#24 Dreaded Still

Another icy sting. The third one. Kassia squeezed her eyes shut and tears leaked out again. Weak, pathetic, revolting. She sucked in a noisy gasp as the cold went away and retrieved her hand. It was a third potion bottle vial. But before she could reach for another card, all nine burned up before her. She watched the ashes swirl through blurred vision.

And then they were gone, and she was alone. Kassia didn't really understand what had just happened, but apparently, this was the positive end. Kassia couldn't imagine the bad ending could have been worse than what she was now feeling.

She sucked in another gasp, the air whistling through her teeth. She was alone, trembling like a late autumn leaf, the last of which had not fallen from its tree. She shakily removed her hand mirror from her robes to look at her reflection. Red eyes and shiny cheeks looked back at her. She made a cringing expression, a hideous one. She looked back at the table.

"Is this me winning? Is this a win for me, you motherf-" Her words were drowned out by the slam of the hand mirror on the table. "What is this supposed to teach me, you f-" Crack. "You piece of-" Tinkle. "What did I do to deserve this? You disgusting excuse of a school, you worthless, sadistic, pathetic, uncreative-"

She continued smashing the hand mirror even after all the glass shards had fallen from it, leaving only the dull thunk of the plastic striking the table until it, too, finally snapped in half. Kassia was left with bruised and bloody knuckles. She squeezed her hand into a fist and slowly sank next to the table, finally letting go.

She cried, hard. She wasn't sure how long she sat, bawling her eyes out like she couldn't remember ever doing before. She had never been alone enough to allow her emotions out so freely. She cried, screamed, and wailed until her throat was sore and she was reduced to sniffling and hiccupping.

Kassia took in another gasping breath and finally reached for a handkerchief. She blew her nose and wiped her eyes, trying to even out her breathing. She pressed her face to the cold stone wall, letting it remove the swelling. Once her eyes were dry and the sniffling stopped, she rubbed her face and sighed.

She felt... oddly better? Better than she had in weeks, maybe longer. She felt hollow, yet there was some knot in her stomach that had vanished. Kassia looked back at the table, surrounded by various pieces of her two smashed items. It felt like she had just... removed some sort of sickness from herself. She regarded the room for a moment longer before exiting through the door.

[Exit]