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There was a reason the room didn’t have a mirror anymore.
After they had found blood drying in the shattered glass and his fists bruised, it had been taken away. They feared he would hurt himself. That he might take one of the shards and test the sharpness with flesh.
It wasn’t the skin of his arms or neck they believed he would plunge the fragment into, twisting it in and ignoring the pain so it would pierce the mark. His death wasn’t what they were trying to avoid, even if it was necessary that he was kept alive.
No, they thought he would damage the very reason he couldn’t stand to look at himself.
The reason he destroyed the mirror in the first place.
So he couldn’t see what they had forced him to become.
At least without the mirror he could ignore it. He couldn’t glance at it from the corner of his eye and have the reflection taunt him. A constant reminder of why he was kept behind these four walls and locked door.
He no longer was forced to stare at a body he couldn’t recognize, disfigured and ruined after everything he had been forced through. His body and mind had always been one of the few things he could control in his life, but now they were stripped from him. He remembered when he was first exposed, left in a rotting room with a searing headache.
And a want he had tried to ignore, yet it still climbed. Vision and thoughts had blurred until he finally heard the door open, but he could do nothing except writhe in the farce of a bed. He smelled the distress, the confusion, and worst of all the desire. Then a person full of apologies, mute words to deaf ears, molded against him and his body was taken.
He could only glare at his marred form back then.
The handprints on his hips.
The scratches on his back.
The wounds on his thighs.
The permanent claim on his neck.
He shouldn’t have given in and he hated himself for allowing it, but almost all of the marks eventually faded. The claim was clawed at and became a permanent red, yet it always came back. He felt the other side of it and he prayed one of them would die.
But that still wasn’t the reason the mirror was broken.
He could handle the claim. The bond was simply a reminder of what he had lost. The claim meant he would never be able to be free, even if he was let out.
It was what followed.
The map of his body changing against his will. The only familiarity within the room evaded him. Clothes could cover, but they couldn’t get rid of the inherent feeling of knowing something was wrong. He could feel it inside of him. He ignored it the best he could, but there was a reason he was there.
He stared at himself in the mirror, lifting up his shirt to unveil the damage that had been done.
His belly was swollen and unnaturally full, hanging on his torso like a weight he wanted gone. He was disgusted by the indented scars that circled it as if to taunt him. This was something he had once believed he wanted and it had been ruined. It hadn’t been done by someone who cared, only a person who had ripped away the chance for him to have the future he had dreamed of. His supposed-to-be mate was gone and replaced by a man who he could hear the disgustingly persistent heartbeat of.
As he continued to stare through tears, a voice began to whisper in his ear. It smiled and he could feel its hands running down his torso. It supported the bump like it wasn't revolted by his weakness. It kissed his bond, assuring him everything would be fine. His pack would save him. His real mate would love any part of him no matter where it came from. It was a perfect liar, just like his mate had been.
Still, it was the movement that made him punch the mirror. It wasn’t light or bubbly. It wasn’t easy to ignore like it had been before. He wished it remained still and silent and unknown forever. He saw how his stomach morphed to accommodate the selfish desire for more space than it deserved. It tented and bent, revealing the outline of a deformed hand. He stared at the object trying to puncture through him and wished it could be cut away.
Maybe they were right to take away the mirror.
He would’ve done what they feared.