllis in the soft blue glow of false virtue, the audience’s nonsensical chatter ceased in lieu of their bewitched eyes, upon the way her unnatural spins and silent vow of vengeance paralleled the moon’s natural beauty. Addressing the celestial beings with her arms, fluttering like a newly born butterfly emerging from its chrysalis, her face shone with apathy and never possessed the hint of visceral desire that a moon goddess should have. No matter how the white skirt, with its flowy and delicate texture adorned with jubilancy and intricate stitching dedicated to her figure, her eyes never blinked. It was now Opal’s turn to join her precious moon, her face turmoiled with Amaryllis’s beauty. Stepping onto the beckoning stage, the crowd's eyes illuminated by the blinding lights of a truthful reverie, as a dagger was unsheathed and blood started to drip down the edges. Mistaken for an act, a part of the ballet. Amaryllis’s cold body dropped gracefully, making no motion for the rest of the act. No outcry ensued at the blatant murder. Opal’s hands, covered in blood, the blood of her muse, filled her with a sickly sweet surprise. A little girl in the audience recognised such talent, adding fuel to her own little fire. Pure genius, she thought, my life is destined to be heavenly as Opal’s wondrous face.

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