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VibesInTheSubstrate t1_ixv45e7 wrote

Reply to comment by ChristopherCooney in [WP] The . . . creature . . . has been following you for weeks now, but nobody else can see it. It just sits there, staring, grinning. Then one day you look across the coffee shop and see a young woman with another one right behind her. Your eyes meet . . . by ImmortalJadeEye

Aww, I bet it was always smiling because it was trying to be friendly and non-threatening.

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ChristopherCooney t1_ixv98x9 wrote

I imagined the apparition as two things - both as someone who is struggling with mental illness and mental illness itself, based on some of my own (meager) experiences. The smiling was both the fake smile of someone suffering, desperately trying to hide it and so forcing the expression, and it ultimately seeming hollow, insincere and indeed frightening, and at the same time, the horror of looking within and finding something terrifying staring back at you (i.e the reflections on surfaces).

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