My body jerks awake, pushing myself up to a sitting position. No. No, no, no. This can't be happening. I can't have him in my nightmares. He can't haunt me at night too. I can't cope with all of that going on in my head at one time. He has no place there.
No, no, no. Stop screaming. Stop screaming!
My hand swipes out, knowing full well that the mirror I broke in my rage last night is on the floor besides me. Little panes of glass all broken up. They won't do. They won't fucking do...
And then I see it. My one saving grace. The shard that will end all of this, glistening in the light. It's so fucking beautiful.
I don't register the slices. The bleeding. The mutilation of my body. And that's not what I want. I want to feel every little part of this. I want to stop any other feeling. I only want to feel the pain that I chose. I want control. I need control. So when Mark's face swims into my head again, and that name rings in my head, I ram the glass down.
Deep.
I gasp in shock, pulling my hand away. I felt that. I actually felt it. It hurt. It hurt a lot. I glance down at my stomach...
Blood. So much blood. It's all over my hands, my clothes, my bed...
Shit!
I don't even think as I launch myself out of my room. I fly into the kitchen, beelining straight for the kitchen roll. Piles and piles of the stuff fall at my feet, stained red as the flow from my wounds don't stop bleeding. Shit, shit, shit...
“Hello?”
I freeze at the sound of the voice. The female voice. Not Dr Hallet's. Someone much younger. Oh fuck...
“Hello, lovely. You alright there?”
I feel my feet turn me around without my command, spinning me slowly to face this unknown person in my home. She's short, slim, blonde, and very happy looking. She opens her mouth to say some more...
But her already pale face goes even paler. Her eyes widen as they drop to my blood-stained shirt. And her open mouth just hangs there. She's going to scream. I know she's going to scream...
“What happened?”
Her voice is calm, despite the horror on her face. How can she be looking at someone that's bleeding all over the place, gashes littering her stomach, and remain so calm? It unnerves me. So much so that the shard of glass that I didn't even know I still had in my hand clatters to the ground as I loosen my grip.
Her eyes follow it, seeing just how brutal a weapon a simple mirror could be. Realisation crosses her face and she looks back up at me. It's almost like she knows me...
“You're Alex.”
Such a simple statement has never scared me so much in my life. How does she know my name? Who the fuck is she? And why the fuck is she so casual when I'm bleeding out in front of her?!
Before I can blink, she's over to me and lifting up my shirt. I try to make some sort of attempt to get rid of her, but my hands won't move. Everything is just too much right now. The fight, the nightmare, and now this. This is just rock bottom, isn't it?
“Think, think, think,” I hear her whisper to herself. “What would he do? What would he do?”
I want to ask who 'he' is. And who she is, come to think of it. But I can't. I just watch as she contemplates her options in her head. I'm not sure how many other options there are other than 'call the loony bin' or 'leave her alone'. But it seems like there's loads going on in her head. Her face is scrunched up as she thinks, her head shaking as she's clearly failing.
