Shard (noun): a fragment

The mirror slipped from her hand and disintegrated.

What was once a whole splintered into countless pieces of glass rain, blooming from the impact like some kind of colorless flower.

She didn’t react. It was the third thing she’d broken that week, starting with her wine glass, then her jewelry tray, and now her small hand mirror. The grief that shackled her heart made her hands cold and stiff, and whatever she’d held in her hands always crashed to the ground—the splash of elegant wine, the gemstones of her earrings…

…What spilled from the mirror?

A nonsensical question, from an equally deranged mind. As days passed since her mother’s death, she had felt her reigns on her consciousness slowly slip away and often saw her own body as if she was watching from a pair of unseen eyes. With movements as sluggish and dull as ice, she reached to clean up the broken pieces.

She gasped.

Eyes, as deep and blue as the cerulean sea, looked back at her from every direction, each originating from the mirrors—the windows—on the ground. They were her mother’s eyes. Every family relative had said that at least once.

She held her own gaze for a long time, her mouth hanging slightly ajar; silence, but torrents of emotion tumbled through her mind.

The shattered mirrors watched as teardrops began to rain.