My inner demon

Chapter one

Solitary water droplets race down the window of my room and fall onto the streets below, reuniting with each other once more. My alarm clocked flashed at 11:32 pm, reflecting off the windows and onto the wall, creating intricate patterns behind my bed. An uncontrollable pounding echoed through my head as if something was trying to escape, but I couldn't quite figure out what, and the distant sounds of car horns and shouting from the streets below me forced my body into an unwilling sense of consciousness. The springs in my mattress cried out as I carefully got out of bed, reluctant to waking Elliot as he was only inches away from me. My vision blurry, I delicately stumbled into the kitchen, guided by the lights from the city that never sleeps. As I reach for a drink, the darkness catches up to me and I collapse onto the ground, shortly followed by the half-empty glass I was in the process of filling moments before, leaving fragments of shattered glass around my limp body.

In what feels like seconds, I regain consciousness and find myself lying on the floor of my bathroom, my clothes drenched in what I can only assume to be water. The lingering smell of freshly cooked pancakes crept in through under the door and caused me to vomit a grey gloop over my nightshirt: adding to the mess I have already made. Eventually, I manage to haul my weak body into a standing position but I end up having to rest my hands onto the rim of the sink in the fear of falling once more. I slowly lift my head into the view of the lightly fogged mirror above the sink and I am met with an almost stranger. My once dark brown, tightly curled hair is relatively straight and instead of framing my smooth face, it hangs against it: limp and lifeless. My upturned, emerald green eyes are now bloodshot and more shamrock and mossy than usual, and my thick eyelashes that complimented the emerald, are now thin and messy. Everything about me seems so familiar, yet so different. As I further examine the stranger which is me, I notice a row of four cuts along my collarbone in the arrangement of a mark made by an animal, each unique in length and size. On my hands, which tightly grip onto the edge of the sink, are more cuts, smaller ones to those on my collar but all equally painful to each other. Various questions rush into my head as if the dam keeping thoughts out of my mind had finally crumbled. Why have I got these cuts on me? Did I do it or is someone else involved. Tears erupt from my eyes and pour down my pale cheeks and onto my cuts: causing me to grimace at the slightest movement. On the verge of collapsing from the newly emerging pain, I hear a soft call of my name coming from outside the door, followed by the twist of the door handle.

'Andi, can I come in?' Elliot asked me in a soft tone that only made me cry more. As he entered the room, he found me leaning over the sink; covered in tears, blood, and my own vomit. The reasons he did this, I am unsure of, but regardless of my current state, he wrapped his soft hands around my waist and pulled me in tight: hugging me from behind. A sense of safety rushed through me like a puff of cold air and he whispered into my ear, telling me everything will be ok. Our eyes met in the mirror, mine stayed still as the salted tears were still violently falling but his trailed down to my various cuts along my body and I could tell he was also hurting. He swung me around, almost causing me to pass out once more from the unwanted movements, and further inspected them. He delicately trailed his index finger around the cuts, trying to figure out why they were there and what caused them. But by doing this, he also caused me great pain in which I showed him through the various cries and flinches I made throughout his inspection. After finishing his inspection, he turns to the bath and twists both taps in equal amounts, and places the rusted plug tightly into the drain. I slowly begin to undress, starting with my nightshirt which now had not only water on it but also a concoction of blood, vomit, and tears. As I carefully remove it from around my neck, I discover more cuts along my stomach in the form of an uneven 'X' which is bordered in dried mahogany-colored blood. I promptly turned around and wrapped my arms around my stomach as I don't want to scare Elliot further but by doing this, he notices and once again turns me around.

As I look up at his face, I notice his deep brown eyes are accompanied by a stream of tears about to fall onto his freckled cheeks. I try to comfort him but I am lost for words so I pull him in for a hug which felt as if it lasted for years and I didn't want it to stop. He was the one to stop the hug, as both of us knew that if he didn't, nobody would. I finished getting undressed and carefully stepped into the bathtub which Elliot had just made moments before. As each cut touched the lukewarm water, I let out an ear-piercing cry for even the slightest increase in heat from the water caused me an unbearable amount of pain but I continued to softly rub the water against my cuts with a damp sponge Elliot gave me from the kitchen. After only a few minutes, I noticed that the water has gone from being clear to having an almost brown tint to it from all the blood I removed from around the cuts. I slowly slide down deeper into the bathtub, closer to the surface of the water and as I do that, my face is drained with all colour it might've had and my vision disappears once again...