A Rose Painted Black || The Distortionist x Reader

⊱ ──.⋅Chapter 19⋅.── ⊰

"Nowhere to run from all of this havoc
Nowhere to hide
From all of this madness, madness, madness"

»»-------Ruelle-Madness-------««

[BLOOD WARNING]

Once my hesitancy had passed I abandoned anything I'd been doing before to get closer to the noise. I got to the same hall at the back of the shop, finding myself in front of that...mirror room. I flinched at the sound of another shatter and I gulped. I didn't know what to expect.

With shaking hands, I open the waterfall of the curtain, allowing myself inside. Stopping instantaneously. Chris was in front of the mirrors, holding a bat as dark as ink, and a raging voice.

"N-no that isn't me! It-it isn't anymore-you...you all know damn well that isn't me!"

He bellowed in anger, at times his voice softer but quickly turning into yells full of outrage. There was no one else in the room, but those mirrors.

"I never did anything wrong!"

He yelled a final time before he swung the bat. Cracks spread as fast as light. The shriek of the hits pierced through the air and made puzzle pieces of mirror that fell to the ground into a puddle of cracked waters. The impact sent a ripple through the room, making it feel as if the ground beneath was shaking in its own terror. I only stared and stood still. What was I witnessing?

He held his bat above his head ready to hit the mirror again, but he stood still as if he was listening to the mirror. As if he and the mirror were conversing.

"She won't ever!" He shook his head at the mirrors and his voice raised again. "Mark my words, you bastards! You'll be gone and discarded for by the time you have the chance!"

He brings the bat back down and I could almost see the angered curl of his lip, the fury in his eyes. No piercing shriek of glass shattering happened, instead, a blinding light that forced me to close my eyes. I heard the bat drop to the floor. An outcry in agony follows before I open my eyes, and still, I am here. I didn't know what was happening; I begin to shiver, but the room isn't even greatly cold.

"You...you damn mirrors!" he hissed while kneeling on the ground with a hand on the side of his head. He released more pained grunts before the wrecked mirrors, some with blood dripping down the cracks like the mirror was injured severely.

Up until now, I remained in my place, not daring to make the slightest movement, nearly not even breathing. I was too stricken to make the slightest indication of my presence.

"You bloody--!"

I realized why he stopped mid-sentence. Chris met his eyes with me in one of the side mirrors. His typical wide eyes holding his gaze with mine. His hand still to the side of his head.

"...Chris?" My voice came out weak and it cracked slightly. He looked away and his split reflection copied. He stood up, his back towards me. The spotlights as he did this, slowly faded away as if a performance just ended.

"I'm a monster," he stated calmly bringing his head up. I wished I could see his face. "I would recommend hurrying away, my dear. Forget everything before it haunts you."

I glance at the elements of the scene again. Was this what Shirley meant? I had trouble remembering the exact words, but was this what she meant by wishing I could turn it all back, did the 'white and black' world mean a bad and different one, like this, where things didn't quite make sense?