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They had been standing there for an hour now, and even though their legs felt like they were going to crumble out from under them, they couldn't move a muscle.
A single, bright, beaming eye stared back at them from between messy bangs that hadn't seen a brush in days. Only a black top and some basketball shorts covered their body, showing slender appendages that stayed rooted to their side, not even a finger twitching while Kris stared out at them.
Or they stared at them.
Which one of them was in the mirror?
If they were the one inside the mirror, then they were trapped, stuck behind the reflective surface, and someone was inside their body. Who took their body? How do they get back inside? Why weren't they moving if they had their body?
Unless Kris was the one outside of the mirror...
But that didn't make any sense, because the person staring back at them didn't look like them. Because they were smiling, and Kris didn't smile. They hadn't smiled in a long time, and faking a smile hurt their face, causing it to drop in seconds.
They wore the smile so naturally. Kris hated it.
Then, they were the one outside of the mirror, right?
They moved, but Kris hadn't told themselves to do that, to take a single step closer to the mirror, letting them see their wild, thick, greasy locks and their beaming red eye that refused to close. Then a hand lifted, but Kris wanted it to stay by their side. They watched as the real them reached out to them inside the mirror, until their hands rested against the glass. Cold rushed up their fingertips, and it was such a sudden shock, of actually being able to suddenly feel something, that had them stumble back away from the mirror.
They almost knocked over the picture on the small table that sat in the hallway, their chest starting to ache with how hard they were breathing, forcing their chest to expel all the air inside without pulling back in enough. Quickly, their hand reached up and beat against their chest, trying to make that awful pounding just stop.
Trembling, they slid down until they were sitting on the table, fist pushing hard enough against their chest that their knuckles were digging into skin. That awful pounding just kept going, and it was only getting faster as they tried to force air down their throat. They pulled their fist back, and another thud followed as they hit their chest, again and again and again.
Kris had to get it out, had to get that awful pounding out of their chest. It was blocking the air from getting to their lungs, it wouldn't let them breathe, why won't it let them breathe!? Even when they started to drool, all the air they dragged down their throat was pumped back out in a painful puff!
'Stop...stop...stop...stop...stop...stop...stop...'
They tried to tell it to stop, their head starting to grow lighter, their vision bluring as that pounding just got worse and worse and WHY won't IT let them BREATHE they just wanted to breath please Angel above let them breath it hurt they just wanted to breathe to breathe they wanted to breathe it's pounding harder and it hurt and it hurt and hurt and where was Asriel why won't he help them they needed him they needed they wanted air they can't they can't they can't theycan'ttheycan'ttheycan'ttheycan'ttheycan'ttheycan'ttheycan'ttheycan'ttheycan'ttheycan'ttheycan'ttheycan'ttheycan'ttheycan'ttheycan'ttheycan'ttheycan'ttheycan't
They whipped their head up. Sweat streamed down their face. And it was smiling at them in the mirror.
Standing there.
Smiling.
And dangling a single red thread from its finger.
A strangled, gasping, wheezing cry spilled from their lips, and they used what little strength remained to throw themselves towards the mirror, towards that smiling monster, towards the thread that was cutting off their breathing and making that horrible, awful pounding beat against their chest.
CCRRRRCCKKKK!!!!!!
Webs of space instantly spread across the glass as Kris felt their body slam into it, using their whole figure as a battering ram to cause that monster to fracture and crack. Limbs separated, their face broke, their smile was split down the middle, and the thread--
The thread...
The thread...was...
Slowly, even with the awful aches and the burning in their lungs and the stars and darkness starting to creep through their body. Even as the glass of the mirror gave way from their impact, shattering all over the floor at their feet...
The thread continued to hang from their finger...
They heard the sound of a door being thrown open. Of hurried steps and a muffled voice calling out their name. Large, soft, caring hands came down on their shoulder, a face filled their vision, but it was too blurred, too distorted in the darkness of the hall. And they were too focused on the thread dangling from their finger.
The thread that led right towards their pounding chest.
'Was I in the mirror?'
'Who was the one standing outside of the mirror?'
Their eyelids blinked, and their body was being lifted up, threads of red spilling from their shoulder, the one that had smashed into the mirror when they were, for just a moment, outside of the mirror.
But the mirror was gone, so why couldn't they feel the pain that should be blazing across their skin? They didn't feel anything, and they were almost left behind at the house as their body was pushed into the passenger seat of Mom's car.
They were sitting in the backseat, it felt like it. They weren't in their body anymore. They couldn't move their fingers or blink or do anything. They couldn't feel that constant, agonizing pounding anymore, but they couldn't feel the air in their lungs either. They just sat there, a ghost as they heard the muffled sounds of Mom sobbing to herself as she drove them to the hospital. Asking them what happened.
They wanted to tell her that they were stuck in a mirror. That someone was in their body. But their lips didn't move, they just sat there, quiet, still, hands in their lap, and their body leaning heavily onto the door. Had they passed out? No, they hadn't; they could still see perfectly. But how? They weren't inside anymore.
Were they still in the mirror? Had they fractured themselves instead of the monster? How many pieces of them were left inside with the monster? Had they left parts of themselves back home, on the hallway floor?
How do they get back?
Then they blinked, and they were being pulled out of the car and into soft, strong arms that easily cradled them close to softness and warmth and the smell of butterscotch. They felt again, and as they were carried through the hospital doors, Kris took a breath that stuttered and shuddered in their throat, and then came the bile as they threw up all over themself.
They hurt.
Their shoulder felt like it had been set on fire, the slightest jostle sending flames licking all over their nerves, and they felt the same pain stinging just above their eye, blood caking the eyelid closed and leaving them with their other eye wide open. The next breath they took was messy and burned, but it wasn't forced out by the pounding, the pounding that had been their own heart.
"--ay, everything's going to be okay baby...!" They heard Toriel's voice, usually so soft and gentle and kind, broken and warbling, as if they were about to start crying. No, she was crying, they could feel the tears dripping onto their gasping face, and all they could do was let out a strangled, pained, pathetic whimper that just made Toriel move faster.
But to Kris, everything else was a blur, a blur of motion, of hands and sterile walls and gloves and pain as glass was removed from their flesh. Their bangs were pushed up to show the small shard stuck above their eyebrow. They hated it all, they wanted to go home, they had to get the rest of their pieces off the floor. They tried to tell the doctor, to tell Toriel, but words refused to crawl out of their lips, and just gasps and howls spilled out instead.
They couldn't stop their pained howls.
When they got home after a day in the hospital, the glass had been cleaned up, and the mirror frame was gone.
Kris hoped pieces of themself hadn't been thrown away as well.