Spotless

The place was not clean.

She noticed fast, earlier than expected. She quivered when she felt the grains of dust beneath her feet; she followed each smudge the grime had trickled along, to dry and fade who knows how long ago.

But it wasn't about the dirt, not at all. It was a feeling to move the irregular pulse of her breath. The place was not clean, and not just that — it was definitely trying to hide it from her.

Her blood froze in front of the stains. The way they had dripped from above, their far end stuck at the border of the ceiling, only spoke of failure; and the farther corners of the rooms betrayed huge, unwashed tiles, shuffled among the others in a vain attempt to hide.

When she flew to the higher portal, she could almost feel their greasy surface, inches away from her touch. She fell on her feet, she bent — in fear, in disgust.

It was a dirty place. It reeked of lies, and concealed filth. But she had to wait for the other side, the decaying back of the mirror, to fully understand — the dirt was nothing more than the truth, and it seeped, invincible, through the cracks in the walls.