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Her nails were boring into her thighs. She couldn’t even feel them, yet she saw the red coming out of her skin, like weeds blooming through broken asphalt.
The funny liquid felt smooth between her fingers – almost like tomato sauce. She pressed harder into the flesh, drawing around her scars like every line meant something. She wondered what she could write.
Usually she did this for the pain, yet today she couldn’t even feel her fingers touching her thighs. It didn’t matter how hard she pressed or stabbed, she felt nothing except her rising heartbeat. It was the adrenaline that filled her veins, making her heart beat twice as fast.
Slowly her vision was getting blurry, the blood on her thighs dripped over her cuts and scars, passing over the bruises, like the liquid followed a path over the map of scars from the past. A dancer on a battlefield.
She liked her skin green and purple, it gave it a certain touch, making her feel like a warrior fighting for life. Yet today she felt sick to the stomach as she saw the colors combined on her skin. She felt like vomiting, and it was hard to not let the urge take over. Despite her body fighting to live, her mind had long ago given up.
It was getting louder as she gulped her own spit back down. Her ears filled with noise that wasn’t actually there. Realistically, she knew she was alone, but in her head it felt like she was drowning in a sea of crying babies. But ever so often she heard them, their shouting massacring the inside of her ears, sharp and wet, like a cucumber diced for a salad.
And finally some real pain, like she always craved for. A sweet headache. It started between her eyes, over her forehead to her temples until her whole head burned up. And for what she hoped to be the last time she enjoyed the pressure inside her skull. She closed her eyes and breathed into the pain, like the addict she was.
It was the first time in her life that she actually felt relieved. She was glad to leave, glad to finally go for her life would be far worse than death. Life had always been hard and all she could tell about the future was that it would be the same. It would get harder and harder and harder. So she knew her actions were right, she was convinced. Her life would simply get worse, only death could change her course.
She just hoped it would work, that those pills would kick in. She hoped she was finally free.
People thought their life would flash in front of their eyes before they died. She wondered if that was the case. But it was not. She felt only her heart beating, like a drum playing its own music. She listened, the only audience to a rhythm that meant death. It was beautiful, and she decided it would be her favorite song.
Sitting there, having done something irreversible, she would never have thought that remorse infested her mind. It was only one stupid second, one naive thought. Would life have been worth the suffering?
But the answer was no. Because she knew. She had suffered to know what it meant.
With her blood covered hand she reached for her head, as if reaching for the headache itself. She loved to have pain, she loved to torture herself, it was a silent addiction that no one but herself knew of. Closing her eyes, she scratched her fingernails over her scalp, mixing blood with blood.
She felt sorry for who would find her. The blood all over her, the wounds on her thighs. But she was too weak to clean up, not now anyway.
She seized, air fighting through her unwilling lungs.
Her fingers spasmed, her chest cramping. Her heart thumped against her chest, as if auditioning for a drama club. Her ribs felt like breaking.
Being dead shouldn’t feel like this. It hit her head on. So suddenly, it felt like her heart was stuttering, tripping over its own beats. Her lungs continued breathing, traitors inside her own body. Betrayal broke her heart. Her body, stupid and loyal, refused to follow her orders.
There was noise. It felt like her skull snapping and her chest cracking.
Her body was hysteric, as if it wanted to remain among the living, her heart beating like it was losing a race. It couldn’t seem to stop fighting – trying to catch up to the only other participant that was life.
With all her will, she tried to hold her breath, stopping her body from surviving. But fate didn’t see it her way, her lungs dragging in air and her heart making the blood flow.
Her eyes snapped open, light entering painfully. Her heart began beating faster – she hoped it would fail if it kept going faster.
Everything spun before her eyes. Colors mixed and blurred together like a bad oil painting.
There were hands on her body. Everywhere. Pure chaos.
The world trembled beneath her, like driving on a rocky road. Colors flashed. Noises roared. Untuned unintelligible sounds. The crying babies.
What was happening?
She tried to see, someone pressed her head back down.
She screamed, yet she couldn’t feel her mouth moving.
She tried to fight, kicking her feet and throwing her arms. It felt like a fight that was already lost.
There was pain. She thought she couldn’t feel pain anymore. A thrust up her spine.
Then there was a face. A fever dream? A woman’s pale face, wrinkled and grey hair, but not old. Like a ghost full of worries. She looked warm with motherly features.
Kill me, she pleaded. Was her mouth even moving? She couldn’t feel her tongue.
Hurt flashed inside brown eyes. But she wasn’t sorry.
Kill me fast. It was now an order, spat with urgency and hate. But she was ignored – the face gone. Had this been a hallucination?
Her body seized with every breath. She was exhausted.
Something was done to her and her sight faded. It had felt like a bad nightmare, she could only hope it wasn’t anything worse – say, reality.
She wouldn’t die that day. The babies kept crying.