OF SERPENT AND ANGEL ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎➝ tom riddle ¹ | ✓ |

THIRTY

Eliza was - by all senses of the word- numb. Fatigue had that power to block out all of one's emotions and thoughts as the body and mind's sole task became staying awake. The fight or flight response which a person under threat usually felt was pushed aside by the sole focus on not closing your eyes. In her current state, Eliza could neither fight or fly. She doubted she could even stand up from the corner of the room she had been frozen in for hours.

It wasn't surprising to say that she had suffered a sleepless night. If the paralysing fear hadn't been enough to keep her eyes wide open, the realisation of what she had done certainly was. Her brain was so burned out by the overflow of feeling that it didn't immediately process the day's events. But with the first rays of daybreak at around four in the morning, Eliza fully understood what had happened.

The effect of it had been slow. Her green eyes had surveyed the room carefully; taking in the mess of the sheets strewn across the floor, the drooping mattress of the bed, the fluttering of the sheer curtains in the breeze coming from the still open balcony door. And then they had fallen back down to her hands in her lap, the hands that still had blood in their creases and crevices.

First, her lip had begun to quiver just a little. Second, were her hands; trembling in her lap. And then it had risen up to her shoulders so that her entire body was racked with violent paroxysms caused by the sudden inability to keep breathing.

And perhaps she shouldn't keep breathing. Perhaps the constriction of her lungs as if they had suddenly been filled with cement was her punishment. Fate, or god, or karma, here to collect her soul as the price for those she had taken.

The aching in her body was only reflective of the one in her head, it was her purgatory, and she deserved all of it. The once so angelic purity of her being had been tarnished and once the stain appeared, it only began to spread and there was no washing it out. There was a perpetual infamy in her soul that would cause the gates of paradise to be slammed shut before her.

And thus her own sin came on her like a revelation. Then Eliza knew she would never regain what was lost, never repent for what had been done. She should have been stronger, she should have been able to fight. But she had bowed down to the command like a dog and obeyed passively and it was her fault and she would pay the price for it.

If only her tears could've created a river for her to drown in.

But hollow things tended to float.

She didn't know how many hours had passed; time was a concept only relevant to a free man. But a loud crack suddenly echoed through the room and Eliza snapped her head up, her heart pounding as she searched in panic for the origin of the noise. A House Elf had appeared in the centre of the room, dressed in a sad and filthy rag, it's large ears drooping at the sides of its face as it searched the room with a crouched back.

Once the Elf spotted her in the corner, her green eyes wide like its own, it bowed its head just a little more, talking to its own feet. "Master requests your presence," said the House-Elf in a squeaky voice that sounded just as afraid as she felt. "Master awaits in the dining room."