the girl in red

x. no surprises

Tuesday, December 16th, 1975

Lafayette, Indiana

Snow fell outside and the wind pushed against the walls, which barely managed to stay strong. Branches slapped against the house and whatever dangled outside jingled loudly, ruining any peace the night once held. The moon shone weakly from behind thick, gray clouds and no light made it through the ratty curtains, forcing them to be pulled open. Even then, the small upstairs bedroom was still unusually shrouded in darkness, the shadows scaling the wall like the monsters of Dimitra's nightmares. The nightmares that had pulled her from her sleep at one-thirty a.m. and left her clutching at the teddy bear by her head like a kid.

No cigarette smoke swirled around the room and an empty pack lay in the trash, abandoned an hour ago. The fan still spun, despite how far Dimitra had the covers pulled up. The wall was no longer a source of anything, nor was the ceiling, so she settled for the boxes across the room. Their shadows were expertly blocked from her vision, blurred by past tears that still hung on her lashes and rolled down her pink cheeks. The teddy bear under her chin was gripped tight, its head looking as if it was about to pop off, and her feet rubbed frantically against each other. Her nails scraped down her own arms, though no skin broke. The skin merely turned a brilliant red with stripes of pure white climbing up her forearms to her sharp elbows. Nothing comforted her senses so late at night; she was simply a victim to everything her mind tortured her with. Which was never short of the devil's work. Her mind was a slave of the devil. Maybe it was that simple, though she knew better.

She always did; she never cared. What was she going to do? Change it?

She rolled and faced the wall that bordered her bed, burrowing further under the blankets. The bed creaked quietly with every movement she made so she stilled, settling uncomfortably into the sound of the wind thumping against the house and the calls of the animals of the night. Her chest rose and fell to a gentle rhythm she'd created in her head, stilling her body.

The night had never been her friend. It was scary and silent. The sun didn't warm up the smiles of others and the shadows weren't soft. They crawled up walls, instead, and created the monsters that already haunted her consciousness. Noises were amplified to an uncomfortable extent, thudding against Dimitra's head like a hammer to a nail that wouldn't budge. The cold was welcomed, but that seemed to be all. The day didn't like her much either, though. It was still harsh and it exposed her to the world when she least hoped. Life, in general, didn't agree with her, truthfully.

She screwed her eyes shut in a feeble attempt to fall back asleep, but it didn't work. It never did. But at least she could say she tried when the day finally came and she walked downstairs with rings of deep purple under her waterline and veiny, red eyes. It was becoming too normal an occurrence, but she'd yet to find a solution. She wasn't sure she wanted to, either, as unhealthy as that was. She found an odd sense of comfort in the turmoil.

But she hated life, nonetheless, and life hated her. If she couldn't accept that, maybe life would cease to exist. She was still mulling over the idea.

The ceiling became the focus of Dimitra's blurry eyes for another 45 minutes before sleep finally wrapped around her again. It wasn't deep, nor was it very helpful, but it would hopefully end the bags under her eyes.

It didn't.

Her reflection stared back at her at 6:30 a.m. It looked closer to a zombie than anything that resembled a living, breathing human. Her eyes were droopy and the bags that hung under them were stark and huge, colored an ugly shade of purple. It swarmed her freckles and covered them too well and she groaned, running her hands over her face. Her hair stuck in every direction, the ponytail having come undone sometime after she had fallen back asleep. Any thought that once sat in her mind was replaced by a scalding static that showed in her blank eyes. Her hands shook as she ran the comb through her hair, calming the flyaways that she despised with everything she could muster. Clothes had become a mindless concern, yanked out of the drawers and off hangers without care. Her nails scraped her ankles as she pulled on socks and scraped at her scalp as her finger ran through her hair.