I feel like I keep being dragged down, like someone tied a ball and chain to both my legs and cast the ball to the dark depths of the unknown.
No!
I guess this is my punishment for everything I’ve done; being subjected to the dark where I’m barely existing, barely alive, barely breathing through the torment.
But I didn’t do what I did on purposes. I didn’t choose to be a bitch to people, they provoked me!
Please, make this stop!
I toss to the left, biting my tongue to hold off the cry trapped in my chest.
“Mia, the wages of sin, is death.”
I freeze as soon as I hear the gloomy echoed voice.
Mom!
She used to say that! And now, after killing her, her words are coming to life.
It’s not every day that you find out that you are the reason behind every shitty thing to ever happen to your family, so it’s not like I have reference points to learn from, but right now, I think the wages of what I did are now being paid in full because right now… I feel like dying.
I want to die. I want this pain ravaging my insides to stop.
“Please stop,” I whisper, the desperate cry sounding shrill to my own ears.
But it doesn’t stop.
That’s the thing about desperate pleas. They always mock you to your face and make everything worse. Hope never really works with desperation and self-loathing anyway.
“Mia, do something!”
“Mia, what did you do?”
No, no, no…
Please stop.
The horrors of what I did echo in the room, the voices and shouts drowning me back into that dark, cold and empty space where I see what I did to Nancy play over and over, like the crime is caught on a loop in my head.
It’s like there’s a weight pressing down on my chest and throat. I can’t breathe. Can’t move, shackled to a ship that’s drowning into the deepest, murkiest waters and no one will find me.
I feel so hollow inside, so empty and numb that I can’t think or function properly. All I want to do is curl into myself and disappear.
But nothing I’ve ever wanted with my entire soul has ever happened.
Not love and affection.
Not true friends and happiness.
It’s all illusive, strange and almost impossible for someone like me.
I’ve always received what I deserve and right now, I deserve this kind of pain. I deserve feeling this horrible inside with voices rattling in my head. I didn’t know this, until this very moment. The moment where my world collapses without a fight. The moment where everything I thought was true, is a lie and every lie I thought I understood is actually all my fault.
I did this. I caused all this hell to break loose.
“Please stop…” I croak, but my voice seems to fade away as my eyes flutter closed until I find some semblance of tranquility.
But it’s not peace. As my heart starts beating faster like a drumbeat to my destruction, it lulls me into another universe that starts out great, sweet and soft, but it really isn’t.
I’m in an elegant room, furnished beautifully with chandeliers that sparkle like the light of a thousand diamonds. There is gold trimmed white furniture in the room, spread perfectly, everything symmetrical to something. There are also art pieces in gold trimmed frames on the white walls
But the artwork is white. Everything else is white.
Stark white walls.
There’s a comfortable looking white couch with beautiful white fluffy throw pillows.
There are white roses in a beautiful crystal vase at the center of the glass table.
The tiles beneath my bare feet are also white and as I look up to take in more of the room, it seems to shift and now, I’m standing in front of a wall of mirrors with my reflection staring back at me with a jarring clarity that makes my heart race.
As I stare at my reflection, a small gasp escapes my lips, then a small smile flits across my face as I gaze at myself in the mirror.
I’m dressed in Nancy’s tutu, the one she was wearing when she shook the ballet world and was named Prima Ballerina in Paris and right now, I look just like her.
From the way my hair is pinned up in an elegant up-do, to my rosy cheeks, dusty blue eyeshadow that matches with the dress to the red lipstick—it’s the very look Nancy had that day and God, I must have stared at the images and watched the videos more times than I can remember and now, in this moment, I look just like her.
But no… Julian burnt that dress right in front of my eyes. This isn’t real.
As soon as I realize that, everything changes in a split second as red starts seeping out of nowhere.
It drips down the walls, the thickness and scent so overpowering to my senses that for a moment I’m stunned, frozen in place as it slowly starts covers every white surface in the room.
Taking a closer look, I realize what it is and my heart stops beating. It’s blood!
Thick, fresh blood seeps into the room, slowly at first, covering the surfaces, then it seems to start flooding into the room, pooling at my feet.
“No,” I gasp, looking around frantically.
Where is all this blood coming from? The stench alone makes me gag. I frantically grip the dress I’m wearing but as soon as I touch it, a warm, sticky substance covers my palms.
Slowly, I look down at myself and I see blood.
My feet, legs, the dress, my hands and now my arms are all covered in blood.
No.
What’s happening?
I start clawing at my chest, feeling like I’m suffocating. I need to get out of here. It’s like I’m going to drown in a room full of blood.
“You did this,” a voice says making me scream. Turning around, I see my mother—no, she’s not your mother anymore. I see Nancy. She’s wearing a thin white hospital gown… which is also covered in blood. “You did this to me.”
“No, I…” I whisper, but she stares at me with a blank stare, chilling me to the core.
“You killed me. You have my blood on your hands.”
I shake my head, tears now running down my face but when I look up at the mirror, I see trails of blood running down my cheeks instead.
Jesus. What is this?
Fear grips me by the throat. My heart is pounding so hard in my chest. I want to scream.
I want to apologize. I want something to happen so she can stop looking at me like that, but when I open my mouth, nothing comes out, like my voice is also drowning in blood.
“No, I…” I stutter, unable to string a sentence that makes sense as the blood pours even faster.
“You let me die,” she accuses but her words feel like arrows shooting straight for my heart. Oh God, what did I do?
“I’m sorry, Mom, I…”
“I’m not your mother. No one would ever want to be your mother.”
Pain—sharp, intense, and unbearable, slams into me like a freight train just ran over me.
“You don’t mean that,” I cry. Surely, she doesn’t mean that.
“She does,” a new voice says, and I spin around only to see Nicky standing there, a sly smile on her face. “I never wanted you. Now, no one wants you.”
No.
“Those boys you fell for, thinking they genuinely cared for you, well they were only using you.”
No.
“They care for me!” I cry, tears of blood running down my face. “They love—”