Oh God.
Braig ran his hands through his hair. He pulled it down in front of him. Black, he thought franticly, my hair is black.
It had thousands of gray strikes that weren't there before. And his hair wasn't this long.
Oh God.
No. No. This wasn't … That wasn't him. That… isn't him. Braig isn't old, Braig is young and he doesn't have pointed ears or an ugly scar running down the side of his face, and Braig certainly isn't missing an eye. Leaving a gaping piece of flesh wound there instead of where the socket should be
Must be some sort of trick, Braig decided, looking away, or he was dreaming. Yep. This was a dream. One where he hadn't gone headfirst into the corridor of darkness, or faced Terra or Ven or kidnap that old guy or… or…
Braig frowned.
That man in the mirror was not him.
Is it? Came the voice in his head. Are you sure? Are you sure that he isn't you?
Totally sure, Braig thought as he nodded his head at nothing, I'm not like that.
Braig was young and full of life. The man in the mirror was old and tired. Braig had golden eyes, not the cat-like venom one the man had. Braig had always prided himself in his looks. People would always try to guess and gasp when he told them what age he was. They told him he was so handsome and why in the world wasn't he married yet? All the girls came up the castle just to flirt with him.
With this to back his up, Braig got up again and looked in the mirror, the man was still there in the place his refection should be. God, that man was ugly.
He tried smiling at the refection.
That made it even worse.
The scar contorted, the eye wrinkled up, the smile showed too much teeth and where those fangs? The man looked like a monster from one of Kairi's storybooks. The man in the mirror… looked like him, they had the same face, same nose, if you took away the scar, put in the eye, removed the gray and made the hair shorter-
Oh God.
That monster was him.
Braig felt sick, he quickly brought his hand to his mouth.
He could feel it. That ugly scar. Thick skin over where the giant wound was; it felt sickening to the touch. Braig glanced up at the mirror again, the ma- his reflection was copying him.
He looked at his reflection again, but he couldn't see. The long raven and grey hair was stringy and coarse and everywhere. Braig blew the hair out of his face and pushed the mass back. He glanced at the man once more.
Xigbar sneered at the man in the uniform and red scarf in the mirror, he tied his hair back and portaled out.