When I first wrote "Glass," it was far and away the best example of my abilities to date. That was over three years ago. I love "Glass"; I worked hard on it, agonizing over details I usually work through by instinct. I don't want to let this piece crumble, not when I can shine it into newness again. So I've gone back into it. This is a stylistic face-lift, nothing in the plot or overall structure has been altered. You don't have to reread it if you've seen it before, but I hope you do. "Glass" has always been about the beauty of language more than any storyline, and I'd like for the language you remember to be the best I can put forth.
Please leave me a review, whether this is your first or just your most recent time reading this, and let me know what you think. It may help me if there comes another time when I realize I need to brush this piece off and make it shine again. At least, I hope it shines for you the way it does for me.
Glass
~.x.~
He stares into the glass, unearthing his brother. Black hair rising in spikes, black eyes all but hidden giving sight, black clothes cloaking the innocence of white skin. He sees a shadow, mistakes it for his brother.
He glances into the glass, observing his mother. Soft hair caressed by a delicate hand, large eyes staring into a colorless world, pale skin glowing in the darkness. He sees his mother, mistakes her for an angel.
He glares into the glass, but cannot find his father.
~.x.~
His feet stick to the floor, pressed into tacky pool of drying blood. His parents' blood. Moonlight glimmers over the blade of a sword. His brother's sword. The night-dark room echoes with a long and eerie scream. His scream.
The world twists itself into a red and black mockery around him. Red of blood, black of night. Red and black, his brother's eyes.
Blood rain patters to the ground. Familiar corpses lie down to rest in the street, black with the dark of night. Silence envelops the chill air, dyed red and hot without any sense of warmth.
A hint of light shines through color, awakens universes. It reflects on a blade stained red and black with blood in a world stained red and black with hate. His brother's eyes glow, stained red and black with murder.
Blood surges and strikes the ground. Corpses scream the end of time, cursing his weakness, his brother's eyes. Glass crashes behind him.
The world twists itself into the dark shades of reality and pain around him. The silver moonlight offers no sanctuary.
"Hate me." He knows nothing else. Red and black, his brother's eyes, reflected in his pain.
~.x.~
The bite stings with poison, throbs with power. A purple sound confuses him awake. Shards of pain teach him to hurt, to shatter, to break. Red and black and something else. He doesn't understand.
He extends a red and black hand—his pain, his brother's eyes, his brother's strength. They crumble at his touch to purple dust. He laughs a shade off violet, eyes red and black. Strength.
"Sasuke!" She rushes to him, a streak of pink and red and green. He almost understands. Glass shatters, he forgets, pain fades. Pink and red and green. Red and black and something else. Almost.
~.x.~
His teacher's fist glows blue with the calls of birds as he watches, eyes red and black. He learns. His teacher shows him silver and green and blue. He understands the first glowing with power, ignores the rest.
His fist glows blue with the shrieks of birds. Red and black and screeching blue. The curse laughs purple, yearns to fight, to kill. He ignores it. His fist glows blue, his eyes glow red, dampened by black.
He aims for brown stone beneath the warmth of yellow sun. He wants to kill his brother's eyes, red and black and evil. Blue strikes brown; red and black remain.
His fist breaks stone, laughs, and glows again. Brown, purple, blue.
~.x.~
The curse spread over his body in purple-black pain. His opponent strikes, brown and dried blood, but his friend stops it in a streak of orange. She hovers over him, pink hair falling over caring green eyes, wide with fear and concern. He doesn't understand.
She tries to fight, the pink light of determination shining through crusts of dried blood and failure. His opponent brushes her aside in a wave of brown, and the coarse grains of sand pin her to a tree. Her chin falls; he sees only pink hair and brown pain.
He can't let them die like his mother, like his father, lifeless and red and black, murdered by his brother's eyes. He fights for tints of yellow and pink until black exhaustion drive him down where he falls against dark and rough tree bark. His friend saves them all. An orange fox protects pink hair and black eyes, frees brown from blood.
He doesn't understand, but he wants to.
~.x.~
His fist glows blue and shrieks in rage. His brother barely notices, but turns his eyes, red and black, to see. His fist fails, pitters out, retreats.
His brother stops him, throws him, red and black and power, clashing, crushing red and black and hate. His brother shoves him into the wall, training him in pain.
"Not enough hate." His brother's voice seeps into his ear, reveals his weakness. His brother's eyes distort the world to red and black, remind him how to hate. His mind cowers in pain, shatters like glass.
Red blood oozes, creates death from life. Black corpses claw out his eyes, curse his weakness, his brother's strength. Shards of glass cut trails in his skin. Red and black
His brother's eyes.
~.x.~
Water falls from his, surges from his friend's with the blue chuckles of mockery. He turns away, face hidden in black, shame concealed in ice.
Inside, the glass reveals his weakness. Skin: pale and thin; hair: dark and tangled. White and black. So thin and pale and dark, so weak.
He shows the glass his pain; it returns everything. He understands. White and black fall flat, but red he knows. His brother cut his fist, broke the mirror. Red and Black, the white drained out.
He understands. Erase the white, the weak; replace thin skin and tangled hair. Black remains, white becomes red. Weak becomes strong.
"Itachi."
Red and black, his brother's eyes. He understands.
~.x.~
The water falls and surges between them, separating, connecting, and sparkling like glass. His friend shouts of home, yellow and orange and blue.
The colors confuse him, stun his eyes. He knows only red and black, blood and night, his brother's eyes. He knows only pain and hate. His friend doesn't understand, calling him to a home long abandoned by vengeance.
Orange rage surrounds his friend, screaming of flames and home. He almost understands. His reflection stares across the water, red and black and blue, not quite his brother. He sees two boys, beaten but fighting, determined. He almost understands.
His friend blazes orange and blue. He smolders black and blue. He understands.
"Naruto."
Blue rain cleanses yellow and orange, smears red and black, connects. He understands.
Red and black. And blue.
~.x.~
The wall shatters like glass. Inside the snake laughs purple, long and strong and evil. He ignores it as his curse spreads, chuckling a softer violet, promising death. The snake laughs again and fades to white.
He stares into evil white but doesn't understand. His blue and silver blade slices through. White and purple could his mind, laugh with power, shriek with glee. He knows he cannot lose. Red and black shatter white and purple. Red and black, his eyes, his strength. His brother's eyes.
He sees himself in misted eyes, red and black and blue. His brother, his friend. Fire, night, lightning; red, black, blue.
His curse writhes in purple ecstasy; he ignores it and seeks his brother's eyes, red and black, blood and night. Blood of night, his brother's death.
~.x.~
His blackened skin glows and shrieks in blue; his eyes glare red anger and black hatred. He strives to strike his brother, red and black, demolish him with blue. He strives to kill his brother, blade in flesh to bring him death.
His brother sees in red and black, tosses blue aside. He screams and strikes in desperate purple, but he doesn't understand. He crumbles in a mottled heap, his world consumed by red and black.
Blood coats his skin, dyes him red with hate. Corpses beg him for their lives, grinning blackened death. He falls and cuts his hands on black glass, bleeds red.
His mother holds him, white stained red. His father scolds him in death-blackened phrases. His brother laughs blackness, hands him flowers dripping bloody red.
"Hate."
He sees himself in shards of shadowed glass, red and black and weak.
~.x.~
His brother calls him weak, says he's forgotten how to hate. Instead of showing red and black, his parents' death, his brother fights in artist's strokes, painting newer pains.
Pink strikes hard and true and useless. She fights desperately, filled with fear and love. His teacher fights beside her, deadly silver striking in blue.
His brother slices through them, invisible to eyes clouded with red and black. She dies, red staining her hair and skin. His teacher falls, eyes wide in black pain; they stare with death.
He shrieks and stumbles, too weak to stand. He gapes at death, pink and silver and cruel. His brother laughs an evil red and calls him foolish. Home lies bleeding, screams in pain.
His friend races, late to death, and strikes his brother in furious orange, almost red.
~.x.~
His brother stands before his friend; his friend holds his revenge. He can't lose his cause; he can't let his friend steal his life with blazing orange and falling blue.
Rage strengthens the shining blue around his fist. His friend's eyes widen at his screaming charge, pale blue shock calling him fool. He strikes, but his friend deflects the feeble blow. His brother laughs and calls him weak.
Fury calls his eyes to red and black. They show his friend vengeance, the red and black of stabbing hate. He attacks while his friend fights a shadow, confused by eyes of red and black.
His blade slices cleanly silver through his friend's neck. Orange chakra lashes out, falls, dissipates, dies. Home lies broken, dead, forever lost. The colors fade.
Only red and black remain.
His brother laughs a sickly red and walks away. He stumbles, falls, mourns, ignores, and seeks his brother's death, red and black and something he's forgotten.
~.x.~
He screams black rage, and his brother stops, turns, smirks. He glows blue with power, red with hate. His brother tries to bend the world, to shatter him like glass. But he understands now and brushes it aside. His brother steps back, red and black eyes wide.
He strikes with blue fist wrapped in purple laughter. His feet beat on packed dirt, brown beneath a cold yellow sun. His brother blocks and leaps away, but he chases and confuses his brothers eyes with streaks of pink. Red and black and pink, he knows his brother doesn't understand.
He thrusts his fist through his brother's chest and hurls him onto green grass. His brother bleeds a deep red but stands, coughs, spits, fights on. His brother wounds him, summoning bright blood to stream into dirt.
He strikes again, his shrieking blue fist cuts through his brother's heart. He sees his brother on the ground, red and black and dead.
He finds his brothers death in blood-red hate and shadow-black pain reflected in shards of broken glass.
~.x.~
He returns to his dark house, but can't find home, yellow and pink and silver. He stands before the glass, but can't stare into it; glares at the blackened floor, old and built of wood.
He looks up, finds another boy before him, red and black and murder. They frown. "Who are you?" But they ask together, so one voice sounds.
Neither answers. They turn and walk away.