Pirates of the Caribbean Oneshots

Demons

Trigger warning. Depression, self-harm, suicidal thoughts.

"Worthless."

"Useless."

"Unworthy."

"Failure."

"Desperate."

"Murderer."

"Assassin."

"Doctor."

"Failure."

She drank, let the whiskey scorch her throat hoping it would burn away the voices and the demons they belonged to.

They were screaming at her, only at her. Nobody else could hear them. Nobody else had to listen to them, to believe them.

They'd become loud in the last few days, escaping the shackles and gags that she tried to keep them in.

They were free and they were screaming.

The surgery was dimly-lit, the door locked. She was locked away, to stop her demons affecting anyone else.

"Doctor."
Their voices took the title she valued, that she'd earned out of the blood and bruises and broken bones of her past.
They took it and twisted it into an insult, mocking her every failure, everything she'd done wrong, every patient she'd ever lost.

" Murderer."
The undeniable truth of that one made it sting deeply. Her hands, her knives had spilled blood, extinguished lives in seconds, sometimes for things that didn't warrant it.

Another drink, another firey swallow to try and burn the demons.

"Failure."
It stung worst of all. The sickening realisation of feeling a patients heart stop because she hadn't been able to save them. The anguish in the eyes of those who had cared about them when she gave the news. The harsh words, every one of them deserved, that the grieving turned on her.

The bottle clinked against the table as she set it down, now empty. Pulling the cork out of another with her teeth and taking a drink.

The whiskey wasn't working. It couldn't burn the demon's voices.

She felt hollow, empty, as though she was being eaten from the inside out.
Nothing filled the void, not food or drink. It was deep and black and it was where her demons played.

They played in the void and they played in her head, for she couldn't find the strength to force them into their restraints and muffle their voices.

"Nobody loves you."

"Nobody cares."

One little demon-free part of her brain knew that wasn't true. She had friends who loved her and cared, but the demons were chanting it, so it must be true.

She drank again.

The knife lay glimmering.

She usually gave them to someone when she felt the demons escaping, but they'd burst out so suddenly this time that she hadn't had the chance to.

The blade was lovely and sharp, carefully honed by her hands just last night.

It was so easy, just as easy as murdering someone.

The pain distracted her, silenced her demons.

The blood flowed, spilling onto the floor.

I deserve it. Better my blood that someone else's.

She made no attempt to stop it, watching it with an air of detachment.
Maybe now the voices would stop.

Maybe now she had silenced her demons for another while.