Drip.

Drip.

I felt cold like the numbness of a missing limb. It bit and tore at my soft flesh.

I hadn't the energy to move. She had drained it all from me.

I lay in frozen in a pool of liquid. Blood. Of my own, but not.

Voices and footsteps are all around me.

But no one can has found me. Yet.

The bracelet has fallen from me. Abandoning me in my time of need.

I am afraid. Of what she can do to me. Of what she has done.

I will be blamed.

I shiver and shake.

"In here." Someone yells.

Bang.

Bang.

The door bursts open.

They have found me.


Three months later

"Now Miss Cromwell, I want you to look at these pictures I'm showing you and tell me what you see."

I'm Crazy.

That's what they are saying.

I'm a complete and utter loon.

I am sitting at a small purple plastic desk, made for children, with a matching purple plastic chair with this so called 'doctor' asking me stupid questions.

I know other people are watching. Why else would a complete wall of this little room be a mirror? What do they think I'm stupid?

No. Just crazy.

But I'm not. It really did happen the way I told them it did.

I keep staring at the mirror, trying to see if I can see the people on the other side.

"Now, Miss Cromwell." He handed me several small squares of card with ink blots on them. "what do you see here?"

I looked at the first one, then shuffled it to the back. Then looked at the next one and shuffled it to the back. And the next one and the next. My hands getting faster and faster.

I was getting frustrated.

"They're all the same." I growl throwing the cards back at him. They hit him square in the chest, then scatter all over the floor. He has this concerned look on his face.

"Tell me." He asks calmly. But his hands shakes nervously ready to start writing what ever spills from my mouth.

"I see… I see…." I pause for dramatic effect. Oh boy… this is a good one. "I see, black ink blots on white cardboard cards of varying patterns." I grin at him and he looks annoyed.

"That's it!!" He shouts towards the mirror, "I've had enough. She's an uncooperative little smart arse. I wont deal with her shit anymore."

"Fuck you," I yell at him. "you Commie bastard. Fuck off back to your own country and go pick rice in a field like the rest of your unwashed family. Leave me the fuck alone!"

I clamp my hand over my mouth. Where the hell did that come from?

He just glares at me and storms out of the room.


The following week…

I have never been in a court room before.

My own trial and they wouldn't let me in.

My public defender said she had to fight to have me testify today. I don't know, or care, what she says. She's a liar. That's what my Gran always said. That all lawyers are liars, out to get our money.

There were a whole lot of people in here. The judge sat up on a little platform behind a huge desk just beside where the made me sit. There were a group of people sitting up in a grand stand 'thing' just to the other side of me. There were two other desks facing me. And a couple dozen rows of benches behind a small gate behind them.

Just like in the movies.

I was made to wait outside until they called me in.

A man with a gun told me I had to go inside and he led me up the isle way through the little wooden gate to my seat.

The moment I stepped through the doors, people all around me gasped and started whispering loudly.

The judge banged his gavel and shouted at everyone to be quite.

I took me seat at the front of the room but the man with the gun told me to stand up again. He gave me a book to hold.

"Miss Cromwell, do you swear to tell the whole truth, so help you god?" He asked.

I think it was mealy just for decoration and tradition that he asked me this because no one was actually paying attention to whether or not I answered.

I don't believe in god.

Why should I swear to anyone, let alone someone I don't believe in.

I threw the book down on the floor space in front of me. "I don't believe in god." I said casually and sat back down.

"Miss Cromwell!" The judge said harshly, "You will not disrespect this court room."

"Prove to me god exists and I'll swear on your book of lies." I shot back.

The room erupted with loud yelling.

He banged his gavel once more. "Order! Order!." He shouted over the din.

I started fidgeting with the hem of my shirt.

Someone had traded my ugly scratchy hospital gown for an even uglier blouse and skirt combo. Yuck.

"Get on with it." The judge nodded to a man sitting at one of the desks.

"Please state your name for the record." Was all he said.

I love it when they leave themselves wide open like this.

"My name is Andrea Suzette Cromwell," I answered in a loud voice. "Daughter of the dearly departed Mr and Mrs Cromwell, sister to the slaughtered twins and lover to the beloved dead brother." I smirked and threw my head back laughing.

This was great. Everyone was yelling. Some people were even crying. One man was standing over the little gate stabbing the air with his finger in my direction, shouting at the top of his lungs all the while going bright purple in the face. My public defender was just sitting there shaking her head and pinching the bridge of her nose.

Call me crazy and that's what you get…