The Light Sees Beneath The Damage

The afternoon light is unforgiving. It finds every new line, every shadow the disease carved while you slept.

You stand before the mirror, searching for the person you were yesterday, and the face staring back feels like a stranger's. It is the long middle of the day, where the mask of morning has slipped and the exhaustion is plain to see.

But the light does not flinch from what it finds in the glass. It shone on the leper when his skin was breaking, and it shines on you now, unchanged by the decay.

The face you fear is not the one the light sees. It sees the drop of itself hidden beneath the damage.

The disease can alter the surface, but it cannot touch the root. You are still the image of the Immortal, even when the mirror says otherwise.