Accolade

chapitre vingt-cinq

trigger warning: sensitive content 

Something woke me. 

I wasn't sure what it was until I heard my door softly click shut. I didn't know who had been in my room but I wasn't concerned. My body felt heavy in every aspect so I didn't move after being woken.

I lay there for a few minutes. Thinking. Breathing. 

Something wasn't right. Not only with the fact that life had dealt me the worst deck of cards, but my head didn't feel right. A strange fog clouded my mind, it smothered any coherent thought and left an echo of emptiness within my tired bones. No matter how much I tried to recall the emotions from yesterday, I came up with nothing at all. There wasn't a single emotion that could be risen within my mutilated heart. I couldn't seem to care. 

I was numb. 

Perhaps I had felt too much. Perhaps my brain already knew that I was walking a tight rope and it shut down to prevent that rope from snapping. God knew it had been fraying. I knew that this was it. Rock bottom. Everything that had kept my hopes up had fallen. This very dark pit that I sat within would become a familiar friend. 

Despite how I felt, I peeled myself out of bed. My aching legs carried me out of my room, down the hall, and into the bathroom without anyone noticing that I was awake. I didn't immediately go for my painkillers, as I did every morning lately, because I felt nothing. 

Everything was distant. Surreal. 

A gray area that reeked of danger.

I fumbled with the sink faucet and splashed cold water on my face, hoping it might wake me up, but when I looked at my reflection I realized; there was no waking from this. My thinning hair had lost its shine, my eyes had lost their livelihood, my flesh had become so pale. If I looked too hard, I might accidentally see right through my skeleton. 

There was something terrifying about the human skeleton. It made people uncomfortable. People believed the human skeleton was possessed, a demonic symbol that resides beneath all of our flesh, and most won't open their eyes. 

Staring at myself in the mirror, I could see prominent bones now. My cheekbones were high and rigid, my collarbones were jutting from my chest, and I could count nearly every single one of my ribs. I could even understand why people didn't like to see their own skeletons.

Except, I wanted to rip the bones from my body. They were the ones that had caused all of this. The cancer had started in my bones. Perhaps they were right, the human skeleton was possessed by something evil. We are merely keeping the bones warm until they decide our death. 

Turning away from the mirror, I turned on the shower. I stripped and stepped beneath the water, hoping I would feel something then, but I remained numb. 

Once I had finished washing my hair and body, I just stood underneath the hot stream of water. My skin had gone red but I felt nothing. How could I not feel anything? Suddenly, I had the urge to make myself feel something. My eyes drifted to my shaving razor on the ledge. Was this how people found themselves at their breaking point? 

No, I was past my breaking point. 

This was my expiration of everything else.

My fingers twitched. Skin itched. Just one would surely draw me out, right? Or what if I didn't feel that either? Could I even bleed if I didn't feel pain? 

I grabbed the razor. 

And then I opened the shower door and threw it. My chest rose and fell with a heavy breath. I heard the razor clatter to the floor somewhere in the bathroom but I closed the shower door and stepped back until my shoulder blades met the wall. As quickly as the urge had come, it faded.