My eyes open to the sting of sunlight. Something is wrong. Not the kind of wrong you fell when you first wake from a bad dream, but something truly evil. A feeling of panic and desperation courses through my veins in such an urgency that i leap from the bed with no regards for the bedpost that my head will inevitably strike. What is that smell? So unfamiliar. The only thing I recognize in its musk is Annabel, but it's as if something so profoundly putrid is masking its usual tantalizing odor. Why am I shaking? Am I wrong about the dream? Perhaps I'm trapped in the final seconds of a nightmare so horrific that even as i stand here awake i cannot escape its grasp. A sip of water and a moment to gather myself should help me put the pieces together. I Where was I last night? What did I do? I remember dinner, drinks, laughter. I remember making love to Annabel. I remember drawing. Yes, my sketch, my latest masterpiece. Oh, I cannot wait until my sweet love lays her eyes on my finest achievement to date. It will please her so much. I should wake her, I'm too excited to let her sleep any longer.

I reached out to gently shake Annabel from sleep and find my hands covered in blood. The smell, the shaking, the panic. Against my will, I turn my gaze towards the horrific scene lying in the bed only inches from where i slept. The harsh reality of what i am seeing washes over me as i fall to my knees, screaming, crying, vomiting. This cannot be happening. I am still asleep, i never woke up. I will crawl into bed, wrap my arms around my sweet Annabel and in the morning wake to the gentle caress of her lips. With every bit of my strength i pull myself in the bed and move slowly next to the woman whom i have shared the last seven years of my life. It was at this very moment that I notice the painfully angelic beauty of her eyes. So gentle, so forgiving, and now in this seemingly endless instant, perfectly still. Her once lush, glowing skin is now drowning in a pool of crimson.

I'm not entirely sure what attracted my attention to the mirror on the wall. I'm not saying that if hadn't seen my reflection on that fateful morning that things would have cone differently in the end. All I know is that until the day i die i will never sleep again. In revealing the mystery behind the final hours of Annabel's life, the old cracked mirror that has hung in my bedroom for as long as I can remember made one thing perfectly clear. I, the Artist, had killed the only love I will ever know, Annabel.