The stranger in the mirror || Open

Quell’s face had been hallowed and shaped by the recent months. He barely got enough sleep these days, and his eyes were ringed in a bruised blue tone, and against his light skin that seemed to pale by the day, Quell could have passed for a vampire. As he stared at himself in the mirror, Quell didn’t see himself anymore. He saw a boy that had been hollowed out by fear and anger and sadness. His eyes looked sunken, the crease of his eyelids had become more noticeable and the grey of his eyes was foggy, whereas it had once shined. Quell’s cheekbones were more prominent, and his uncut hair hid several ragged scars on his forehead.

He looked like he had just been crying, and Quell hated it. He hated the unfamiliarity of his face. That boy looked gaunt and old and helpless. Quell hated feeling helpless. The stress of the recent months had taken a toll on the young boy and where a quiet, clever and kind child had once been, a hard, stubborn, angry soldier had taken his place. Quell thought of the knife he kept under his pillow while he slept, the lifeless form of that little girl who had cut him on the face and the corpse that had shot his leg, why he knew how to sob silently.

He said he was fine, and they believed him. Nothing noticeable had happened to Quell, so of course he was fine. Of course the bullet wound on his leg didn’t have a horror story behind it. Of course Quell didn’t have a story of his own. And then he was expected to become a rock for Liv, for Faye, he was expected to lead the Athena cabin. Quell was expected to become a soldier, so a soldier he became.

But it changed him. It made him angry and socially inadept and soon Quell had held his emotions in so long he could barely express them. Where was his rock? Quell didn't cry a lot (in fact he barely , but when he did, they were silent tears, in his bed at night, staring at the ceiling. So no one could hear him. But even if he got out of bed in the middle of the night, no one ever noticed the tear tracks.

Quell felt a cool trickle down his face before he saw the redness of his eyes. Looking away from the dark panel he had been staring at, Quell realized he was fingering his knife. There was blood on his fingertips and a burning pain in his palm. There was a rush of air that blew against the back of his legs and Quell realized someone was at the door. Quickly wiping the tears away with the back of his palm, he turned around, letting a spray of blood fly towards the door. ”Don’t you know how to knock?” Quell demanded, his voice more scratchy than he was expecting.