[ Fᴇᴀᴛᴜʀᴇᴅ ᴏɴ @WᴀᴛᴛᴘᴀᴅAsɪᴀɴFᴀɴᴛᴀsʏ, @Fᴀɴᴛᴀsʏ, @Aᴄᴛɪᴏɴ ᴀɴᴅ @ᴍʏᴛʜᴀɴᴅʟᴇɢᴇɴᴅ ]
Wᴀᴛᴛᴘᴀᴅ Iɴᴅɪᴀ Aᴡᴀʀᴅs 2021 Wɪɴɴᴇʀ (Tʜᴀᴛ Sᴇᴄʀᴇᴛ Qᴜᴇsᴛ)
ONC 2021 Lᴏɴɢʟɪsᴛᴇʀ
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As mysterious flash-floods rising from a dam reservoir begin drowning the town of K...
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Deep cracks radiated from the point of impact, ugly gashes that marred the smoothness of the mirror.
A forefinger dipped in black paint traced the path of the largest crack to its end in the intricately wrought iron frame. Behind it, the face reflected within the shards was hers, her once short-cut hair tumbled beyond her shoulders and covered her bosom. Her brown eyes were sunken, ringed with dark circles and sporting folds underneath them.
Her facial birthmarks, safely encased within the tattoos drawn on her skin, were smudged into blurred streaks across her cheeks. A hesitant hand wiped them off with the pad of its palm. The skin of her palm held the paint that had come off her cheek, its grooves and crevices filled up with soot. A sob died within her throat as she studied her reflection. Her tattoos had been painted on with help from the paintbrushes and the cracked clay pots lying beside her folded feet. The scents of the coconut and mustard oil base used to make the paints intermingled with petrichor.
The wrought iron frame of the mirror propped up on the stone wall glistened in the rainwater dripping from the roof. The roof was made of the same black stone as the wall, mined from the heart of the mountains up north. Carved into it were many-layered flowers with delicate petals, interlocking with one another to form a garden like no other. Outside the little room poured the rain that had been following her since nightfall. It droned on in its toneless voice.
She felt bare before the mirror, despite the wet presence of the drab grey blouse and pants pressing against her skin. Nakedness prevailed when she cleaned the rest of the paint off her left cheek, the skin underneath it peeking out and seeing light. The tattoos and the birthmarks came off like they weren't hers anymore, like they weren't functional parts of her body anymore like they had never secreted skin armour to protect her from the onslaught of the outside world before. They left her, their dark hue dying the skin of her hand as if they were strangers who had just met.
She was a hermit crab that had lost its shell, its soft body exposed for the world above it to pick on.
Her fingers scrambled across her chest for the dip of her neck and prodded against her chest bone for that familiar dot of heat. Her Samudra's organ would have responded to the panicked prodding of her fingers with a reassuring ping of heat energy against her oesophagus. She called for it, but nothing responded. Her chest felt cold inside, empty, void. Raindrops seeped in through the invisible gaps in the roof, hung midair like huge teardrop-shaped crystals before grazing her skin and dissolving into the pools at her feet. A chill prickled her wet skin, and her arms wrapped themselves around herself, cocooning her. She buried her face in the groove between her folded knees. Her heart seemed to have swollen up to take up the area her Samudra's had once occupied.
