CHAPTER 1

The false pretense of the elegantly soft, red velvet gives me a sense of contempt, rather than pleasure, as I squirm uncomfortably in my chair, gently shifting my weight from one side to the other while leaning my left shoulder back against it. I try willing my mind into processing to what I am seeing; however, I don’t think it has caught up with the reality of my sight.    

     I watch as two young girls, in their late teens, sit in front of a tacky oblique gold mirror, mesmerized with their images looking back at them. They are both quite beautiful in their own way. One has long dirty blond hair that is pinned back with a gemmed clip, with too large of eyes for her face. Her own simple beauty sparkles within the barrette’s own radiance as it catches the light glimmering of the iridescent opal, with the pink and white façade diamonds. Her make-up looks like something out of American Horror Story, with thick black liner outlining her powdery cornflower blue eyes. She appears to look harder than she may be, perhaps a sheltered life with well-to-do parents, whereas she has the innocent deception of being older than her years. The other young girl has a short pixy haircut, that she tucks behind her overly pierced ear, giving her a sultry appearance, and wears almost no makeup at all.

     I can see their worried expressions looking back at themselves through the reflection of the mirror with an increasingly pensive attitude. They both hold a single razor blade in their left hand, while their eyes and mouth fail to match as they continue to smile sickly at their false manifestation.

     As if on cue, they both raised the razor blade to the flesh of their neck, pressing the metal flat against their skin with force. The blade doesn’t penetrate; however, it does deposit a series of raised welts due to the consistent pressure of the blade with its back and forward motion. They continue to do so, as I sit fixated in my seat, watching in horror as they begin sobbing, while crying out to stop, as if their hands have their own intentions to harm.

     It doesn’t take me long to figure out what their objective is. This is not a game, but it appears as if they are under some sort of spell, chanting that the voices are making them do it, they don’t want to, but they can’t stop themselves.

     I sit there too stunned to move as I watch both girls slowly turn from the flat side of the blade to the sharp edge, as an overwhelming sense of sadness sweeps over me. Realizing this is not their doing, but an evil force that has chosen their fate.

     I wake up screaming, drenched in my own sweat, frantically looking around the room with the realization that it had been a dream – the most horrible kind of nightmare. This is a common occurrence of mine, nightmares. I’m used to them now, but it doesn’t mean that they don’t sometimes catch me off guard, causing my heart to frantically pound with a coercive force that feels as if it is choking me. Perhaps it is God’s way of reminding me of that fateful day, a mother’s worst nightmare and a day I will never forget. The day the world went black back in 2016, November 26th.

Copyright (c) 2025 by Jayne Marie Ebert