-A week went by since Aria got her mirror.-

In that time she had done another photoshoot and had been practicing her poses in the new mirror. She would spend for several hours everyday practicing her smile and poses.

All the mirrors on the estate had finally been replaced since then, but it was the mirror that Lenah had gotten that Aria was mostly using now. She didn’t bother using any of the other available.

Aria hasn't felt the need to practice posing for a long time. She already felt that she was perfect in this regard, so in her mind why would she practice. But, something was different now. There was now a desire for others to truly see her beauty, and she needed to ensure that her appearance was absolutely perfect to do that. So, she was now dedicating a large portion of her days staring at herself in the mirror.

The new motivation she was now dedicating towards her modeling was unexpected for the staff, but it was appreciated. Aria was now too busy focusing on her modeling instead of yelling or berating the people working at the mansion. It gave the staff more moments of relief from their mistress.

Aria was currently standing in front of the giant mirror with her niece Lenah off to the side. She was being extremely self absorbed and admiring her appearance.

Aria: “How gorgeous, she said to herself while striking a pose.”

Lenha just stared at her aunt from the corner of the room dumbfounded. In the years she had lived with her aunt, she had never seen her this self absorbed. She knew how vain her aunt Aria was, but it somehow was more intense now than it was in the past. Aria would now spend hours every day admiring herself in the mirror, which was good for Lenah. It meant there was less opportunity for her to interact with her aunt while she was busy admiring herself, and Lenah liked that.

Aria: “Tell me, niece. Have you ever seen someone as beautiful as me?”

Lenah: “Um, no. You are definitely the most beautiful model around,” she said confusingly.

Lenah was really weirded out by her Aunt's behavior lately. Her aunt was now treating her with a degree of indifference, which sadly was considered an improvement in how Aria treated Lenah. Her aunt would never let Lenah casually speak to her, let alone ask for her opinion on anything. It wasn't the most loving interaction between family members, but Lenah would take her aunts current behavior over the usual where she would get berated over everything.

A few more minutes went by with Aria admiring herself in the mirror, before the door to the room swung open and Patrik entered.

Patrik: “Aria I have…what are you doing here Lenah?” he said, looking directly at Lenah with some concern.

Aria: “I ask her to be here,” she said, while continuing to admire her reflection.

Patrik swallowed his saliva. He was quickly trying to concoct a plan to get Lenah away from here, worried that she had been brought here to be berated or beaten by Aria.

Patrik: “Why…“he said, suspicious of her intention.

Aria: “I needed someone to admire my beauty. And, the girl was doing nothing else useful.”

Patrik: “Um, ok? Why do you need someone to admire your beauty?”

Aria: “You're such an idiot. Do I need to explain everything to you?” she said, turning to Patrik and showing signs of annoyance.

Patrik: “N-no. You're right. Y-you deserve to be admired,” he nervously said.

Sensing that his questioning was annoying her, he backed off. He quickly tried to change the tone of the conversation to avoid accidentally setting Aria off.

Aria: “You finally figured it out. About time,” she said smugly while calming herself down.

Patrik was used to getting berated by Aria, but the way she is doing it now was strangely a little kinder. She didn’t blow up at him and started throwing insults at him like she would usually do. The insults she would normally use on him were a lot more intense and hurtful than what she was saying now.

Patrik: “Um, ok. T-the pictures from the photoshoot from a few days ago just came in,” he said, starting to feel weirded out by Arias behavior just like Lenah.

Aria: “I see, then show me them.”

Patrik took out an envelope from his pocket and handed it to Aria quickly, worried that she would berate him if he was too slow to produce the pictures. Aria delicately took the envelope with a smug expression on her face. She then pulled out the photos and started examining them one by one, as she did so, her face slowly turning from an arrogant smug to that of anger with a scowl.

Aria: “What the fuck is this?”she said, showing clear signs of annoyance towards Patrik.

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Patrik: “Um, is there something wrong?”

Aria: “What do you mean ‘is there something wrong’? Did you even look at these photos?”

Patrik: “I-i did. They looked good,” he nervously said.

Aria: “Now your fucking lying to me! How can you say these pictures look good,” she yelled out at Patrik.

Patrik: “I-i don’t—” he said, unable to finish what he was going to say.

A loud clapping sound rang out in the room, followed by a foreboding silence. Aria had slapped Patrik in the face, hitting him so hard that it left a distinctive red mark in the shape of her hand on his cheek. Patrik stumbled back and let out a yelp of pain.

Lenha quietly watched from the corner of the room with her hands covering her mouth to stifle her gasps. She was unsure if she should intervene or not, worried that she might make the situation worse for Patrik.

Patrik managed to pick himself back up while holding his sore cheek. He looked back at Aria with fear in his eyes.

Aria: “Don’t you ever lie to me again! Just look at this photo, the angle is all wrong and unflattering,” she said while pointing at one the pictures patrik gave her. She then shifted through the stack of photos and pulled out another picture. “And look at this one. I have a single eyelash that’s too long. You expect me to believe you didn’t notice.”

Patrik was so confused. He didn’t lie, even though Aria accused him of doing so. He really did think the photos of her looked good, and didn’t understand what she meant about the unflattering angle. There was also no way he could have noticed something like a single eyelash that was slightly too long. It was such a small detail that no one would probably notice or care.

In the years Patrik had worked with Aria, he knew she could be erratic, but it was different now. She was being even more erratic and extreme. He understood the things that made her angry and how to diffuse her outburst, but the source of her outburst was something he never experienced before. She always thought that the pictures of her were beautiful and flawless, so he never expected the source of her anger to be this.

Patrik: “I-im sorry.”

Aria: “No you're not. Get the fuck out of here Patrik.” She then turned towards Lenah. “And you bitch, lying to me about my appearance when I had a long eyelash this whole time.”

Lenah: “Eeep!”

Just like Patrik, it was such a small thing that Lenah didn’t notice anything about Aria’s eyelashes. So, she didn’t say anything about it, but Aria took that as being lied too by her.

Aria: “You better get out of here as well, or I'm going to bury you with that whore of a sister of mine,” she said aggressively.

Lenha, with a look of terror in her eye, quickly ran over to Patrik and both of them immediately left the room.

With the loud sound of a door closing behind Lenah and Patrik, Aria was now alone. While still mad, she walked over to her makeup cabinet and pulled out a pair of eyelash clippers. She then walked back to the giant mirror and carefully and slowly cut her eyelashes so that they all were the same length. Once she was done, she put the clippers down on a nearby table and started admiring herself again.

“Such unloyal and ungrateful fools. They live thanks to my beauty, yet those two were clearly trying to sabotage me. Probably jealous of my beauty and don’t want others to see it.” She angrily thought to herself.

She continued to admire herself for another minute before stopping. Thoughts of a paranoid conspiracy were starting to fill her mind.

“Wait, they wouldn’t be the only ones who didn’t say anything. Why didn’t the maids or manservants say anything? Unless, they are all conspiring against me. They are all trying to ruin me.” She thought irrationally while looking at the door to her room.

Aria walked over to the door to her room and opened it. She looked up and down the hallway, making sure that there was no spying on her from outside her bedroom door. Once she saw that there was no one there, she closed the door and went back to looking at her reflection.

Aria: “Oh Aria, you really are the only one I can truly rely on,” she said, talking to her own reflection.

“If they are all going to be traitors, then I'll have to remove everyone. I guess I really will bury that bitch with her whore mother. I'm sure my associates that removed the last bastard will make it happen for someone as beautiful as me.” She silently thought to herself.

Aria’s feelings of being slightly were intense and she was beginning to plan out a bloody massacre for her niece and entire staff. She knew it wouldn’t be all done at once. She didn’t want to attract that kind of attention to her. Aria only wanted people to praise her beauty, not gossip about people disappearing around her.

She knew what she was going to do. She was going to make them disappear one by one, slowly and discreetly. Using her contact in the underworld, she will dispose of them all. Once they are all gone, she can replace them all with people that she thought would truly appreciate her beauty.

“I suppose I should send both Patrik and Lenah away, so they don’t discover what I plan to do to them. I’ll have to send all the other staff away eventually as well.”

Sometimes when Aria was mad at one of her staff, she would send them away, anywhere that wasn't near her and off her property. It was to everyone’s benefit that she did this, as it kept her from flying into a rage if she saw the person she was mad at. However, she was going to use this method to slowly dispose of them all. She would send them away and have them quietly killed through her underworld contacts. It would look like they simply did not come back, preventing the gossip of her staff disappearing.

Aria: “That’s what I'll do. Just you wait sister. You’ll see your daughter real soon,” she said to her reflection with a sinister grin.

Aria reluctantly pulled herself from the mirror and headed to her office, leaving the room. She was Intending to call her associates that will do the bloody deed for her.

Once Aria closed the door behind her, the giant mirror was left alone in her room. If someone was here, they would notice that something about that mirror added a weird unsettling feeling to the space. Like it was an unnatural thing that shouldn't have been here, but it was.

Aria had continued to not notice the peculiarities of the mirror Lenah bought. Last week everything it reflected, with the exception of Aria’s reflection, was only slightly distorted and might have been easy to miss. Now everything reflected in the mirror was starting to look extremely warped, like something you would see in a funhouse mirror. Yet, her reflection remained crystal clear and unchanged in the mysterious mirror.