Here's the thing about immortality they don't put on the label: your body becomes a stage prop. You can fall from a staircase, have your neck twisted like a bottle cap, or take an axe to the ribcage—and you'll still wake up. Polishing. Patching. Spraying silver paint over the cracks. But the cracks are still there.
...was being forgotten while still alive.
Madeline and Helen understood this better than anyone. They didn't just want to live forever. They wanted to be looked at forever. So they drank the potion, stepped through the looking glass, and bought eternity on an installment plan of pure spite.
They say youth is a gift. They lie. Youth is a loan—compound interest due the second you stop looking in the mirror.
The Long, Ugly Beautiful Lie
