You were told to come here at exactly midnight in a note written in red ink that you found placed on your messy desk. When you read it, it brought you into a state of unease but still you came and now your eyes are forced to stare upon this grisly sight. The woman lying on the pillow is wearing red satin gloves but what stands out is the loose-fitting black dress she wears drenched in blood. There are streams of blood coming from her skin like rivers of sweat after a day of an intense workout at the gym. Yet, you wonder what injury is the worst offender that leaves this lifeless body drowning in an ocean of red.

Surrounding her body are rose petals along with shards of…you move closer and see mirror shards amongst the roses. Your body shivers as the chill in the room knocks on you for passage. Or perhaps it’s the chill of death searching for a new victim. Either way, the cold makes a home in you. Rubbing your upper arms you hope to force it out but it does nothing so you pull the strings of your blood-red hood tighter as if that could force out the cold settling within you. Again, the cold stakes a claim in you.

The closer view of the body in front of you leaves you more puzzled than deductive. Like a puppeteer is controlling you, your hand reaches out to touch the body but soon you gain control back as you jerk it backward. If you touched the body you’d link yourself to the crime but then you remember the security cameras scattered throughout the property that have already caught sight of your inky black hair along with your crimson painted lips. Your face wasn’t unique for you shared it with another by the name of Snow. She was your twin sister who dyed her hair a sun-glow blonde when you were both fifteen so it’d be easier for people to tell you apart. Although in recent years, she’s gone back to her nature giving color but her hair was long like the list of men that revered her while yours was cut short like an act no one wanted to see.

You had to touch the body. It was the best way to get a closer look and maybe even solve this crime. This may be the first murder you stumbled into in a while but this wasn’t your first case. The first case you ever took was the Goldilocks murder where a strand of golden blonde hair was left behind at every scene. The victims were all members of an elite family known as the Bears who were being taken out one by one. Luckily, you caught the murderer, a young woman named Gail “Goldie” Collins who was conspiring with the family's biggest rivals to steal their massive fortune. While you were working the case, you became close with a bear's cousin by the name of Jett Bear who even had you work out a blackmail situation with him after you provided justice for his family. For a time, you were close with him and he dropped by your office almost every morning to bring you a strawberry tart along with a steaming cup of coffee. You remembered how sad you were one day when he told you that he was planning on leaving the small town of Wanderington to go back to his big city life back east. There was something you desperately wanted to tell him but words were never your strength. His plans in life changed, however, on a cold day when you were out investigating a case you deemed the glass slipper.

At your office that day was your sister Snow who sat in your worn desk chair reapplying her makeup and with just one look, Jett Bear had fallen in love. Men tended to fall for your sister in an instant and she was fully aware of the spells she’d cast upon their unsuspecting hearts but in that particular moment, your sister had the grace to cast the spell upon herself too. The wedding they had almost a year later was as showy and bland as their love yet every attendee ate up the sight like it was spicy blueberry pie day down at Wolf’s Blow Down, the best and only diner in town.

At the wedding, you were your sister’s shadow as her maid of honor and spent the whole time struggling to glue a smile on your face. You remembered the time after the wedding when you were helping her pull up her dress so she could pee. You stood there awkwardly holding up the train, clinging to it like it could transport you out of the bathroom stall.

“Rosie,” your sister said while half-sitting on the toilet bowl. “Did you remember the doves for my second entrance?”

“It’s hard to forget a van full of birds, Snow,” You responded in a cool tone, hoping your sister couldn’t tell the horrors you went through to round them up this morning after one of the cages accidentally opened.

“Great, and you also have the second pair of shoes right?”

“Yes, I have them in my bag. Are you sure you don’t want to change into your second outfit early?”

Snow shook her head and then finished up her business in the bathroom. She leaves the stall first and you follow behind her while still holding her train so it doesn’t get dirty. Stopping in front of a sink, she admires her reflection. It was always odd to you how your sister never appeared flawed. As a teen, when you started getting acne breakouts almost monthly your sister had flawless clear skin straight out of an air-brushed magazine ad. Sometimes you wondered if you were cursed to take on all the imperfections of you both. Whether it was acne breakouts, bruises and cuts from falling off bikes or whatever, or even a simple bug bite there was never any blemish on your sister's skin. Meanwhile, you were once bitten by a bee and had such a major reaction to it that your head grew three sizes. Even then at the wedding, as you gazed at your reflection in the bathroom mirror you looked exhausted and like a deflated balloon but the bride, oh, she looked as if every mirror in the universe had personally blessed her.

“No, I want to wear this dress as long as possible.”

And that she did. She didn’t change her dress until your fifth dance with Jett’s brother whose hands were getting too low for your liking. You remembered when you were so close to punching him and how the lovely couple danced beside you both with annoying knowing smiles.

“We might have a future wedding on our hands,” Snow giggled, sounding like a youth in a schoolyard telling someone they got cooties.

The posture of your already stiffened dance got stiffer as you looked over to Jett who stared at your sister with so much love and admiration in his eyes that it made you sick. As they danced away from you, you gripped Jett’s brother’s neck so hard that he cried out in pain.

A chiming sound is heard in the room, taking you away from the hostile dance your mind was stuck in. Coming aware of your surroundings again, you spot a wall clock that shows that it’s now one in the morning. Outside the door, you hear the sound of people talking in the hallway but their speech sounds slurred and rowdy as if they don’t plan on being there for too long. You tune them out, focusing on your previous intentions to flip the body over. Again, your hand goes outward but this time it grabs hold of the bloody shoulder and you flip the corpse over.

You recognize the face in an instant and why wouldn’t you as it was a mirror of your own.

“Snow,” you say, horrified, then back away.

The floor under your feet feels like it’s lifting up higher and higher till it tilts to a point where you have no choice but to fall. Minutes later after catching your frightful breaths, you get up and look towards the door as a means to escape this terrifying reality. Shaking your head, you refuse to believe it but you pick up her arm and wipe the blood to see the matching mirror tattoo she has on her wrist. From the tattooed mirror, drips blood that causes you to drop her arm in horror. It’s like a fog has been lifted from your eyes and you see that your sister is not wearing a dress but a garbage bag covered in blood. You also notice the bloody sweat covering her body are actually small precise cuts carved in her now blemished skin.

“Who could—“ you couldn’t finish the sentence.

You reach into the pocket of your red hood to pull out your phone, unable to see your sister in this state but your phone isn’t in your pocket. Instead, you feel a sharp pain and you pull out the offender to find a large mirror shard piece covered in blood…more blood than the tiny cut on your finger bleeds.