Shattered Mirror [Rewriting]

Chapter 7 - Bottled Up

Corliss was aware of the people around her. People saying things she should probably listen to but she couldn't bring herself to even attempt paying attention. Shadows passed before her eyes, concerning themselves with each other and, every so often, bending over her. They touched her, hands brushing gently over her arm or back but Liss refused to look at them. She knew what they'd say to her and she didn't want to hear the words. What she wanted was time to herself to nurse her emotional and physical wounds yet they wouldn't give her that type of peace. So instead, Liss sunk deep into her head and simply pretended the people around her didn't exist. The protective wall she'd built up around herself to deal with being shot were crumbling underneath the weight of the latest tragedy that had wrapped itself around her life like a spiked blanket. It wouldn't be long before she finally cracked under the pressure. The thought brought tears to her eyes as yet a few more stones turned to dust and she barely refrained the urge to curl further into herself. Putting on the facade that she was strong once mattered to Liss but now she couldn't care less. She wasn't strong enough to deal with being shot, nearly dying, being resurrected and then nearly raped with only a flinch as a reaction. And that was fine. She knew and understood that she was allowed to feel like she was drowning, what she didn't know was how she was supposed to break through the surface. How she was supposed to deal with what had happened. It was easy for people to say it was alright, it would get better but none of it had happened to them. None of them had three villains on their tail, hell bent on making her life a misery before they finally showed enough mercy to end her life. The pressure behind Liss' eyes grew heavier and she clenched her lids shut in an attempt to foil the sob building in her throat like a solid ball of stone.

"Liss?" Bavita's voice was tiny but close and Liss felt the urge to push the seeress away, to lash out at her for not adhering to her desire for quiet. Instead, the writer remained painfully quiet. She could feel the Indian watching her before she turned away, addressing the others instead, "Do we know who attacked her?"

"Looked like our teacher," Nom replied, her voice hushed as if she didn't want Liss to hear her.

"Male or female?" this time it was Aaron who spoke, his voice unchanged and emotionless. Liss thought it would irritate her but instead it brought her a calm she needed, cutting off her own emotions before they could swallow her into an abyss so deep she doubted she'd ever make it out again.

"A guy. He looked like Mr Finnegan," Nom couldn't keep the frown from her face as she once again looked at Liss, willing the girl to respond to anything but to whatever was going on in her head.

"Seth," Aaron stepped forward, the shadow he was in slicing through half his torso giving off the effect that everything below his waist was non-existent. The name made Liss flinch, her body set in motion without her brain's permission. She felt herself rise, felt her feet pad down the well-known hallway that led to her room, heard the door shut behind her and then nothing. Late afternoon sunlight streamed through her lace curtains, bathing the room in stretched out floral patterns that wrapped around her furniture like vines. Liss had hoped the silence of her room, the familiarity of it would chase the cold in her bones away. Would give her some sort of hope but it didn't. All it did was remind her how much her life had changed since that fateful day she'd come home. It made Liss' emotions surface again and tears leaked down her cheeks in steady streams as she embraced the breakdown she'd known was fast approaching. Memories, vivid and demanding, pressed into her mind and forced her legs to give way under her, her arms barely managing to break her fall. The bruises on her back and legs screamed in protest serving only to force out the sob from behind the lump in her throat as she buried her face into the fluffy bedside mat she owned. Liss' body shook with sob after painful sob, a weak attempt to let out the feelings swirling violently around her heart. She stayed like that for a long time, crying and digging her nails into the floor, fighting with herself, with the pain, with the things she'd had to go through because she'd deleted a few stories. How was it fair, Liss wondered, that she should be punished for a crime she hadn't even known she'd committed? How had throwing unfinished stories aside been a crime? Why did she have to pay? Her sorrow mixed with terror quickly turned to an unquenchable rage. She refused to understand why she should die for exercising a right she had to cast away a novel she didn't want to complete. It made her want to stand and face both her heroes and her villains, to tell them exactly what she thought of their opinions on the matter. A thought, however, niggled its way through the fog of hate and anger veiling her mind and the emotions were gone as quickly as they'd sparked. No, Liss hadn't known her characters existed and that tossing them in the bin would hurt their feelings and make them want to seek revenge but the bad guys she'd created didn't need a reason to want to kill. They simply did. Without remorse. It's why they were the bad guys. That alone made her sick to the stomach, her fear now tainted with sadness coiling around her throat and choking her. A second crying session nearly claimed her but a knock at the door wrenched her back from the edge she was teetering on.