Olivia Briton was not a particularly special sixteen-year-old girl. She had a slightly pale complexion, but was not pasty. In fact, her pale skin gave her a sort of surreal glow.

"Hey, Tom!" she greeted her boyfriend in the hallway at school.

Tom smiled wryly at her. "Hey, Liv," he replied. Tom's smile crinkled his face, but did not show his teeth, nor did the smile spread quite to his eyes. "Oh yeah, that reminds me..." said Tom, rummaging in his backpack and withdrawing a thin, black box, "I got you a present."

Olivia beamed as he handed the box to her. "You remembered our one-month anniversary!" She gently removed the top of the box to reveal a necklace. The necklace consisted of a shimmering silver chain, and a pristine black stone that was carved into the shape of a heart. "It's beautiful!" Olivia gushed.

Tom's smile spread and he delicately removed the necklace from the box and placed it around Olivia's neck. The two hugged merrily, and parted ways.

At home, Olivia spent nearly an hour simply beaming at herself and her new necklace in the mirror.
Suddenly, Olivia spotted an abnormality in her reflection. There was a bit of dead skin hanging from her face. Olivia tenderly brought up her hand to the patch of skin, and pulled on it lightly. The skin easily peeled away, but it took with it a large patch of skin she did not mean to pull off, revealing a bloody surface underneath. Olivia's eyes widened in horror and she felt a queasy knot in her stomach. Olivia spotted numerous other spots of dry skin on her body now, and she worked to peel all those away as well, each time ripping off more skin than she meant to. After a while, Olivia was coated only with the deep red, bloody mass underneath her skin. Some of her bones even shone through this bloody flesh.

Olivia let out a blood-curling scream and cried, tears of hot, red blood, streaking down her contorted face. She could feel no external pain in her body, however. All she felt was the deep, deafening pounding of her heart-- Her blackened heart.

* * *
It had been two months since poor Olivia died. No one knew what had killed her -- Her parents had found her lying on the floor in front of her mirror, not a scratch on her glowing pale skin. Except, now of course, that glow that everyone had once admired was gone. Her dimmed body, void of life, had been buried in the ground, wearing her best dress, her favorite hairpin, and no necklace.

Tom stopped in the middle of the hallway, his girlfriend, Amy, huddled close to him as he spoke. "Oh yeah, that reminds me..." he said, that wry grin ever-present on his face, "I got you a present."