NIKE -Blue Lock-

Аминь

A cold shower is a real boon for the mind and body. At least that's what an article on one of those health-related Internet pages says.

Apparently, the cold water acts as a small shock on the skin, activating a defense mechanism that immediately awakens all the senses, increases the rate of breathing and heartbeats, as well as raises blood pressure.

It also stimulates the release of endorphins, the happiness hormones, and norepinephrine: both act as true "antidepressant hormones" that prevent malaise or anxiety states.

Yet, huddled on the ground under that gentle, chilling jet of water, Nicole could feel absolutely nothing.

Her skin did not feel the iciness of the drops, her body did not seem to want to activate itself to counteract the cold with heat, her mind did not even seem to register the fact that she was there at that moment.

Not even her ears could hear the sound of the drops crashing and dying on the floor beneath her, and her tongue could not detect the taste of the water that caressed her face and lingered for a few seconds too long on the curve of her lips.

The only thing she could perceive was the bitterness in her mouth, and the only thing she could feel was the burning of the skin trying to set her flesh on fire.

She hid her face in her arms, on her cheeks there was not a single tear mingling with the drops that were already soaking her tan.

Her fingernail tips were covered in red; the skin covering her neck, her ribs, her belly and her arms marked by many superficial dashes caused by trying to scratch and rub away the feeling of his poisonous hands.

She had spent minutes...whole, uninterrupted minutes rubbing her fingernails over that layer of skin with the hope of being able to remove everywhere that superficial tingling sensation that burned hotter than red-hot lava.

She had spent minutes... whole, uninterrupted minutes under that icy cold jet with the hope that she could at least dampen that ardor and that feeling of being bound and condemned to the stake.

And after spending so many minutes, minutes that had then transmuted into hours, trying in vain to replace the agony caused by the perception of his hands with the torture brought by her own violent and bloodthirsty nails, she had simply stopped.

She had stopped.
She had stopped reasoning.
She had stopped fighting the fire that burned that body.
She had stopped trying to cleanse that skin that surrounded her soul.

Why should she even try when that skin and body in the first place had never been hers?

She deserved everything.
She was ungrateful.
The worst of the worst.

How many times had she heard that?

Too many times to believe they were just lies. After all, she said it to herself too, every time she looked in the mirror.

And now, huddled on the floor in the corner of one of the many showers in one of the building, she could only be still. Still in body and still in mind, as time around her continued to run without her.

No one would do justice for her. The destiny of victory after all was to advance and leave the defeated to suffer for her actions. No one would stand beside her but the victor, the one who held the victory.

Til the end, only the two of them: victory and victor, her and her father.

Her father...
Just thinking about that man made her want to accept the fire that was burning her, so to perish in those flames that danced their dance of agony around her and her soul.