Yes, better the Devil's crimson room

and the Devil's heated laughter,

than that awful cold outside that door

and silence, forever after.

-- Peg Howard

Day 7

After a week of daymares and blank nights, Alice's mind finally caught up to her body. It was a New Moon's night, and no electricity, no visible difference between the back of her eyelids and the room. Eventually the smears of color that crawled across her vision, faded away… and in came the panting, the growling, the rank smell of blood, heavy quick footsteps, and grabbing, and clawing.

She couldn't see anything. How many were there? How did they get in? She couldn't move, her sleeping body breathing too gently and evenly to scream, her arms and legs felt set in iron. It was like some horrible mirror-condition of sleepwalking: she was awake wasn't she, why couldn't she move?

A sudden heat washed over her— too hot to be blood, fluid but not wet… no, it was fire, by its sudden light she could see there was only one Infected with her, and it was herself. This self floated deathly still above (or was she the one floating?) but both eyes were brown. No. Not brown, just dark—so dark they seemed to have been gouged out. The flames spread.

She awoke gasping, trembling, with terror.

And fever.

I was angry with my friend:

I told my wrath, my wrath did end.

I was angry with my foe:

I told it not, my wrath did grow.

-- William Blake

Day 12

It began with a fever, then for two days she found herself salivating more than she could swallow, and on the third day felt all her insides begin twisting. Not just in her chest and gut—but the muscles in her arms and legs, and her tendons. The shivering developed into seizures, and the pain was excruciating.

"It should happen quicker," Alice remarked from outside herself, but both i her eyes were blue, and she was beyond calm—almost dead to expression—while Alice herself was close to screaming. "Less than half a minute, maybe, but not an incubation period of weeks and then symptoms stretched over days. Could be, you caught the flu or something from somewhere and that's weakened you for the… other, nasty sickness. Which we know isn't gone."

Alice herself tremulously rubbed the teethmarks on her upper arm and shook her head.

"You should have killed him the moment you saw his eyes change."

"It was a kid," Alice hissed through the pain, "just a kid… take that face off, you're not me."

Her blue-eyed self put on a mocking, raspy gurgle: "Yess, Preciouss. First they cheat you—hurt you—lie. We survived because of me! Um," she cleared her throat, and said more conversationally, "Did that sound more Yoda than Gollum?"

Alice looked askance and shook her head, muttering, "I've gone mad."

"Oh? All right. What about her?" blue-eyed Alice pointed to the wild, snarling Alice who prowled the rest of the attic, seeping blood out of wild umber eyes.

Alice herself cried out and forced herself to scramble backwards against the corner. How could she expect to avoid her Self, though? I'm sick, but not tired, she realized then, and the pain's not so bad when you move. She crawled, forced herself to stand, to stumble towards her dark-eyed self and see which one of them was stronger—

"Besides," her blue-eyed self continued, "I wasn't talking about the kid."

Alice turned and screamed, "I don't want to think about him!"

"Don't think about it, that's his way, even before the plague," her blue-eyed self continued, "You saw his cowardly eyes, his pathetic apologetic smile…"

"Stop."

"… wasn't new, let's face it. Don't you want to show him what he's finally done to you?"

Alice paced opposite her dark-eyed self, who snuffed the air and snarled. To her surprise, she growled in return. Which one of them was stronger? A silly question now, for when ever were they separate?

"Say his name, Alice. Say your husband's name."

She did, not a desperate plea but a syllable so dangerously edged that she hardly recognized it. The rage took her over, then the world blurred… if she could say his name, she could face the sunlight, could do anything. It was an ecstatic release, letting her true predatory nature carry her through the day for once, for always.

A movement caught her attention, and she leaped at it— beating, clawing, vomiting blood, and everything she meant to say was lost in her screaming.

Until she saw through the sticky crimson smears… a pair of eyes, one brown and the other blue.

"Andy?" "Good." "No, God, did I--?" "Hate!"

"That's as far as we can take it for now," her blue-eyed self interrupted.

True, the rage was draining (how disappointing.) When she stepped back, so did her victim. She frowned, closed her mismatched eyes for a moment, and looked again.

She'd attacked the mirror.