Beyond Christmas : World War Elf (A Santa Clause Fan fiction)

Chapter 7: Shut your mouth

!!TRIGGER WARNING!!: talk of self harm.

(A/N): I've felt the need to express and vent through my writing why I've been s*lf h*rming as of late as a step towards trying to stop it. Not only has it become a habit, but also an addiction. At first it began when I lost four family members to death in 2017, and my mother and I began getting into big arguments and I felt as though she hated me. I was at my lowest then, and turned to this as a coping mechanism. Though as years went by, I became so used to it I began using it for smaller, more insignificant things, such as being embarrassed in a public situation or accidentally hurting one of my friends. I actually wrote Carbon as a reflection of myself. I've recently been trying my hardest to not do these things, and next on the list is drinking and smoking, these two are due to the environment I was brought up in. Since I'm so young (16 years old), I fear for my future if I continue these things. That is why I'm trying to do something about.

And I urge you, if any of you are feeling the same way, talk to a friend, loved one, or trusted adult, and ask them to get you the help you need.

-

20 November, 2004

Bernard hadn't woken like he did the morning before. The morning before then he hadn't woken himself, but instead was woken by another. The only other could've been Carbon and having been woken by someone with stitches in their face was sure to give him a slight turn. That's why he was relieved to have woken himself up, ten minutes earlier than he was supposed to.

The night before, Carbon had fallen asleep on his lap. He decided against trying to lift her into her bed, as he didn't want to drop her from such a height, so he simply decided to grab the woolen blanket from her bed and throw it over her for the night.

Strangely enough, when he had gotten out of his bed, he came to find that Carbon was no longer on the sofa. Bernard instinctively took in his surroundings as to find her whereabouts and came to find that the bathroom door was slightly ajar, and the light was on. He figured that she had decided to have a shower this morning, considering she fell asleep before she could have one last night. What made him approach the door and push it open slightly was the fact that he couldn't hear any water running.

Carbon was stood at the mirror, uniform pants on but her top half was nearly bare since she had only bothered with her midriff sports tank top. Before her was a medical kit, and it looked as though she was preparing to clean something.

"O-oh, I'm sorry," Bernard apologized as his face flushed red and he went to leave.
"No, you're right mate, just cleaning the wounds," Carbon demurred, pouring medical alcohol onto a cotton swab as she brought it up to the stitches on her face.

Bernard decided against closing the door to give her privacy, and instead stood from it staring at her reflection in the mirror. She hadn't said anything about the stitches on her face to him and given that fact he figured it to be a personal or traumatic matter. But in that moment, he just couldn't keep himself from asking,

"What happened that gave you those stitches?"

Carbon was silent for a moment, contemplating whether or not she wanted to say anything about it. With a soft sigh, she continued cleaning her wound and answered,

"I don't know, existential crisis."

Bernard felt his stomach drop a little.

"You mean...you did that to yourself?"

"Yeah. I've done a lot to myself," she said as she held up a wrist without looking at the boy, exposing the scars that covered it from top to bottom, "I kill myself more and more every day, inside and out. But recently I've been a lot better with self-harm, thanks to my friends. Now it's just smoking and drinking, but it'll be ages before that kills me," she chucked the used swab into the bin beside the sink before she began preparing another, "I've become a lot happier with who I am as a person now. But that being said, I don't think it'll ever be enough."