By the pricking of my thumbs ...

Picture prompt
1125 words

"What are you looking at?" The mirror has no answer. "What are you looking at?" I scream. That is not my face. My skin is not grey. My hair not lank and greasy. My eyes not dark-circled, not dead. "Who are you, reflection?"

It was a rose that smelled so sweet. Among the thorns, the brambles and nettles, a single rose, red, delicate. I reached out to touch the precious flower. As I touched, so petals fell, turned to dust in my hand. The dust replaced by blood as thorns encased my fingers.

In the beginning was the rose, an enchantment, now sleep avoids me. I dream to dream yet dream no more. I need to feed yet every crumb that touches my lips turns to dust. Water turns to acid in my hand. I am desiccated, decimated, devoid of being.

The mirror cracks. My face cracks into the fragments of my past. A babe cleaved from a mother's innards. A tot disdained. An urchin thrust into an adult world. A disjointed psyche discarded into the abyss. "Who am I? What am I?"

A knock, unexpected. Open locks, whoever knocks. Click-clack, slide. Nobody there. No body. A wind, as hot as the depths of hell, enters here. Click-clack, slide. Locked out, locked in.

The mirror slides, collides, reforms upon the wall. "Who do I see in reflection? Some evil creature's resurrection." The face staring back has cat like eyes. The skin bright red, burnt by the fires of Hades. The head and body draped in ragged bandages.

It speaks. "Something wicked this way comes." I fear the wicked has already come. This demon from the depths has entered me, directs me now, in the task that is to come.

"What is my undertaking?" I face the mirror and await my answer. In my heart I know. It wants the child within my belly. I pat my belly, the mound no more in evidence. "Are you dead?" A kick tells me no. How could a foetus survive such deprivation?

The bandages constrain me. The child struggles to grow. "Whose child are you?" I whisper to my belly. In answer the offspring claws at my innards. It wants to leave, I want it to leave. I fear the thing that grows within. I punch at what little swelling the bandages allow. It punches back, it kicks, it claws. I scream soundlessly.

The mirror image has not changed. The cat-like eyes reflect my pain. The redness deepens to almost black, like the blood of the dead. "Am I dead? Is this Hell?" I fear this is my own private hell. "What have I done to you, to me, to the world?" The baby drums out a tattoo on my bladder. The urine flows red and raging.

I try once more to feed. The refrigerator light shines bright on the cockroaches within. "Can you eat those things?" My hand has a life of its own, reaches out and grabs a handful. I cram them into my mouth and crunch. "How could something so disgusting taste so good?"

The mirror draws me in once more. I have grown antennae. My eyes have begun to bulge. "What are you doing to me?" I ask the growing monster in my belly. In reply the creature pushes out a limb, stretching my skin. I would sing a lullaby, but what is appropriate for a demon child? Rock-a-by monster?

The roses are blooming. I see them, smell them, yet I am locked in. Longing to touch yet dreading the enchantment that defiles. No click-clack, no slide. Locked inside. Locked in for eternity. Or locked in until the demon bursts from my belly. Will I then be free? The bandages are tearing from the strain of my enormity. Naked flesh, stretched, blackened, bloodied, there for all the world, yet no one, to see.

The windows rattle, the door shakes, the locks jiggle. Rose petals dash the glass, disintegrate, fill the air with foreboding scents. Will the tempest accomplish my freedom? Or am I locked forever in the spirals of inferno? As thunder crash, so baby shakes, my body quakes. "Are you scared little one? You should be." I long to finish it, to end my torment. Yet no knife is sharp enough to penetrate the devil's uterus.

"Out, out, foul demon child." I plot, I scheme, I waste my energy. "Who will save me?" The light from yonder window creeps through the tangled web of evil. Rest does not come easy. I sit, I lay, I walk, I pray for an end to my torment. Still it grows, my bandages asunder, naked, cold. "Where are the fires of hell to warm me now?"

Then it begins. My back breaks. My stomach churns. I can't escape the fire that burns within my belly. Waters flow, pains grow as the creature fights to enter the world. The mirror stares at me faceless. I have disappeared. All that is left is a receptacle, soon to be empty, invisible, missing. I am lost in the pain.

I writhe as each wave ripples through my womanhood. I feel the demon clawing to get out. Blood escapes me as agony takes me to the lowest circle of hell and damnation. "Out damned child, out, out, out." Strain, stretch, squeeze. My eyes are shut yet still I see. I see the likeness of the demon within; the cat-like eyes, the blood red skin, a mirror of without, within.

The babe is crowning. I reach down and feel for horns but there's only down. I heave, I pant, I throb, I finally disgorge. Two arms, two legs, two eyes, a nose, a mouth, open and screaming. I feel no overwhelming love, only disgust at this bloodied creature, dangling from my gash. I drag the muculent blob behind me to the mirror.

"What are you looking at?" The mirror has no answer. "What are you looking at?" I scream. That is not my face. My skin is not grey. My hair not lank and greasy. My eyes not dark-circled, not dead. "Who are you, reflection?" The mirror cracks. My face cracks into the fragments of my past. A babe cleaved from a mother's innards. A tot disdained. An urchin thrust into an adult world. A disjointed psyche discarded into the abyss. "Who am I? What am I?"

I take a shard and cut the beast from me. Click-clack, slide. The door flies open and I go outside. The roses are blooming, their scent fills the air. I reach out and touch. Their softness fills me with new light. "Is that a baby crying?" I rush inside, collect the bundle from the floor. I look at my beloved son. I see a beast no more.