Coraline watched intently at her reflection in the mirror. It was her face, her body, the very dress she wore now, although aged by 20 years and yet .. It wasn’t. This woman before her was … fragile, weak. Slender, and missing the posture of the Queen that she was with the destructive force at her fingertips from her magical prowess.

The disturbing sight of the image before her should have been the creature that loomed over her, almost twice her size. It was skinny, like skin drawn tight over the frame of a skeleton. The eyes were hollow sockets, black with faint veins spreading in various shades of red, purple and blue. It offered her a smile, a wicked smile that revealed a row of sharp, fang-like teeth, blood stained and blackened. Coraline turned her attention back to herself, or what was supposed to be her, a gnarled hand on her left shoulder and the talons of the right digging into her neck. She could see the ethereal sliver sliding from her, into the being, as though it feasted on her very soul and the magic that resided in her.

The reflection in the mirror that showed an image of her, 20 years from now. Her pale face with glistening blue eyes, her raven coloured hair up in an elegant bun with even the same stubborn strand of curls dancing alongside her face. The same gown she wore, a deep indigo with silver and gold, tightly hugging her slender figure, a gown that was fit for a Queen. She looked older, with lines starting at her lips and by her eyes, slightly shorter, but mostly, the same.

But the reflection standing before her was no Queen. It was a feeble and frail woman. Weak and vulnerable, the broken remains of who she was, an image that haunted her more than the image of the beast did. That was not the woman she had imagined she would be, 20 years from now, it was not the woman she had fought to become now. She clenched her fists and tightened her jaw, before the seller approached her. “I will take it.” She said, her voice calm and warm, and before the night was out, the mirror had made its home inside the castle, in the comfort of her chambers, the future at her fingertips.

But for that, she would have to grow stronger, more powerful and fiercer than she had already been. Banished from her very home, like a stray that was tossed into the streets when she had outlived her use. Like a beggar, she traversed the streets of her home, for money, for knowledge, for anything she could get her hands on and she had become greedy, she had become demanding, and she had become deserving.

Deserving of the very throne she had conquered when she took her small but loyal following and challenged the King for his throne at night. He paid for it with his life, as she’d buried her dagger deep in his heart and left him dying out on the front steps of the castle. For the country to see, for the world to see, for them to know that a new Queen had arisen.

But she was not as strong as she wanted to be, according to her reflection. Weak, drained, submissive even. Not at all the woman she recognised in herself. But perhaps her peaceful reign had made her complacent, and perhaps in time that complacency would become a weakness. It wasn’t a risk she was willing to take, with her Kingdom under control of her most trusted, she set out to learn more about the dark magic she had adapted. She visited with the shamans of The Lands of Everlight, but they could not help her because the brand of magic she had adapted was banished, forbidden, and no longer within their control. They sent her away, but she would not give in so easily.

Coraline returned with a portion of her army, men and women armed and equipped with the finest weapons, imbued with the magical prowess of their Queen, their blades tipped with maddening magic that was designed to haunt, torment and madden them. She demanded that they give her passage into the Nightmare Realm, and not wishing to feel the wrath of the Queen, they helped her.

She studied with the creatures of the underworld for a year, reading book upon book of banished material, crafting spell after forbidden spell to practise them in the safety of the Nightmare Realm, until she was ready to take her newfound command of the Dark Magic out into the world, and back home.

But the reflection did not change.

Coraline howled in distress when she stepped back in front of her mirror, and saw the wicked creature staring back at her, eyes black and perhaps even more wicked than before. The woman, Coraline but 20 years from now, she was still feeble and weak, if not more so than the last time she had seen this very reflection. Her howling frustration echoed deep inside of the castle, and with that, the Queen retreated to her private office, not to be seen for a full week. Complacency, weakness, she had no room for that in her reign, in her Kingdom. She would not die at the hands of some vile creature, she was stronger than this.

She went back to the Shamans, with her full army. They performed their spell under her watchful eye, and when it came time for the portal to the Nightmare Realm to part once more, she stepped in with a ritual of her own. The shamans that tried to stop her were stopped in their tracks, the blades of her men piercing into their hearts, their dying cries filling the otherwise quiet sanctuary that was hidden deep inside of the Everlight woods.

The pure, pearlescent light of the Shaman’s ritual site made room for a pulsating, rich indigo colour, seeping through the intricate designs in the grassy mounds where their altar was situated. The veins of her magic broke through the barriers, and into their surroundings, splitting portions of the crisp white trees and breaking apart the rock formations, her roots planted firmly into their ceremonial site.

Coraline took a breath as her ritual had finished, the last of the old and forbidden language of the Nightmare Realm rolling off her tongue flawlessly. The darkness rolled in, breaking through the clear blue skies and bringing darkness into the Everlight lands for the first time in aeons. A laugh erupted from her as the darkness swirled around her person and lifted her into the sky, tickling her skin as she absorbed it all.

As she absorbed the entire Nightmare Realm.

Coraline returned home as the Queen of the Nightmare Realm, with the creatures at her command. She ruled her home with an iron fist, and used her dark magic to improve her home, she was both feared and celebrated all at once, as her realm bathed in the richness she demanded from other realms, who did not dare to upset the Queen of the Nightmare Realm, but instead gave her what she wanted and more, and asked for very little in return. Wherever she went, she left a trail of darkness, her magic so potent and so powerful, it wanted to spread and feast, and she encouraged it, because it made her reach and her strength so much more potent.

But still, her reflection did not change.

Coraline took a step back as she revisited the reflection in the mirror, the frail Queen still being devoured by the creature like she was nothing, like she would become nothing, like everything she had built would crumble and fall. 20 years from now, and there would be nothing left of the powerful Queen she was now, dying hopelessly, broken, a fragment of everything she had become. How was this possible?

Was this simply because of 20 years? Was it life that dealt her this blow, that 20 years from now, she would wither away into nothingness? Was this her fate, to die broken and alone, drained by an entity of the deep dark?

No, if she could not beat fate, if it would not take her challenge, she would find another challenge to conquer. If she could not beat fate, she would beat mortality. She would beat Death.

The ritual to summon him was not an easy one for her to find, even the Nightmare Realm did not have the answers she sought. They did not dabble in upsetting such powerful entities, and even they whispered in her ear that perhaps, she was going too far. But Coraline would not listen, she was determined, and she always got what she wanted. She did not crawl her way up from a frightened young girl on the streets of her home, only for her tempestuous life to end like this. She would be damned. If Death wanted her, he could come and take her now, while she was at the peak of her abilities, while she had the power of the Nightmare Realm at her fingertips.

She made her own ritual, night after night, days bleeding into weeks, weeks bleeding into months and months into years. She locked herself up in her ritual chambers in the dungeons of the castle, building at the perfect ritual to perform, tearing down the walls to make room for the intricate designs of her sigils as they covered the ceiling, walls and floors, ancient and long forgotten languages pulled out of the past and brought back to serve her.

Death was summoned, and he was trapped in her web of rituals, strung up and contained, but the chains would not last long, he was far too powerful for that. Her slender hand coiled tight around her trusted knife, the one she had buried deep into the King before her, and drove it into the chest of the God. She carved out his heart, and even now it kept beating. With trembling hands, she laid it down on her altar, and undressed for her final ritual. To join his heart with hers, to become a Goddess, to become immortal. She screamed as the ritual took hold, her entire body set aflame. The castle rumbled with the force of the power that echoed through her body, as she pressed her palms to her eyes, feeling them burn with the darkness that coursed through her veins, as though it tried to devour her from the inside. And then … Silence.

She had done what no man, no woman, no King or Queen had done. She had made the impossible possible. She had conquered Death. She took her blade and drove it into her chest and though it stung, it did not wound her, it did not kill her. She was eternal, she was everlasting.

Coraline rose to her feet, her skin feeling calm, and yet electric to the touch, like every part of her being was charged with this ethereal energy. The creaking of a parting door to her side caused her to look up, frowning at the hidden room that had revealed itself to her. It still bore the ritual markings she had carved into them with her magic, and she was certain there had not been a door there before. She stepped through and it shut firmly behind her, the light drained, but she was not afraid of the darkness. She was the darkness.

She smiled fondly at the mirror, the mirror that now, would surely show her as the Queen she was, resilient, victorious and eternal. It had been 20 years, this was her moment of truth.

The girl in the reflection had disappeared. Coraline frowned as she looked in the face of the creature she had seen before. She took a step closer and another, and really looked at it. Her eyes were gone, nothing remained but the pulsating indigo veins of magic that pulsated gently. Teeth blackened, consumed and destroyed. She was slender, so slender, nothing but a pale grey skin pulled over a walking skeleton. Coraline wailed, her haunting cries echoing back. Her cries were cut off by the presence of her niece, who appeared as a shadow beside her, slinking through her to position in front of the mirror, as Coraline watched her niece enter the antique shop she had visited 20 years ago.

She opened her mouth to speak, to demand, to cry for help, but only a rattle came out. She was hungry, so hungry.

She rested her gnarled left hand on her niece’s shoulder, and with the sharp talons of her right hand, she tore into the neck of the reflection. The silvery wisp that emerged from her neck danced in the sky, and she parted her crooked lips to consume it. Consume her hopes and dreams, consume her confidence, consume her self image.

She consumed her soul.