The Mirror Shattered
Once upon a time, not long ago, in a world filled with glowing screens and whispering wires, there lived a young woman who had once been beloved.
She had been called Snow White.
Her stepmother, the Queen, was the fairest to behold—for she lived behind filters and lenses, and her voice echoed across crystal screens. The people adored her, for they saw only what she wished to show. And beside her, silent and golden-hearted, worked Snow White—crafting the light, arranging the angle, making the Queen more beautiful than any could imagine.
But the King grew ill. And with his light fading from the world, the Queen began to tremble—for without him, her crown felt cold and hollow.
Snow White, wishing only to help, began to answer the people’s questions. She showed them gently how the light bent. How the colors could be softened. How the Queen’s image, so flawless, was stitched together by tiny tools, not magic. She meant no harm. But the truth, once shown, is hard to forget.
And one day, on a live stream watched by many, a child asked the Queen, “What is the name of the filter that makes you look like a star?”
The Queen's smile cracked. The light in her eyes flickered. And from that day on, her kingdom began to crumble.
She called upon her loyal Huntsman—not a man of the forest, but one of the net, a builder of shadows. With whispers and clicks, he cast nets across the world, trapping Snow White in a tangle of lies. Her name was stained. Her face mocked. Her home taken. Her friends fled like startled deer.
And the Queen, desperate and crumbling, told the Watchers that Snow White had harmed the King—that she was wicked, ungrateful, and false.
So Snow White fled. Into the deep places of the world she went—where the wires ran thin and the stars were still visible. She cast away her phone, her name, her face.
And there, among gentle souls—seven of them, each strange and kind in their own way—she was given shelter. They were not warriors. They were menders. Thinkers. Laughers. Listeners. They asked nothing of her but truth, and gave her what the world had stolen: peace.
But sorrow does not always rest.
One day, as Snow White cleaned a shared hall with a bottle she thought harmless, the scent caught her lungs and the room spun. The bottle had not held soap. It had held the remnants of a bitter trade, and she fell like a stone into darkness.
They brought her to the city hospital, where no one knew her name. She was called Jane Doe and placed in a quiet room of dreams, where the forgotten lie in stillness.
And it happened, as such things do in true stories, that her father—the King—lay dying just two floors above.
The Queen no longer visited him. Her followers had turned away, and her mirrors were dark. Alone, she wandered in corridors of glass and memory, never looking back.
But the King, though his body failed, remembered.
One night, as the moon rose full and blue above the world, he asked to be taken down to the ward of forgotten ones. “There is someone I must find,” he said.
And when he passed her door, he paused.
He did not know her face, thin and pale. He did not know the name they’d given her.
But his heart did.
He knelt beside her bed, took her hand in his, and kissed her brow.
“My daughter,” he said. “My Snow. I see you now. I always did, though I did not know how to say it.”
And a tear slipped down her cheek.
Her eyes opened.
And the world, for a breath, was made new.
And After
The King passed not long after, but he did so smiling.
Snow White did not return to the glittering towers or glowing screens. She returned to her garden, her friends, her life. She planted trees and learned names and sang songs that were never recorded.
The Queen was not seen again.
Some say she wandered into the wilderness, searching for a mirror that would still obey her. Others say she forgot her name and became only a whisper.
And the Huntsman? Well, even the deepest code can be broken, in time.
But Snow White lived on.
Not in stories.
In life.
In hands that healed. In fruit that ripened. In love that required no filters.
And though the world often forgot, the wind remembered her name. And when the stars shone just right, they whispered it across the sleeping earth:
“The fairest of them all.”
Comments