Like Walnuts and Black Licorice // The Countess x Ramona Royale

A state of melancholy

The emptiness one feels in a state of melancholy is arguably different from the emptiness that follows death. While the brain may numb out certain feelings due to an insufferable amount of sadness when alive, one is still able to feel pain, the rush of blood into one's cheeks, one's heart beating.

After death there is, in the truest sense of the word, nothing. Turning into a ghost means leaving one's body with all its functions that signify life, and moving instead into an empty shell that still has the ability to think and move, both visibly and in the shadows of the afterlife, but the lack of feeling... basically anything makes it a pretty miserable existence.

The shots still rang in her ears when Elizabeth stared down at her lifeless body pierced with bullets. An endless jarring sound repeating over and over, seemingly ready to bust her eardrums at any given moment. But it didn't. She was already dead. She did not feel physical pain. That pain stopped as soon as her consciousness transitioned from her living organism to her spirit form.

The emotional pain, however, of realizing that this had been her last chance to escape and she didn't make it, that pain felt piercing. And though there was no pumping organ anymore, she could still feel that pain where her heart used to be.

And she still felt the wetness of the tear rolling down her cheek as she watched her body being taken away.

This was it. There was no going back, no escaping. She was stuck in this place till the end of time.

Immortality was one thing. It allowed her to live life for as long as she pleased, go outside, experience things she enjoyed, experience people and feel all the sensations and emotions that came along with it. It allowed her to remain a presence, even now that her movies weren't played anymore. People still saw her in real life, were intrigued by her, wanted to get to know her, experience her. She was somebody. She had purpose. Even if said purpose was often muddled with distractions, with unhealthy coping mechanisms for internal issues she was unwilling to address. There had always been something to live for.

Until now.

Elizabeth's fingers grazed the blood stains on her white coat where the bullets had hit as she looked into the mirror. There was no emotion on her face. It was almost scary how little she felt at all.

Almost as if in trance, her eyes followed her hand's movements unbuttoning the coat and pulling it apart. She watched her fingers brush over the bullet wounds but there was no pain. Not even a burn. She wished there was a burn.

There was a gilded envelope on her bed when she returned to her bedroom. A note from James, inviting her to dinner. She felt the wetness of another tear rolling down her cheek. And another one. And another one, as the glooming reality hit of what this meant. What this meant for the rest of eternity.

Elizabeth took the note and ripped it apart, throwing the little bits and pieces away as she dropped onto the bed, screaming in agony. A woman could only be pushed so far and Elizabeth was way over the edge at this point.

She had suffered a lot of heartbreak in her lifetime. Lost a lot of people she cared deeply about. And taken the lives of people she pretended to care about.

But never had she lost as many people dear to her in as short an amount of time as she had within the past 48 hours.

Never had she felt so much resentment directed at her from so many people she used to trust, at the same time. People whom she had given much to, people whose lives she had saved. A network of vulnerable, lonely people she had built to offer them security, had turned against her. She had no one left.