2 A.M. Silence | ✓

05 | heartless, they say

With no perception of time
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DIANA WAS MAKING lemonade in the kitchen when her mother walked down the stairs.

She didn't realize it, but her knife came down harder on the lemon at the sight of her mother. Her lips twitched at the usual cigarette in her mother's hand.

"Lemonade?" Diana offered stoically.

Her mother didn't even acknowledge her and poured herself a glass of wine instead.

"Making lemonade instead of making yourself useful," her mother scoffed, perfectly manicured nails tapping the glass in her hand.

Diana's grip on the knife tightened. She looked at her mother with a cold glare, "Drinking alone on a Sunday morning?"

Her mother slammed the glass of wine down. "For God's sake! What did I do to deserve a daughter like you?" she yelled, the veins on her forehead looking like they were about to pop.

She dramatically rubbed her forehead, sighing as if she was in a dilemma.

"Dear, stop looking at me with that bitter face of yours, it's stressing me out," she said. "What did I say about smiling more often?"

Diana wanted to stab something.

"Your father came and went again," her mother said sourly. "He never appreciates what's right in front of him. Like me! He'd rather be off screwing that ugly secretary of his! A secretary, for god's sake! "

Annoyance flooded over Diana as she bit back, "Well maybe if you didn't whine all the time-"

Her mother slapped her, a swift motion that hardly surprised Diana. She had expected it, almost wanted it. "Shut up," her mother snarled.

Diana snapped her head back, the voices in her head shrieking louder than they had ever have before. She felt like a different person, her mind losing all control to the voices.

Without thinking, Diana snapped her arm out and gripped her mother's wrist tightly. "Hit me again," she hissed. "I dare you." A dark rage suddenly dawned on her, brewing a storm in the air around her. The rational part of her began to shrink away, holding onto reason by just a finger.

Diana's eyes burned with a fury so close to insanity, a flicker of worry flashed through her mother's eyes before it was quickly replaced by anger.

"What the hell has gotten into you?" she demanded, twisting against Diana's hold, "Let go of me!"

The pounding in Diana's mind was like a drug to her. She relished in the madness that sizzled in the air. Her grip became tighter and her vision spotted with flashes of dark red that matched the rhythm of the triumphant screeches in her head.

But then she thought of Kienna Matthews. She thought of her words that had haunted her that night, there's more to life than just this, Diana. Diana saw those familiar broken eyes fade into her mind, heard the soft whispers of a world beyond this. In that split second, Kienna's hopeful smile reminded Diana that she had a choice, a choice to make herself better.

Blinking, Diana gazed at her mother through clouded eyes and retracted her hand.

The flashes in her vision slowly cleared away and Diana took steady deep breaths to calm the pounding in her head. Diana wanted to be good. If not for herself, then for Kienna and the world that waited for her. If Kienna could do it, so could she.

Her hand shook from the thrill, desperate for the power it held moments before.

But Diana resisted. She resisted the itching urge in her hand, resisted the demanding screams in her hand, resisted the darkness that had spread in her soul. She closed her eyes and let herself breathe.

In and out, in and out, in and out -

"You've gone mad," her mother exclaimed, wringing her wrist. She looked down at Diana in disgust, "No wonder your father is never around, you fucking psycho!"

Just like that, the flip switched. Her resistance died away and the screeches took over. Diana's vision flashed once again, this time a much darker red. It was like lightning had struck a calming storm and she felt herself lose it all. She lost herself to the dreadful voices, to the insatiable screeching in her mind.

Before she knew what she was doing, her hand was on the knife and it was suddenly buried in her mother's stomach.

Her mother gasped, choking on her own spit as she looked down at the blood that seeped out of her.

Diana's eyes flared with anger. She pulled the knife out and stabbed her mother again, just for good measure.

Incoherent sounds escaped her mother's lips as she lifted her head to gaze at her daughter, eyes blinking rapidly to stay awake.

It was then, as she held her mother's dying gaze that Diana Walker smiled. It was a sight so wicked and so devastating, her mother flinched away.

"Aren't I pretty now, mother?" she whispered, her voice unrecognizably calm and quiet.

Diana looked into her mother's wild eyes. She saw years of pain and abuse, saw years of neglect and mistreatment. Her mind pounded in delight, because her mother was finally at her mercy.

But a person, no matter how evil, when at the hands of death will be stripped down to their purest form. And for Diana's mother, it was that of a mother's instinct. 

"I'm sorry," her mother choked out. Those dark green eyes that were once clouded by hatred, jealousy, and betrayal cleared away into fading lights of sadness, regret, and pain. Underneath it all was just another shell broken by the unforgiving world.

And it surprised Diana when her mother's fingers twitched against her hand as she leaned in and rasped, "I love you." Diana recoiled, staring at the tear that fell out of those familiar green eyes and for a second, confusion cleared her vision and made her hesitate. Her mother's fading eyes held an overwhelmingly pure emotion that she had never seen before, it was as if she was looking at a different person.

But the voices that rang in her head pulled her back in, disturbing her vision once again with flashes of red. Like a switch, Diana twisted the knife and her mother fell limp just as the voices in her head fell dead silent.

Silence had become a foreign concept to Diana. When she was alone, she lost her mind to the voices that controlled her. When she was with crowds, she tried to use their noise to drown out the ones in her head. Yet nothing worked because the screeches continued on and it took everything in Diana to not scream out loud.

She stepped back and let out a deep breath. As she looked at her mother's still body, she felt no guilt or fear for what she had done. She felt...at peace because for once, the voices died away into complete and utter silence.

Blood dripped from her fingertips to the polished wooden floor. She took the glass of wine her mother had been drinking and took a sip, her hands staining the clear glass. Exhilaration ran through her veins, dashing down her body at the command of the mind she had lost.

She leaned back against the counter, causing the lemon she had been cutting earlier to roll off the table and towards her mother's limp hand. Diana wondered what would have happened if her mother would have just accepted the damned lemonade.

Well, when life gives you lemons...she thought, the morbid joke making her laugh.

Her mother's lifeless eyes pierced straight into the dark void in Diana's chest where her heart should have been.