The sharp click of a lock followed by the swoosh of a door opening shattered the bleak silence ringing out in the empty hotel room, the piercing noise startling Simon's cowering and shivering form. His arms recoiled closer to his thumping heart as his ears pricked up to try and hear what was happening outside the door of the cramped bathroom. With bated breath, he sat deathly still, his back leaning against the icy bathroom door, listening to the shuffling sounds of what must have been Robert's tired footsteps pacing around their shared room. Soon though, he made out the definitive sounds of his friend falling into bed and curling up to sleep and he let out a sigh of relief.
While his breath evened back out, Simon glanced around the minuscule room, allowing the demons in his mind to run free. Any joyous part of his life had dissolved away, leaving a hollow shell of despair behind; and toying with death was almost a worthy substitute for the things that used to excite him most. His band, his family, his friends. Robert. A pang of guilt stabbed Simon's heart at the thought of his mate lying oblivious not more than a few metres away. How pathetic was he, slashing his own skin, wishing for death, while Robert, his best friend, the only person who had ever spared him a second glace, blissfully slept in the next room.
No, he couldn't think about him now.
With a fumbling hand, he pushed aside his sweat-damp shirt and set his eyes on the narrow threads of silver scars scattered across his stomach. His other shaking hand reached clumsily into a make up bag for his pocket knife, poorly hidden away by half-used eyeliners and condoms. He couldn't help but hiss out a pained chuckle when his fingers brushed the packets aside: it's not like he'd ever planned to use them with the state his body was currently in, it was merely a force of habit, a hope that maybe one day he would. By bringing the blade down on his sickly pale skin, he pushed away the loneliness the only way he knew how; after all, had he not brought this upon himself in the first place? Nobody had ever thrust the knife into his hands and forced him to do this. This was all his fault. Like everything else in his life: he deserved it.
At first, his ham-fisted attempts at breaking skin were met with mere scratches and occasional beads of blood timidly slithering over his belly, but soon his flesh ripped and tore, allowing the scarlet liquid inside of him to flow and pour out of his body in time with his shuddering heart. The streams turned into rivers, then into oceans; his occasional feeble cries reverberated in the dismal bog, the derisory mewls sounding pitiful and weak when they bounced off the walls and back to his ears.
For a second Simon thought he heard a noise back in the bedroom, only a small shuffle but it was enough to make him stop in his tracks before he made the next cut. He dug without looking, to begin with, but his gaze inevitably dropped to his stomach and watched the blade easily skim over his skin and open wound after wound after wound, letting his body cry out the sorrow through crimson tears.
To his satisfaction, blood came thick and strong and in no time what had been only a canvas of scars became painted with streaks and pools of vermillion. His blood had poured as easily as water breaking free from a dam, months of pent up emotions gushing out shiny and crimson with sickening determination. There was always an addictive high that came with self-mutilation, the initial shock of adrenaline drowning out the pain left behind by the blade.
Too quickly though, it started to wear off and his midsection began to ache and burn, the seething pain flashing like electric shocks across his body at every small shift. Tears pricked his eyes like barbed wire, obscuring his vision; but he didn't stop, he couldn't. He was trapped in a vicious pattern of numbing the pain only for the same numbness to bite back at him. He simply lifted the hand clutching the blade and roughly wiped the wetness off of his cheeks before coming back down with even more intent.
