Author's note: I only wanted to make a small note for those that have chosen to read this short, that it is not the ordinary short and contains many different features from my other works. Besides the fact that I change narrators in the second part, I ask that you all be patient with it.

Individuality Ramified

She sat in the corner of the apartment, her hands covered her ears as she tried her hardest to ignore the cries and whimpering pleas of the other woman. It helped not at all that she did this, it didn't even cover the noises she heard. And with her eyes shut tightly, she somehow still managed to see the brutal beating.

When she had been invited to Stephanie's apartment for a quick drink, she hadn't expected Gyneth to show up as well... but what she hadn't expected at all, was to witness Gyneth beat Stephanie the instant the woman had opened the door. It had been a shock to both her and Stephanie, yet instead of helping the other woman as she should have, she had crawled into a corner like Gyneth had demanded and closed her eyes and ears to everything.

Her eyes hurt from the amount of pressure she had applied on them when they'd been closed. They watered with evidence of more tears when she opened them. She closed them again when a muffled whimper left Stephanie's mouth. In the short instant that she had opened her eyes, too much had been seen for her own good. It hadn't been as though Gyneth had beat Stephanie with a weapon, her fists that had been clothed had done the job just right, and afterwards the rest of what had taken place had been something which was only vague images in her mind.

After another muffled scream was heard from Stephanie. She opened her eyes a third time to see Gyneth had dragged Stephanie to the balcony and had her body pushed beyond the rail, her hands clutched on to it. She knew she was going to die, but didn't want accept it.

Mustering what little courage she had, she stood and walked to the balcony. Her limbs were ready to give under her at any moment she felt too much pressure burden her. "Gyneth," she called, and instantly the culprit turned to look at her, her green eyes shone with venomous intent. "Stop it."

"Why?" Her look was more poisonous than the one that had been in Stephanie's eyes previously, she winced when Gyneth lashed out on Stephanie roughly. "Me and Stephanie are just having fun."

Stephanie's screams were washed out by the wind that blew high from the floor she was on. She moved forward when Gyneth released one of Stephanie's hands she had a tight grip on. "Please, Gyneth stop this," she pled with the other woman. The one who was supposed to be her friend, but was as well, about to kill her other friend.

"Make me." Watching as everything seemed to move in slow motion and Gyneth reached over the rail to punch Stephanie, her own scream sounded through the air when she witnessed Stephanie release her grip on the rail and fall backwards.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

I walked fast-- ran to be more exact. My shoes made that loud clacking noise against the pavement as I moved faster than I ever had in my life. The clacking sound of heels hitting something solid, something which vibrated through a person's head and felt like nails scratching at a board. That scraching noise that was unbearable to my ears on this quiet street of agony I walked on. It was as though they knew I was rushing to get somewhere, rushing to get away from Stephanie's apartment. The apartment that I had witnessed my friend since a child die in, and had done nothing, except hovered in a corner. The thought alone was sickening; to know I could've done something to prevent Stephanie's death, but from my cowardice that was larger than my courage, I had said nothing.

I had watched for a long time... watched as Gyneth had pummelled Stephanie with a strength I had been unsure the thin woman had possessed. It had been as if one second, everything was fine with Stephanie and me, then Gyneth had shown up. Her reason for what she had done was still questionable to me, but I wouldn't dare ask her. How could I ask her when I hadn't dared to stay in the apartment? All traces of my being present at Stephanie's place had been erased. I had done it in a rush, but somehow I had made sure everything was gone, then I had left myself.

My feet moving faster at the thought that I had taken the coward's road out of Stephanie's death, the fresh tears that began to bud in my eyes were wiped away. I wouldn't allow myself to cry, it wouldn't help out none.

Stephanie was dead. I had seen her body outside of the building, a crumpled heap on the ground. Many bystanders had gathered around her, some wondering about the event, but I had simply acted as if I couldn't bear the sight of it. That was what others had done, and I, too, had followed their suit.

The sirens in the background blared loudly. I looked over my shoulder nervously to see a distant flash. The closer I got to my apartment, the easier things became for me to handle... When I reached my apartment. I knew the instant that I entered my home, and was welcomed by the warm feeling that would be inside of it, I'd be fine. I was only feeling this way from what had gone on... It was alright for me to try and forget about the event.

Cold, the brisk air of night hit my face and stung it. I again cast a glance over my shoulder to make sure that nobody was following me. It was the precautious part of me that felt as though something was wrong, as though no matter where I went, I was being followed. Not home fast enough, I stepped down from the pavement and waved down a cab, then told him my address. It didn't matter to me anymore, I only wanted to get out of the cold air and away from the accident. A percent of me felt that if I was further away from the accident I would be able to sort everything out for myself.

My mind that had begun to fall into a numb sense of tranquility abruptly ended when I felt the cab stop. I paid the cabbie, then headed for my building in a rush. Not bothering to talk to my neighbor that I always had a few kind words for, I barely noticed when I unlocked my door, and entered. Closing the door behind me, and locking it up tightly with every lock I had inserted on the door, I sighed while leaning against it.

Weakened, tears of confusion and fear budded in my eyes as the feeling of impuissance began to creep over me. I was a poor soul, nothing more than a pathethic being on this earth that didn't deserve it at all. I had allowed my friend to get murdered in front of my face, then let the murderer leave the apartment. I hadn't done anything to prevent it, and hadn't even thought to; if there was ever a time for suicide, it was now. Suicide which I had used as an excuse for the longest time in my life.

My stifled cries that were muffled between my arms and knees halted when the sound of another person crying came to me. I recognized that immediately it was a forced cry of imitation. A cry that was just like mine, only lacked the emotion I had to go with it-- a cry that not all people could imitate so easily... It was Gyneth. Somehow she knew everything about me, she even knew how to copy my walk to an exact take if she had to. These had once been things that had made me friends with the odd woman, but now scared me.

"Cory." The sound of my name coming from beside me, the light that illuminated the living room blinded me for a second until I noticed Gyneth was next to me.

Standing up scared, I moved away from her. "What do you want?" I questioned, her green eyes met mine on a slight head tilt, then Gyneth stood.

Casually walking towards me without anything registering on her face, she smiled gently. Reaching forward to touch my hair, I pulled away from her. "How's Stephanie?" she asked me. "Is she dead?" Her green eyes again showing that poisonous glint in them, she moved to sit on the couch.

My eyes following her, I wiped the trace of tears away. "She's dead, Gyneth. Stephanie's dead."

A wide grin on her face, she smirked. "Was that the point of her suicide?"

"Suicide? Gyneth, you threw her off the balcony," I said. Her green eyes cut towards the small fireplace that was to her right, then back to me.

Smirking with evil intent and coming towards me, I winced when her hand roughly grabbed my lower jaw and she pushed me into the wall. "Suicide, homicide, they're all the same, Cory." Quiet as she placed her hands on her hips, her green eyes bore into me. "Death. It all amounts to the same thing... Do you know what's so scary about death, Cory?"

Fresh tears budded in my eyes at the thought that I was in a room with a maniac and about to die. They sprung forth when Gyneth grabbed my chin, again, harder than she had before. She brought her face a breath from mine. Her nose touched one of the tears that ran down my face.

Pushed into the wall again, she yelled, "Do you know why, Cory? Answer me!"

"No," I cried. The wetness from my tears that had ran freely down my face spilled onto my blouse. "No."

My eyes closed for a split second as I tried to come up with the answer for the question Gyneth had asked me. I opened them to see Gyneth standing across the room, rested in the armchair comfortably. Her fingers drummed a tune on her knee. "It's good that you answered that way, Cory. I like it when people are honest-- Which is something that so many people lack today, such a sad case." A plaintive sigh escaped her mouth. She sucked her teeth afterwards, then stood again, coming towards me.

Frightened of her stride that was determined and her eyes that were venomous, she stopped a few inches in front of me. "People are afraid of death for many reasons, but you know what I think the real one is?" she asked me.

Shaking my head for a long time as my words got caught in my throat, I swallowed the pool of saliva that had gathered itself in my mouth, then said, "No."

"More honesty, you should win a medal," Gyneth voiced. I noticed the angry hint in it and had to look away. "People are afraid of death, Cory, because the thought never appeals to them. It's something scary to know that we may die at any moment- Like Stephanie- And still we didn't accomplish anything we wanted. Only instead of doing what we're supposed to when we have the oppurtunity, we falter from our paths... Do you know why?"

"Why?" I said between my tears that still fell. I had no urge to cry, but the tears still fell like there was no tomorrow for me.

Gyneth's eyes were on me. She came forward, her eyes stared straight into mine. "We falter from our paths, hoping that maybe we'll just stay alive one more day so we can bullshit around the block, again. Death is a scary reminder. Take for example, all those sorry ass fuckers that stood outside of Stephanie's buliding after her little tumble from the balcony. Can you imagine the only thing that ran through their minds upon seeing her?"

Again, I shook my head, I couldn't keep her gaze and looked away. "No."

"Why, Cory? Why is it always no?" I was pushed into the wall roughly. The loud unexpected cry that left my mouth was muffled when Gyneth covered my mouth. "What do you think was running through their minds, not yours? What do you think they felt when they saw that bitch, Stephanie, splattered all over the pavement? Huh?"

My stifled cries were louder than they had been moments before, I sunk down to my knees, my tears of fear flowed over Gyneth's hand. I couldn't understand why she was doing this. It was evident I had never expected to be a part of murder, but my running when Gyneth had killed Stephanie had mingled me with it. I was a coward, that was why I was in the predicament I found myself in. This same thing had happened to me before, only it hadn't been a murder.

"Don't go blank on me, Cory." Gyneth's hand released my mouth. I jumped when she wiped the remains of my tears that had rolled on her hand onto my blouse

"I don't know what they were think--"

"Bullshit," Stepping back, she moaned aloud. "Think, Cory. Fuckin' think. What is the first thing a person thinks upon witnessing a dead body, seeing a murder scene, huh?" Pacing for a short second, Gyneth came to stand in front of my crying body. "Those little ungrateful pricks were happy that it wasn't their body that was lifeless. They couldn't think of any good things to say, but they started to think about death themselves... and they got scared. What is so scary about death?" Her eyes fell on me, and I knew that I was supposed to come up with an answer fast.

"I don't know," I answered. Gyneth's hand reached forward to grab my throat, she pulled me up to my feet.

Throwing me back against the same wall that had been my brace for the third time, I winced when I saw her fist headed towards me. It crashed into the wall, an inch from my head, making me cringe at the thought of how much damage it would have done. "Stop fuckin' around, Cory. You know the godforsaken answer, like I do. Just say it, don't think." Smacked in the forehead softly, she released my neck.

"There's no tomorrow after death, and nobody know what's going to happen afterwards... They were happy that they weren't in Stephanie's place," I answered Gyneth. My voice cracked upon recalling the sight of Stephanie that I had received when I'd exited the buliding.

"And what do you think were Stephanie's last thoughts?" she questioned me. I saw for the first time, that she wasn't a murderer, she was mad. "What do you think Stephanie thought right before she felt the air rushing past her?" she asked me, her second question making me wonder what Stephanie thought.

Sniffling hard to control the nasal mucus that begged to show itself, Gyneth reached behind her to grab a tissue, then extended it towards me. My hand reached for the tissue, it was snatched out of my grasp, and Gyneth mouthed for me to answer the question. "She probably thought I was no friend?" I quickly answered.

"Why would she think that?" Gyneth questioned me, her smirk that had budded a second before widened.

More tears formed in my eyes at the thought that I hadn't helped Stephanie at all, and had watched her get killed. I shrugged my shoulders, scared. "I don't know... Because I am," I answered. The tissue was thrown in my face, and Gyneth moved to a chair that was right across from me.

In all of my life I hadn't been confronted with a problem this disturbing. I had dealt with numerous things that had been beyond trying, but never this, I couldn't digest this insane woman's meaning of everything, I couldn't even think straight. "What are you thinking now?" she asked me.

"Nothing." My answer rewarded me with a patronizing look, Gyneth stared at me quietly.

"If I walked over to you right now," she began, acting out her words, "pulled a gun out, and put it to your forehead, what would you think?" she asked. Her forefinger was used as a substitue for the gun she had mentioned.

"I'd think you were going to kill me?" I said.

Gyneth's piercing green eyes closed with frustration. She patted my cheek. "I would kill you, that's for sure, but why haven't I? Why did I kill Stephanie, and not you?" Confused for a long time, I was poked in the head. "Why?!"

I didn't know why, I concluded for myself. She was questioning me about things that had never occured to me before, things that made no sense. "Why did you kill Stephanie?"

Walking away from the spot she stood in in front of me Gyneth instantly turned around, the anger in her eyes evident. "No! Did I kill Stephanie is the question, in fact, that you should be asking yourself!" she yelled at me.

My brows furrowing in a frown at her comment that sounded absurd, the quick image that flashed through my mind of something I couldn't make out, made me give myself a good shake before looking back at Gyneth. "You killed Stephanie, I saw it."

"Did I, or did you do it?" she remarked smartly, her smirk grew again. "You're pathetic, Cory. Always have been, always will be. You couldn't do something correct if you were meant to--"

"No!" Pushing past Gyneth and moving towards the bathroom, she grabbed my hand, her grip tighter than I had ever thought she could muster in her undernourished flesh. "Let me go, Gyneth," I ordered her.

"I killed Stephanie, because it was what you wanted," she said to me.

Not wanting to believe her words, I snatched my hand out of her grip, then moved away from her. I was in my apartment with a crazy woman, who was claiming that I had made her kill Stephanie. Walking into the kitchen, my eyes searching for something to occupy myself with, I picked up the phone to call someone, anyone that would make this bad dream end. Anyone that would tell me it was alright, nothing I had witnessed had really taken place.

"I wouldn't do that," The voice behind me belonging to Gyneth, I didn't have to turn around to know that she meant my dialing the police. "Even if you reported me, they wouldn't find me," she said casually, I looked over my shoulder to see that Gyneth wasn't there. Turning back to the phone, the scream that nearly escaped my mouth was stopped as Gyneth punched me in the face.

My pain not registering right away from the hit that had knocked me flat on the floor, I watched in horror as she bent forward to pick up the receiver, then place it back on the hook of the telephone. I was stunned. One minute she had been behind me in the door way of the kitchen, then she had moved to my second doorway with a surprise attack.

Fear the first thing to settle in my mind, I began to scoot back on the floor when she advanced towards me. Hoping that I would somehow pull myself up to my feet so I could run, Gyneth did it for me when she fisted my clothes and pulled me up. "You obviously don't get the picture," she said angry. "I gotta fuckin' spell everything out to you... Like the dumbshit you are."

"You killed Stephanie, didn't you?" I asked, my grunts that were voiced between everything missed from Gyneth's dragging me into the living room, I was thrown back into my couch.

Burning up with anger, Gyneth exhaled frustrated, her hands on her hips. "Yes, if it makes you feel better, I killed Stephanie Crewe. But if by me, you mean you, then you're on the right track."

"What?"

Swearing under her breath, Gyneth's hand that thrashed me across the face was a surprise to me until she sighed. "I swear I want to kill you."

"Then why don't you?" Harder than the first time, she slapped me with her balled fist.

"If only it were that easy, you ignorant lunatic," Gyneth voiced.

The pain finally setting in, I rubbed my chin and face where I knew a bruise was going to swell. While I was in pain, Gyneth was pacing the floor, her hand covering a percent of her face in deep thought. She looked like a mad woman to me, her hair blown to all sorts around her face, her green eyes were shaded by the wild mane of hair she had. I had never seen her like this, it was as though she were in extreme thought, and couldn't control herself.

"What do you actually want from me, Gyneth? You say that you want to kill me, but you won't--" Silenced when Gyneth pulled me to my feet and pushed me towards the full mirror I had, she stood behind me.

"Look into the mirror, what do you see?" she asked, I noticed her green eyes beared too much emotion for the usual Gyneth. "What do you see, who really killed Stephanie?"

My gaze casted over my shoulder at her, my eyes staying focused on her, I said, "You did."

"No! You killed Stephanie. You killed your friend that was going to ruin everything you'd ever worked for, that had ruined everything from your past. You spend a lifetime trying to really get to the spot you want in life... And what does Stephanie do?" The same Gyneth returned, she turned my face back towards the mirror. "What did she do?!" she yelled in my ear, I winced in the pain that shot through it.

I couldn't remember Stephanie doing anything to me that deserved death on her part, I couldn't even remember Gyneth ever getting the privilege to meet Stephanie privately. There had been many times we'd talked about Stephanie in a conversation, but Gyneth had never been too pleased with her.

"She does the one thing a best friend is not supposed to do. She sees the one thing that makes you happy and destroys it. First, she destroyed the small percent of happiness you had ever dreamed of having. It was always evident that you would never amount to anything in your family's eyes, but she had to always rub in the fact that they loved her. She was their little angel instead of you. She wasn't even their child... And is that enough? She proved it wasn't by stealing your fiance, and there's still more.

"Oh, no, our friend Stephanie had to take it a heartache further. Then she destroyed your future by ripping it from under your feet; she got your position in the job by fucking her way there. Yes, a little harsh, but Stephanie all the way... So, when you kised her ass with praise, what did you expect, her to be happy? No, she was dissatisfied, and killed your job. She was a goddamn tick, a fuckin' disease like AIDS. Whether she's alive or not, Stephanie has done the best thing for herself--"

"Stephanie didn't do that," I said, denying the fact that Gyneth was correct upon stating the truth of how my relationship with Stephanie had been, and how she'd done everything to make me miserable, my forehead rapidly hit the mirror, cracking it.

In more mental pain than physical, I looked to see Gyneth's hand running over the crack in the mirror, she laughed. "Are we superstitious, Cory? Do you think we'll get bad luck for breaking the mirror?"

Warm, I felt the perspiration began to run down my forehead, never entering my eyes. "I think you need help."

"In a matter of words, yes you do... But hey, with friends like Stephanie, you don't need enemies," Gyneth said, returning to the talk about Stephanie. "I killed her, because you couldn't take it, it was tearing you apart inside to know that a girl you thought as a friend had done this; thus, I came along... See, now the question you're not applying enough thought to is, why would Stephanie open the door for me, if she doesn't even know me?" Gyneth questioned, her hand roamed into my hair to grab the back of my head.

Sweating, in fear of my life, and forced to stand in front of a mirror, where I was being held by a mad woman, I breathed deeply. There were fragments of what Gyneth was talking about that were set in my mind I wouldn't allow to show themselves. I didn't want to try and understand anything Gyneth was saying to me, I had witnessed what she had done, and I was positive she had done it.

Released from Gyneth's grip, she smirked, moving away from me. "So, maybe I did kill Stephanie, I pushed her over that rail, I did it, Cory. Does that make you happy?" she asked me, I said nothing and stood in front of the mirror, my eyes following her movements. "I stood at that door and rung the doorbell, and I did what I did to Stephanie..."

Gyneth's words trailing off, I turned to look at her. I knew she had trailed off for a reason, she wanted me to figure something out, she wanted me to say the words aloud, the words that I had avoided saying for so many years.

"They say the portal to the soul is through the eyes, make it so, Cory," she said to me calmly for the first time since she'd shown up at my apartment. "Say it!"

Quiet still, with nothing to say, I suddenly got the image of me standing at Stephanie's door, the cloth that had been on Gyneth's hand wrapped around mine. I had stood there, my eyes staring to the right of me, my lips moving in words, talking to the person next to me that had been... Myself. The words that had left my mouth had been those of Gyneth when she been ready to meet Stephanie for the first time. I had brought my friend to meet Stephanie, only there had never been a friend, there had never been a Gyneth... Gyneth was me.

I wrapped the cloth around my hands, prepared for when Stephanie would answer the door. Smooth, my gaze moved to Cory, who stood next to me, her eyes focused on my hands. She didn't say anything, couldn't from lack of having control over her own body, but I wanted her to see the event in her mind's eye. Tonight she would find out the truth about us. Why had it been me that had to right everything that this sensitive shit couldn't take?

"So, when you finally meet her, what are you going to do?" she asked me, and I sighed. I had questioned myself in the past how she didn't know that when she talked to me, it was herself, but had eventually stopped. Why kill myself, or Cory, in fact, with questions?

Smiling sweetly at the fool, I tucked the cloth into its other binds. "I'm going to kill her with my presence," I said calmly...

"I killed Stephanie." My words uttered in a blind stupor of jumbled words that had my mind moving light years faster than my lips could, I looked in the mirror for a disheveled shadow to pass by quickly. "They say the portal to the soul is through the eyes. Through the eyes of a mad woman is the portal of my soul, my soul that is damned for eternity is what this is. Kill a human whether a good or bad one, it is still considered death. Death is still a part of life, only life that has stopped for one person, and not the other. Through this portal is a soul that had once bloomed, but now is nothing more than what it was always meant to be--" My rambling stopped when another shadow cast itself in front of me, Gyneth stood to the right of me.

"Welcome to the real world, precious," she said in a rewarding tone. Her lips touched my ear in a congratulatory peck. "You created me in your mind, because you couldn't act out your wishes, and pain--"

My confused trance over with, and my place back in my own body... Me, Cory, I said, "But you're me." Gyneth's eyes falling to mine, she shook her head. The crazy glint in her eyes matching my own that were wide with recognition of the horror I'd made.

Clapping her hands, Gyneth smiled wickedly. "No, see that's where you're wrong. You, my dear, Cory, made me to be everything you're not," she said softly. "You wanted somebody who wouldn't have a conscience when they killed Stephanie, and that was me, you wanted a woman that was smarter than you, and that was me. You made me to do what you couldn't, I can take what you can't. I'm literally your other half, without me you're not complete."

Still confused about this sudden self discovery and the words, I shook my head. "But I still made you--"

"No, Cory," Gyneth said, her emphasized words echoed in my head. "I made you, I made you into every little shitless thing you are now. I brought you up, because that was what you wanted, I gave you your strength at times when you needed it, and I was the one who took all of that abuse you faced everyday... Not you, me. You couldn't take it, and I could, that was what I was for, to make all the bad dreams go away for you, so little Cory doesn't feel a thing... So the Cory, you, who can't take any pressure and is too sensitive to even wipe your own ass wouldn't have to cry yourself to sleep."

Scratching my arm, I inhaled. "But you hurt me."

"Did I?" Gyneth asked me incredulously, her green eyes showing her thoughts.

"Stop the backwards shit you're doing and just answer the question, Gyneth," I told her.

Gyneth copied my current standing position of my hands being crossed underneath my bosom. "Technically, you're the one who crashed yourself into the mirror. You can't control your mind, and because at this very moment we both are standing in one room, looking at each other, like it is customary, I'm not really hurting you, but vice versa."

Watching in quiet fright as Gyneth approached me, I backed away from her. None of this was true for me; or at least that was the way I wanted it to be. I wanted all of it to be a simple dream, one of those dreams that take place, then upon waking, it would seem awesome... but this wasn't. This wasn't a dream for me, it was really happening. Everything that had taken place had truly happened to me, and there was nothing I could have done to prevent it.

My eyes keeping Gyneth's gaze, she stopped a few inches in front of me. "Are you sure that you're not just playing a game with me?" I asked her, for the sting of her hand that slapped me to make me wince.

"Did that change your mind?" she asked, slapping me a second time. "Do I look like I'm playing games? Huh?"

"So, then why are you doing this?" I asked her, my voice sending out many stress patterns as my eyes filled up again. It had dawned on me before that I had created Gyneth as an alter ego, but now the feeling of it was beginning to settle with me.

Grabbed by Gyneth, she pulled me to the couch that she had removed me from moments before. "I told you before, this was all what you wanted to do. You issued the order, I followed it. I got you everything you ever wanted, got you to places you never would have made it to without me."

"So, then what do you want from me?!" I yelled at her, Gyneth smirked.

"I want you to sum up to what I am, what you made me to be," she answered smoothly. I stood up again, for Gyneth to push me back down. "We all have to do it, Cory, it's your turn."

My tears held in my eyes, I looked up at Gyneth. "I'm not a killer," I whispered.

"Yes, you are. You're a cold blooded killer. You don't care, you're vicious and you're going to make it."

"No, I'm not." Given a hard stare for a long time, Gyneth backed away from me, then began rubbing her temples.

I could tell I was frustrating her, my own extra persona. "Yes, you are. And there's not a damn thing that you can do to change that. I'm not telling you that you have to kill everyone, stupid, I'm saying that you have killed. Stephanie was only rectifying a purpose."

"She wasn't a purpose, she was a human, Gyneth."

"Barely, she won't be missed." Angry tears that had been from hurt, budding into something more and blinding my vision, I could only hear Gyneth's words. "And if you aren't missed, yourself, now, You never will be. Not by your parents that you always embarrassed, not by your siblings, who hate your guts, your grandparents, who no matter how old they are, treat you like shit. They loved that shit, Stephanie more than they loved you, you were nothing to them, just a disease..."

Her words tuning out when I covered my ears, I could still hear them, the words that had echoed through the room, the words that were too true to be something I could avoid. I was weak, and I had made Gyneth as something that would be leverage for my problems. Trying my hardest to get rid of Gyneth's voice in my head, I became unaware of the fact that I had opened my mouth and let out a piercing scream that shook the insides of my body and dulled the senses of my brain, I didn't know what had happened until my world went black.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

She opened her eyes. Her body that had once been on the couch now laid on the floor in front of the mirror, crouched in a fetal position. Her head hurt from the incident, her lungs felt like they were burning and wouldn't stop, burning similar to the pain a thousand suns would have brought. Still in aching pain from when the scream had left her mouth, she stood up slowly, her eyes adjusting to the difference in lighting. The lighting which was different from the dark she had recently woke from, she broke her trend of thoughts when the pounding on her door forced her to abruptly turn her head in the direction of it and sigh with impatience. Smoothly, she walked to the door, opening it without asking who it was, she was greeted with the sight of her next door neighbor and two policemen that she knew the older woman had called.

"Cory, dear." Her eyes taking in the bruises on Cory's face and the glint of anger in her eyes, she looked to the policemen. "Are you alright?" she asked, her elderly voice that sounded too motherly and sweet, scratching at her aching nerves.

Closing her eyes for a quick instant, she ran her hand through her hair and smiled at the small company she had standing at her door. "Yes, Mrs. Newman, I'm fine," she answered in a rushed voice of no reaction, Mrs. Newman tried to peek around her into the apartment, and failed at her attempt.

"But I heard you screaming..." Mrs. Newman began to say and Cory nodded with a patronizing gaze.

Feeling her anger rise, she widened her smile, trying to withold her displeasure on Mrs. Newman's prodding into her business further. "No, that was my television." Her answer soft and reassuring in a way that ended the conversation, she confirmed it when she looked to one of the officers. Rewarding all of them with a quick wink, she bid them good night and closed the door without another word.

Sighing once the door was closed, she turned towards the living room. The mirror where she had woken up at was where she stopped to look at the two figures in it. The two figures that she had allowed to stand in the far front of the mind and argue over existence. Her eyes taking in their fragility that was evident in the mirror only for her eyes to see and witness, the small shards that sprayed from it flew past her when she pulled the mirror down from where it hung and watched it break. Her satisfaction shown through her eyes that were a different color than what the two previous owners had been rewarded with as a portal to their soul, she moved up the hallway.

Liberated in more ways than some would be able to understand, she yawned, then said, "Sorry, Cory," Directing her words at one of the figures that had presented themself to her as a reflection in the mirror, she lived out another human response when she curled her fingers. "But even all acknowledgable Gyneth didn't know what she was capable of."

She lowered her gaze to look at a face of one of the two people that had once owned the body of Cory and smirked. Her head held high as she advanced more into the living room, she stepped on the glass, using alot of pressure for it to crack more under her foot, then turning off the light in the living room, she left the glass shards of the mirror laid out on the floor broken.

So, after receiving a few reviews for this one that compared it to the movies 'The Fight Club', and 'The Secret Window', I'll admit that I hadn't seen them before this. My idea of Stephen King's stories being made into movies, is that they should stay a story alone. And I don't care for Brad Pitt's acting; thus, I didn't see the two until recently. My idea was at first, after seeing the two movies, to delete this story, because I honestly hate to have written a short that reminds people of a movie, but I've decided to just leave it as it is. So, despite the relative plot from this story that links it to the movies, I hope it was enjoyed.