Madness

chapter 10- violet (part one)

Three times..." Elena was barely aware that she had murmured the words out loud.

It felt like an echo not a voice.

Still wearing the same half frightened, half mad expression, Elena found herself being greeted by the same sallow grey road they had previously been on. Everything around her seemed to slow down as she focused her eyes.

The clouds had rolled back so the late afternoon sky could be seen, revealing the drunken siblings further. They were already out of place as it was. Did no one notice the two appear out of nowhere? How could they not?

"Did that... Did that really happen?" Frank breathed. She nodded, slightly.

"Bloody hell," he exclaimed. "Why didn't you..." He halted, suddenly very aware of their surroundings.

"Come on, Frank," she murmured, faintly. "We look right mad. They're staring-"

His faceless expression silenced her. "We need to find somewhere to stay then we'll talk 'bout this," he mumbled. "You should've told me."

Elena's mind adjusted to the world before her like blood passing through water. Somehow the world before her was much greyer now. How could everything seem so normal when everything was so wrong?

The world now wore a bleak, miserable mask. The scuffles of shuffling feet, the sigh of the wind and the snickering leaves gained a new life to her. What if the times she had thought someone was calling her name it hadn't really been apart of her imagination? What if the fleeting shadow she saw in the corner of her eye or the creeping breaths down her neck had been real? An entirely new, unfamiliar sense took over her.

Wait...Does that mean magic exists? What about all those movies- are they based of reality? Her gaze flickered over to a short, round woman with tight, bouncy curls. I wonder how many people know about this magic.

3 times. 3 times. The words passed through her mind as a continuous loop. Trailing against her memory, Elena felt herself shiver as the echo of the words came to a slow halt. A disordered thrust of questions whirled throughout her mind, thudding against her saneness. If only there had been more time...

Her stomach twisted as she caught her misty reflection in the window of the inn. It wasn't her. Somehow, she looked a lot more twisted and manic. Elena's brown eyes had lost all colour. They had darkened into lifeless, soulless slits. Something a lot further away then black. It held an endless depth of sorrow, pain and a hint of malice. They were a type of darkness that they weren't before. Bottomless. In desperation, Elena searched for that bottom. The bottom of the grief and splintered lie she was wearing.

"Frank!" She cried in a hushed tone. "Where my eyes always this...this lifeless?"

"What?" His voice was grief worn and pained which instantly made Elena's heart sink. If she had a heart. Guilt shadowed over her.

"Sorry- it's nothing," she swallowed hard, a loose attempt to rid of the swelling mixture of regret, fear and ache.

Why did she worsen everything? She was doing everything wrong. So wrong.

He's already lost his father and because of me he's lost my mother. I can't feel that pain and it only worsens everything. Deep down, I know he hates that I don't remember.

Soon after, they retreated to the car in defeat. After a few minutes of driving aimlessly, Elena found herself by a slight, inexpensive inn. Orchid Inn. Somehow, the inn wasn't substantial to many and they quickly walked past as if it didn't exist with an arrogant, stuck up air about them. Oddly enough, Elena felt the same way about herself. Like the inn she didn't 'fit in' with society's expectations and was dismissed, haughtily. If you pretend the problem isn't there it'll just disappear. Another creeping thought edged through her mind, that's because you're a monster.