I, psycho.

Chapter Twenty-one

Sorry for the day-late delay. I was super swamped.

Here's an especially long chapter for my lovely lovelies.

I missed those days, I thought dragging a hand across my face, when my smile was real.

I stared into the mirror listlessly.

My eyes were blank, seeing nothing, revealing nothing.

My face was pale, hallow like the deads, my skin was pallor white and my lips were chapped and broken yet, there was a smile on my face.

Yes, a blinding, white smile because I had learnt that there was nothing, no amount of .. pain, of .. anguish, that a smile could not hide.

Today though, it was sickening to see this.. to see me.

To behold my reflection, mine, though it was.

Turning my back to the mirror, I bent over the toilet, put my hands into my mouth and proceeded to vomit the impurities that I'd eaten when I was not it control, what I could anyway.

When I could vomit no longer, I stood and walked into the shower.

Hot, I thought, pressing the botton.

Hotter.

As hot as it could go.

Only when it was scalding and my skin was red was I content.

I didn't bother with soap, I had enough I me to last ages, I just stood under the torrent of hot water, willing it to wash me.

Needlessly to say, it did not.

When I finally turned off the shower, I was no cleaner than I'd been when I'd stepped in the first place.

Some days, I thought of what my life would be like if I erased my memory.
If there was no me in me, if what made Adolorata Adolorata was no longer there, what would it be like? Feel like?

If there was no pain, no constant distress, no panicky fear and urge to run and hide, no... No me.

What would this vessel be like?

But then I remember. I remember that those are the wrong questions.
I did not make myself into what I was.
The problem, funny enough, was definitely not me.

I might not remember it well enough, the memory might be fuzzy in my brain but I remember well enough to know that at some point in my life..I was okay.

Not pained, not tormented, not shackled by my own shadows... Not afraid. Not insane.

Funny, I was always the one shouting how normal being insane was, how it wasn't a big deal..

Yeah, fucking liar.

I straightened out the letter crumpled and wet in my fist as I slid down to the bathroom floor.

My eyes ran through the words, intelligible now, knowing them by heart at this point.

"I tried to stop her. I tried, G. Two were able to escape, the rest... I buried them, it's not your fault, it's not your fault, it's not your fault. They said I shouldn't tell you but I figured you'd want to know before, before you dreamed it. Sorry"

I swore as I drew into myself and tucked my face in my knees.

There I laid, shivering on the tiled ground of my bathroom as I tried to breath through what my alter had done, what I had done.

Two hours.

I stayed there for two hours.

By the time I stood up, my body was stiff with cold and numb with unreleased pain.