It was surreal, Trix. For the time I watched, the world seemed to stop, and it was almost eerie. I gazed at her through the bars of my window, seeing the depths her mind from across the roaring sea beneath me, but she only sat and stared around with her wild, grey eyes; understanding little of what she saw. A deer caught in the headlights, she shied away from contact, both physical and mental, lost in her own isolation.
"Here," they said, "sat a young girl, who should be so full of life and love; empty."
Her gaze, previously engaged and piercing, was vacant. Can you imagine what she felt, knowing that everything around her would never be the same?
How can the majority even begin to construct an image of the feelings of a young girl who cannot order them herself? The idea itself is madness.
But then… I am not the majority. I knew what she was thinking, beneath the tangled hair and behind the unblinking, blank eyes. I knew what she was thinking, because I'd thought it all before.
And I put her through that.
I felt it many years ago, before this eternal rain, this infernal jail. I was dragged from my home, from everything I knew, and told that everyone I loved was dead; at least, they were dead to me. In that one instant, my entire world began to crumble. People say that was the moment I began to go insane.
Insane. A word which is used too loosely; a person can be labelled 'insane' at the drop of a hat. I wouldn't describe myself as insane, not really. My mind is an organised chaos – there's a comfort in the lack of control. A brief relief of conscience, when I can forget about the consequences and just let you take over. No worries. But nobody ever sees that reasoning, or the conscience I'm sure I have. They see only the crazed eyes, the matted mess of hair, and the uncompromising fury with which I come down on my prey.
But you have always been there, Trix. We've got through their accusations together. You used to know so much about me, but recently you've become distant. A quiet presence, who constantly scratches away at the back of my skull.
Others might admit this internal battle, the fight for right within their head. Instead, I kept it in, a strong, proud and noble martyr of the darkest hours of our time.
I am used to the dark now. Not only the physical blackness of our prison, but the darkness which grows in the soul of those who have spent many years pushed away from all that is deemed light and good. From the darkness come images, those who they say I have wronged, and those who blame me for the suffering in their lives. I don't know what they think I could have done! I was nothing but a bystander to my own actions. It was you. It was all you, but you never had to pay the price!
The isolation here is comforting, although it only seems to feed the void. On my own I can shout and scream, I can rant and rave, I can cry. Crying makes everything worse for a time, but then the dull feeling afterwards acts like an anaesthetic, numbing the hurt of my betrayal and leaving me empty, with naught but the relentless flow of memories and a torrent of long-suppressed emotions to occupy the remainder of my days. Empty, knowing I'll never get out. But I know I don't deserve to.
And neither do you.