[Her features are finely drawn and elegant, at least as much of them as is visible over the gauze mask as she turns her face away from Hakkai and towards Sharak instead.
Her head tilts in the other direction, and she repeats, "Am I pretty?"
Hakkai's expression is only curious as he crosses around the sofa and gets a closer look at the girl. She's dressed in a standard high-school uniform, but her hair hangs as loose as a ghost's, tangled and long enough that she's sitting on part of it. In her right hand, she's clutching a pair of rusty scissors. Her knuckles are white with the force of her grip.
He says, mildly, experimentally:]
Yes, you are.
[The girl's attention snaps back to him, and she pulls down her mask, revealing a face that's...
... normal? At first Hakkai thinks there's nothing wrong with her face at all, but then he can see a gaping, blood-crusted wound splitting her cheeks wide open to show teeth and tongue in the darkness of her mouth. And then nothing, again, a girl's face -- a woman's face, gashed -- a girl's face.
She smiles, and the smile is normal and pretty for an instant before it becomes a horror.
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Her head tilts in the other direction, and she repeats, "Am I pretty?"
Hakkai's expression is only curious as he crosses around the sofa and gets a closer look at the girl. She's dressed in a standard high-school uniform, but her hair hangs as loose as a ghost's, tangled and long enough that she's sitting on part of it. In her right hand, she's clutching a pair of rusty scissors. Her knuckles are white with the force of her grip.
He says, mildly, experimentally:]
Yes, you are.
[The girl's attention snaps back to him, and she pulls down her mask, revealing a face that's...
... normal? At first Hakkai thinks there's nothing wrong with her face at all, but then he can see a gaping, blood-crusted wound splitting her cheeks wide open to show teeth and tongue in the darkness of her mouth. And then nothing, again, a girl's face -- a woman's face, gashed -- a girl's face.
She smiles, and the smile is normal and pretty for an instant before it becomes a horror.
"What about now?"]