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There is something in the mirror, and it is not Grian. He floats back to awareness to the feel of a hand on his shoulder, and stares blankly at the sink in front of him, water still running. How long have I been here? he wonders absently, fingers curling around the edge of the counter.
“Grian? Is everything okay?” Scar’s voice is low, his touch light, as though he fears Grian will run at a moment’s notice. The trickle of the water rushes through his ears, and he reaches to turn it off. The room feels stifling, like it’s closing in on him, and his eyes are dragged back to the mirror in front of him.
“‘M fine, Scar. Everything’s fine.” he mumbles, eyes locked on his own reflection. “Just… got dizzy.”
Yes, he remembers now. His hands had been coated in redstone, ground deep into his palms. It had looked like blood in the dim evening light. It had taken Grian three breaths to slip away from himself, to do and think and be nothing. And now he was here. Scar must have come looking for him. They were neighbors, after all. He steadfastly ignores the thud of his heart in his chest, wings ruffling slightly.
Scar sighs, “Well, that’s good,” lifting his hand from Grian’s shoulder. “I’ll, uh, leave you to… whatever it is you need to do.” He flushes slightly, eyes sliding away in the mirror.
“Stay.” Grian offers before he can think twice. Scar pauses, half turned-away, eyebrows raised in surprise.
“It, uh, it gets lonely, on my own, now that everyone’s moving to their mega bases.” he blurts, trying to make the situation less awkward. “I’m sorry, you don’t have to, that was dumb, ha-”
“Grian.” Scar turns back towards him, the salesman’s smile that Grian first fell for a year and a lifetime ago, in the desert, wide and delighted. “I’d love to.”
“Oh! Well, that’s- that’s good.” Grian stutters, turning towards Scar as he steps back towards the doorway. As he steps back into the hallway, he glances back at the mirror.
Grian’s reflection looks back.
—
The thump-thump-thump of the Entity’s heart provides a soothing rhythm to Grian’s movements as he flits about the space, checking and restocking various items. It is a steadfast part of his day, unchanging even as the world turns on outside. Grian thinks he could stay here forever, listening to his own breath and the barely noticeable creak of the Entity shifting and growing, stone stretching and living in a way that fascinates him. Had he not already known it didn’t have a brain, he would assume it liked him.
Oak logs tucked under his arm, Grian swings open a chest. Diamonds glint at the bottom, weak light reflecting off their faceted surfaces. He drops the logs in and scoops the diamonds up, turning to deposit them in his bag. When he turns back, something gleams up at him again. I must have missed one. Grian reaches and rummages around.
“Ow!” he yelps, leaping back, hand cradled close to his chest. There is a long cut down his palm, already bleeding rivulets down his hand. Grian looks around wildly and spots a spare bit of cloth left behind from a building project. He balls it up and presses it to the cut.
When he is sure the bleeding has stopped and he’s scrubbed the now-dried trails from his hand, Grian peers suspiciously back into the chest. Carefully, he reaches in.
The shard of glass he pulls out is long and jagged, spattered with crimson. Grian lifts it to eye-level, studying it intently. His face stares back, wide-eyed and pale, drops of blood smeared across its face.
Grian stares. His reflection looks back.
—
Grian slings his arms around Scar’s neck, smiling ridiculously. The other man grins as well, practically radiant in the sunlight. He settles his hands on Grian’s waist, and Grian pushes himself onto his toes to snatch a quick kiss, fingers curling around the back of his lover’s neck. Scar hums against him contentedly, pulling him down until they land in a not-quite-graceful heap on the grass.
Grian giggles, pushing himself back up to a sitting position. His wing folds around Scar, enveloping him in a blanket of feathers, and for a moment they sit there in silence. The wind rustles the grass around them, and a bird sings insistently.
“You are sitting in a field…” Scar begins. Grian swats at him.
“You ruined the moment.”
“Sorry, sorry.” Scar chuckles, holding his hands up in surrender. Grian huffs and pulls his wing in tighter, scooping the other along with it.
“You’re so clingy.” Scar’s voice practically drips with fondness, and it makes Grian’s heart hammer in a way that is not entirely uncomfortable. He doesn’t bother to respond, burying his face in his hands to hide the redness.
A soft bing! makes him look up, fumbling for his comm. Scar does, too, shifting away to pat himself, and Grian’s bird instincts yearn to pull him back, to wrap his lover in a cocoon of feathers and never let him go.
He refrains. Politeness.
His screen is still dark, so Grian turns to put it back, when the reflections catch his eye.
It’s his face. His face that is not his face, because there are dark smears that slash his face, and his reflection is smiling a smile that is not Grian’s-
“Grian? G, are you okay?”
—
It is dark, in Grian’s house. It must be close to midnight. The moonlight does not pour in through his window and illuminate a soft, gentle scene. Instead, Grian sits in the dark, staring at nothing, seeing nothing, because it is dark.
There is black cloth draped over all of the mirrors in Grian’s house, because there is something looking through the mirror that is not Grian, and it wants him, it reaches with long, spindly fingers and laughs a laugh that is Grian’s own because it is him and it is not him-
Still, still he catches glimpses of silver, of his own face staring back at him no matter how he tries to hide, no matter how many mirrors he covers because there are always more and it gets closer with every day he stalls and delays the inevitable, the inevitable that is-
Well. He does not know what exactly will happen when it finds him. Only that it will. And he has to stop it, before it finds him.
There is something in the mirror, and it is not Grian, and it can see him.
And he knows how to fix that.
—
“Grian?” Scar calls. His house is cool and shadowy, and has the distinct feel of being abandoned, despite the absence of dust or any other sign of such. It feels empty, like all the life, all the Grian-ness has been sucked out of it. The only odd thing is the black cloth hanging on the walls, covering… something.
Tentatively, Scar lifts a corner. His own reflection blinks back at him, bemused. He’s covered all the mirrors. Why? Why not just remove them?
“Grian!” he yells again. He’s looked through the entire house. There’s only one place the winged man could be.
Scar places a foot on the rickety ladder. Carefully, he ascends, placing a hand on the trapdoor and hesitating. He pushes it open.
Immediately, the scent of old copper assails his senses, and he nearly stumbles off the ladder.
Something is wrong. Scar works with copper. This… doesn’t feel like copper. The scent is almost-familiar, like a tidal wave of memory is poised to wash over him, but stays, poised, directly above him.
He clambers up the last few rungs and peers around the dim room.
Grian sits, hunched over, at the opposite end of the room. His wings curve over him, as if to form a shield, and his hands are pressed to his face. Somewhere, there is the drip-drip-drip of water.
“Grian? Are you… working on something up here? That’s alright, you just haven't been around for a couple days and me and the others were starting to get worried…” Scar rambles on, trying to make sense of the scene in front of him. Something dark has soaked the floorboards around Grian.
Scar takes a step forwards, and something squishes under his boot. He lifts his foot, and suddenly everything, horribly, clicks into place.
There is a mess of bloody mush and viscera where his foot was, but part of the glistening mass is still whole, and stares at Scar with a blown-out pupil.
No. No, no, no, void no. Scar gags, clapping a hand over his mouth. The copper scent thickens around him, and he hears the rustle of feathers as Grian turns slowly, inexorably.
“Scar?” His voice is so small, so terrified, but all Scar can do is stare at the ruined sockets of flesh where Grian’s eyes had once sat. The other eye sits in his lap, next to a bloody carving knife that still drip-drip-drips blood onto the floor.
“It kept looking at me Scar, and I-I couldn’t, I couldn’t make it stop, it was going to find me, Scar, you have to understand-” Grian’s voice rises to a fever pitch, and Scar backs away, shaking his head. His elytra- where is it? He pulls it from his inventory.
Apparently the click of the clasps is familiar to Grian. “Scar, Scar, don’t leave, wait-”
The window is open, and Scar runs.
“Scar, don’t leave! Don’t leave me here alone! Scar!”