Just.

She was walking towards the mirror, into it. She moved in and out of consciousness effortlessly, moving into blanks in her own voice. She felt she could vanish into watery smoke, drift into the air, and it wouldn't feel any different.

There was something to do with silence. Without the need to speak or the presence of words in her mind there was no difference between turning into air or laying in her own body. Beyond words, there was only existing, and you don't need a body to exist.

Yet it pulled her back. The memory of wooden floors and mirrors across the length of walls. The sound of sweat leaving her face and the bass ringing for hours in her chest. There were things for which a body mattered. And for that she could remember that feeling every nerve on fire was something worth staying for. But if she stayed, she had to hurt, she had to scream and beg and cry.

She watched every bruise on her legs with fondness, and stretched each muscle to its deepest complaint, and rolled her neck to sting the burn.

But when it stopped her mind bought in. It bribed the body to break and scorn. Her bones pushed in against each other and choked the air. Her throat would screech like acid until her soul wanted to stream forth from her eyes, and her own blatant unforgiven gleams would push down. The poison back again.

Gasping for air, her lungs refused to take it back, just enough to keep her begging, but not enough to let her die.

Fine. A metallic voice behind her temples rung, drying and steeling her tears into brazen needlesin the curve of her eyes. Her pupils edged forward to images torn apart.