First of all, I own nothing; the story line, even, is partly based off of one of Breaking Benjamin's songs. Please note that this is not for the grammar-OCD-freak. I'm usually extremely picky about grammar myself, but in this case if I were to go back and make everything proper it would completely take away the whole effect of the story. The point is supposed to be the emotion, not the grammar used to convey it.
She walked forward, through the trees- they kept trying to hit her, snag at her once-gloriously crimson hair, and yet they ran away from her- her friends and family trailed behind, unable to do anything but look on in misery- but they had no idea. i He /i knew- or had known, before his mind had shut it off, trying to cope with his own problems- but he could do nothing more than anyone else. Inside, with their high and superior minds, they put themselves above her and imagined that the poor ignorant thing had no idea what she was doing to herself, that she didn't see the streets crowded with opportunity just clear away before her, didn't know how it plagued her incessantly, misery wracking her every waking moment so that her very bones hated themselves.
They would bear no tears, her family- she would bear none. This world she lived in, this fantasy, this make-believe land where everything was beautiful and she wasn't carrying her weight to drown herself in the quagmire of shame and misery and failure and hatred, the impossibly heavy thing chained to her with bulky, heavy iron that chafed and rubbed raw her skin until the flesh was rent away, blood oozing from the pulpous, pulsating mass of gore and blood, thumping with the beat of her forsaken, already-drowned heart.
Show me how it ends, they cried, they all wanted to see how it would turn out, see how defenseless she was made. And all the while, she told herself that it was alright- in her land of make believe, dead and dry.
She could feel their eyes on her, watching silently- his eyes, most of all, his stormy sea-tossed eyes. She did not look back at any of them, for they could not help her. She would bear her cross, she would walk to her criminal's death, alone and unaided- she would bear no more help than she would tears, both completely, inexpressibly, there and not there- needed desperately and yet forbidden above all things. And when she called out for her words to come out and reveal themselves, her tears to pour down her visage in briny waves, her heart would ache with misery, yearning to be put down instantly so that no more suffering would be bourn against it- yet she could not bring herself to say it, could not possibly, no matter how she tried, force herself to form the words with naught but silent lips.
Show me how defenseless you really are, they called. Satisfy the emptiness inside. Cry, cry now, and forget it in the morning. Be miserable because we make you feel guilty, the only time you ever find misery within you being because of us and our prejudices, not because of you and your self-inflicted agonized death. And forget it all tomorrow, never think on it again, because we don't know how it corrodes away your mind, slowly eating away at your sanity and your soul, taking away your emotion, draining your body until nothing but bones remain- the bones that hate nothing more than themselves, forever doomed to hell in their inability to be naught but themselves, failing as they were. Nothing remains but the inky blackness that has been branded onto your left arm, branded onto your soul, branded onto your death-sentence.
Her exhausted body, worn to the misbegotten, dog-chewed core, fell to the ground- fell in the mud, dirty water splashing into her face, coating the fake eyes of everyone present- so that she could cry a bit without anyone seeing, not even her platinum-haired love who she wanted to think of her as so strong, her heart full to bursting of misery and self-loathing- and they murmured to themselves that she did not care because she did not cry, that she did not care because she would do something about it if she did, unlock the chains that bound her cross and her criminal's death to her frail body- and inside, the insides that were eaten away by mountains of salt and oceans of saline, she broke a little bit more- for she had no answer to their points, could not say anything. She could think of nothing to say that would prove to them that she cared- nor could she give them a good reason for being on that death-walk that day. And when she tried to get up and could not, stumbled and fell back down again, teeth bared silent still against the pain, an all-encompassing grief overcame her, an emotion so powerful that it blocked all else-
Despair.
It's alright, they said, let's give this another try. And they took away her wooden cross and gave her one of stone, unable to change in any way and foreign to her, uncomfortable- made of a hated stone, the bits of earth in a dreadful, sadistic weave that whispered obscene things to her in the dark while its chains, invisible to all but her, wrapped themselves ever-tighter around her throat.
And without showing the choke-hold that had been wrapped around her, she got up again, and walked on, her death in sight, wanting to just end it all quickly.
That's alright, let's give this another try, they chanted in a perversion of good intentions.
It's alright.
It's alright.
Show us it doesn't hurt.
It's alright.
It's alright.
She took her first few steps into the murky water, unable to see what lay beneath the swirling filth, grime coating their eyes as it was. She felt nothing, no difference.
It's alright.
It's alright.
She walked on, up to her neck-
It's alright.
-she was having trouble breathing-
It's alright.
-she was dying-
It's alright.
-dying-
Prove us right, tell us it doesn't hurt-
It's alright.
And before her head sank below the sewage, sinuses filled with the offal until they were ready to burst, spewing gory flesh, tissue, and cartilage onto the oblivious onlookers, the friends who didn't reach out to help her carry her cross, who begged ignorance, who in their stupidity assumed perfection in her, who made the dunderheaded conclusion that because she did not cry she was happy, that because she did not speak their language she did not feel as they did, did not react to circumstances as they did, putting her in a class all of her own, trapped in a casket which both she and they held a key to, neither one allowing her out- before she sank, she had one last thought- and she turned to the one who had come closest to knowing her misery, whose gray eyes would sometimes understand the torment in her own honeyed irises, and thought-
Lay your hand on me one last time.
And their book closed, and they turned away, and her head sank beneath the troubled, still waters alone and unaided- her locks the colour of defeated fire spilling into the fen, the mud and sewer into one plaguing culvert- and they burned her out of their minds and off of their pages.
And she was forgotten.
A/N: This was written when I was pretty upset, I'm sure you can tell. I was listening to the song So Cold, by Breaking Benjamin, and the lyrics (for which I take no credit whatsoever) seemed to have been written just for me, just for my situation. I went back later and added a few words here and there to make it adaptable to the almighty Fire and Ice ship, altering as little as possible while still making it relevant.