𝐆𝐎𝐋𝐃𝐄𝐍 𝐃𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐌 [𝑽𝒐𝒍𝒕𝒖𝒓𝒊 𝑲𝒊𝒏𝒈𝒔]

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TW: Blood, gore, death, mentions of past SA. Twisted things ahead, including sweet nasty revenge that's not for the faint of heart. I refuse to be liable for your therapy bill, dudes. Shit is about to get gnarly.

It's astounding, how quickly things change for the worst. How things can be unstable but okay, and then plummet so dismally into complete horror. How things had been good just nights ago with Marcus, and now it was all so different.

...And it's also astounding how fast red can stain things, multiply like a virus, eat up anything with its hellish vibrancy. Completely cover any traces of innocence. Nora thought there must be a symbolism with that and the current state she was in, but she couldn't be bothered to make it.

No.

She was much too busy rubbing her hands frantically together until they were aching, scrubbing at her skin under the cold water that was running the prettiest pink, turning her stomach and leaving a salty taste in her mouth.

Bending over her hands, a soft stifled sob hitched in her throat, shoulders shaking with the force of concealed cries, and she lied to herself, "You're okay."

It had to be karma, that the red hue on every pristine white crack and surface of the bathroom, the sticky cold rouge that stained her trembling hands...it just seemed to get stronger. More vibrant, more angry, more power begging the shaky stability of her conscience to fall. Her mind, a flower in fall: touch one petal and it all collapses and unwinds.

Leftover adrenaline was something she'd only experienced once before, and it had her shaking like she'd just trudged through the worst storm in history, scantily clothed. So much so it seemed to rattle the tears and any vestibules of guilt from her, wringing them loose to spill down her blotchy face. The sluggish drops carved a path through even more ruby stains, speckled over her cheeks like the constellations in the sky, but instead of the beauty of the celestial they were a grim map of her sins burning into her flesh.

A teary snarl warps her reflection for the way her body tremors and jolts, a leaf in the wind one wrong breeze from blowing away...or was that her sanity?