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HIS OWN REFLECTION had never been such a disgusting sight. The streaks of blood staining his weary face, the slight incisions that adorned each curve, the blueness beneath his eyes that he couldn't precisely identify as neither bruises nor simple dark circles as a sign of lack of sleep.
He didn't look long enough to try to tell the difference. What the dusty mirror presented before him was the last thing he wanted to see: the face of a coward.
Every breath that clouded before him was the breath of a failure. Even with his eyes straying from his reflection, the slight cloud was a constant reminder of... himself. Of his own breathing. Of his own existence.
And what an existence it was, trying to save a little girl, only to get battered for it and for her to inevitably get her throat slit in front an entire crowd of people who somehow found solace in it.
He could've been stronger. He could've been better. He could've done more. He could've-
The mirror shattered.
He retracted his bloody fist, clenching it tightly in spite of the keen, bloody fragments that protruded from his skin. The glass rained to the stained tile beneath his feet, like a menacing thunderstorm; except the only thing that could attempt to resemble thunder was the sudden sound of the bathroom door as it burst open, screaming on its rusted hinges.
Adelaide's worried eyes locked onto Carson's stiff figure. "What'd you do?" she quietly muttered without thinking, but then only exasperatedly sighed once her chocolate-colored eyes trailed from the shattered mirror to the shards of glass beneath it. And his bloody fist clenched tightly at his side, narrowed eyes glaring straight ahead as he couldn't be bothered to look her direction.
Without a moment of hesitation, she gingerly kneeled down and began to collect the larger shards of glass. "I get it, okay?" she breathed out, unaware that he was too consumed by furious self-condemnation to be attentive. "You just..." She wasn't even sure what she wanted to say. She wasn't afraid of him; whatever she wanted to say, she would. There were just some things she wasn't sure if he should hear.
She wanted to tell him that he did good, that at least he tried to help. She, alongside many others, merely stood there, helpless. She wanted to tell him that she thought he was the most courageous of all for putting up a fight.
But she knew he wouldn't believe her.
She wanted to tell him it would be okay. They'd find food, they'd find water, they'd find shelter. They wouldn't have a knife held to their throats with every shaky breath. They'd find whoever survived and they'd construct a new plan for their uncertain future.
