busticate
[buhs-ti-keyt]
1. to break into pieces.
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Ted looked at the elaborate framed mirror. It’s brightly polished silver frame was molded into flowing, elegant shapes that were studded with gems. It stood high enough that Ted could see his entire body in its glass. The problem was with what he saw in that glass.
The reflection he saw in the mirror was not his own. Any other mirror showed him his form well enough, but this one did not. It showed something ugly and perverse. Something more akin to a monster than a man. It showed a beast with withered, discolored skin. Boils and blisters coated the dank skin, making it lumpy and distorted. It stood hunched over, with a noticeable hump on its back. It was painfully thin, with bones clearly visible all over its body. Its hair was thin, wiry and chaotic. Its eyes were sunken and glazed over. ANd yet...and yet it was still clearly his reflection. Ted could see his facial features in the ugly perfersion of the human form. He could tell it was supposed to be himself in the glass.
He had no idea why it was that way. He could not claim it was his so called true self, because it was not. He was not a bad person. He treated others well and volunteered at various places. He was well liked and respected in the community. Nor was the mirror reflecting some kind of inverse of his physical body. Ted was not one with a perfect form. He was a bit on the short side and was starting to develop a belly, despite his best efforts to avoid it.
And yet, the mirror still insisted on showing him the most horrid version of himself he could think of. And somehow, it was affecting things in the outside world. Ever since he had gotten the cursed mirror, his life had taken a turn for the worse. At the first sight of his twisted doppelganger, he had gotten fired from his job for seemingly no reason. Then his girlfriend of three years had dumped him out of the blue. Misfortune had plagued him relentlessly and ruthlessly. Murphy’s Law was not just in effect, it was running on overdrive. And it was all the mirror’s fault.
Ted was not sure how he knew that, but he knew. It was a deep seated, almost instinctual knowledge that the mirror was somehow responsible for everything bad that had happened since it entered his house. And Ted was fed up with it.
He brandished a sledgehammer. The image in the mirror held a similar one, although rotted and rusting. It followed Ted’s movements as he raised the tool over his head. He brought it down with all the force he could muster.
The mirror shattered.
Glass shards, both large and small, broke apart and lay on the ground. Ted bashed the frame in with all his might, denting and breaking the silvery metal as much as he possibly could. He broke everything about the mirror into as many pieces as he could manage.
When he was done, he stood there, panting, gasping for air. He smiled for the first time in weeks. It was done. The mirror was broken and could do no more harm. He was finally free to resume his life properly, without fear of anything bad happening. He knew bad things could still happen, of course, but at least it would not be because of any cursed mirror. His life, once broken, could begin to mend.
He looked with disdain at one of the larger pieces of glass that remained, barely the size of his hand now. His heart froze and his blood ran cold.
Within the shard was his misshapen doppelganger. Only now it made no pretense of following his movements. It smiled its crooked, discolored smile, pointed at him and laughed. And Ted knew. He knew that the mirror’s curse was still there. He looked around at they hundreds of shards of glass, each one containing his distorted form. He fell to his knees as the weight of his curse grew with each one.
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When dealing with cursed objects, reflective or otherwise, consult an expert before taking any action against said cursed object.
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