MODERN-DAY TRAGEDY

I. OBSESSIVE PERFECTION

"would you stay if she promised you heaven?" 

                    DEVON SAKURAI ONCE HELD A UNIVERSE OF STARS IN HER EYES. She used to have a smile that lit up even the darkest of nights and an infectious laugh that made demons weep. She was born with an extraordinary gift for hope as F. Scott Fitzgerald would have said. However, it was a shame she wasn't born simply a pretty little fool.

Oh what a shame, really.

The girl watched herself in the mirror of a dance studio that was lit up by the moonlight and a couple flickering light bulbs. Her body moved to the melancholy melody, a symphony of tragedy and loss. Her face painted in sorrow with her eyes closed softly, her mind eons away.

Her limbs bent gently as the music slowed like the calm before a storm. Then, as the music began to intensify, the pianists quickening their tempo chaotically, her limbs extended and she began to spin. She felt her arms lengthen before curving it like an invisible bubble around her, feeling the muscles on her back ache as she continued to move her arms gracefully like a bird in flight.

She twirled until her legs wept and the room spun before falling to the wooden floor, her heart racing and eyes staring at the ceiling, wishing in that moment that they were the stars that had escaped from her once youthful eyes. Her breath came out in shallow, unsteady pants, and the beat of her heart drummed loudly in her ears. The only indication that Devon Sakurai was indeed alive.

And with that thought, a ghost of a smile was painted on her tear-stained face.

It was an obsession, the need for perfection, that forced Devon to lock herself in dim dance studios at night. It was her insatiable desire to prove herself to the monsters that took away the stars in her eyes, that ripped away at her existence, until there was nothing left except for the remains of a girl, with corpse and all.

Her body ached. Her mind ached. Her soul ached. 

Devon turned around on her side and watched herself with curious yet proud eyes. The girl in the mirror, with her light brown hair pulled back into a loose bun and eyelids that curved sharply due to her partial Japanese heritage, was absolutely and brilliantly unapologetic. Her fingertips traced the mirror lightly, watching her reflection do the same. Her cheeks a rosy color from dancing just moments ago and her eyes just wild. 

Tears pooled in her eyes as she smiled fiercely at herself, watching in awe at the little girl she saw once again in the mirror, with supernovas as bright as ever in her eyes.