Rambling

Reflections

She watched as a crimson pool formed beneath an identical face. Brown hair draped across a solid slate floor, lower legs still angled on the stairs. Eyes were wide and empty staring into oblivion. Her lower jaw was crooked as if gravity was impacting that portion of face more than the rest. Cracks splintered out from the point of contact and formed bloody snakes on the flat grey floor. Her torso was flat against the ground with her head turned to the left. Hips point right and her knees overlapped. A white button up shirt gradually became tinted with red from the shoulders down. It took Joanna a few seconds of gazing at the growing stain before she realized she should be concerned.  She leaned down and picked a phone out of the pocket of the paling corpse and sent a text to every person in the contact list.
"Off to Madagascar for research! Wish me luck!"
With her head tilted and thumbs hovering over the blue send button, Joanna waited to feel even an inkling of regret. None came. She pressed send.
A week went by, a month, a year, no one questioned the absence of her sister, Mary Ann. The only reminder of the incident was the red stained crack in the floor covered by a rug and the reflection of her sister that followed Joanna around. Anytime someone came into the room she always questioned if they would notice the oddly placed rug at the bottom of the stairs or the splinters in the tile that did not exist before. At night Joanna could see the puddle forming under the rug pooling across the floor. A reminder of what she had done.
    The mirror held two reflections. One, hers and the other her sister's, staring back at her. There was a dull sheen to Mary Ann's eyes and her smile was slightly too sharp. Her once vibrant hair hung in stringy strands against her pale face, clumped by internal fluids. The shoulders of her shirt were drenched in what at first glance appeared to be paint but was decidedly not. She never spoke, only watched as Joanna tried to ignore her image with the same edged grin. Mary Ann's likeness followed Joanna on all reflective surfaces and strangers often caught her avoiding glances directly at it. As if not acknowledging it would help the image to fade away.
    Eventually, questions began to arise. They were always about the same topic.
"Mary Ann has been gone for quite some time. When will she be back?"
"When will Mary Ann be home?"
"I bet you miss Mary Ann, she has been gone for so long."
Mary Ann, Mary Ann, Mary Ann, there was no escape from the shadow she cast and Joanna was forever prisoner to its design. She watched as that crimson pool formed unknowingly trapped in its depths. The reflection of her sister stared back at Joanna in that stain upon the floor, and she found herself lost beneath its hue.

AN: this was a flash fiction piece I wrote for my creative writing class