A/N: Woohoo! Chapter two! I didn't want to post this until I had written chapter three, but since I'm losing my computer for a little over a week starting tomorrow since I'm moving, I decided to post this. I hope it's okay since I didn't get to really fix it up and such. And thanks for the review Blacksoul Andy! Much appreciated! [01/02/2006] [This is from two different povs, by the way.]

Chapter Two: Gorillas and Mirrors

My head screamed in pain when I tried to lift it. Everything in my body ached. My toes were burning, my hand had knives stabbed through them, lead weights rested on my lungs, demons ripped through my legs, and gorillas played the congo on my head with sharp rocks. Pain. Something I despised with a passion. Why couldn't it go and fall in a ditch? I tried to move my head again, but it only screamed at me to stop and I unconsciously let out a scratchy moan from my dry throat.

"You're up?" a soft voice gently floated through my ears and traitorously stabbed at the insides of my head. I groaned in protest at the noise and tried to open my eyes. After a few moments, I was finally able to pry them open and was greeted by the bright rays of a lamp that illuminated the unfamiliar roo around me. I snapped my eyes shut and moaned again at the growing intensity of the beats of the gorilla's congo on my head.

"I'm sorry," the same voice I heard earlier whispered and I heard the faint click of the light being shut off. "Drink this," she whispered to me and gently placed a hand beneath my head to lift it up off the pillow it rested upon and held a glass to my lips and slowly downed the cool water. My throat felt refreshed and my mouth no longer felt like sand paper.

She gave me more water easing the pain, if only a little. I slowly blinked my eyes open and was greeted by cool darkness. My eyes slowly adjusted and I saw the outline of the young woman sitting beside me.

"Thanks," I choked out trying to smile up at her. A wave of exhaustion came over me and I fell into a restless sleep.

I stared blankly at my reflection in the mirror. It wasn't me. It couldn't be me, but it was. My right eye was nothing like my left. My left eye seemed...normal. At least I think it did. I don't remember what normal looked like. It was shaped like Her eyes, but the color was a warm amber unlike Her eerie yellow ones. Was this what a normal eye looked like? I don't know. The other was a glowing yellow circle like the ones I had seen on those creatures that She had told me were shadow heartless. Heartless. Like me, but not like me. I had a heart, just not a complete one. Parts of it were missing, unable to be recovered when she'd pulled me from the darkness. At least, that's what She told me.

It was hideous. It glowed such a sickly yellow and was rimmed with black. Disgusting. It stood there to remind me of what I didn't have. What I couldn't have. I could feel disgust, and my eye reminded me of that. A dark shadow fell across my eyes. My body was covered with patches of shadow. My skin was a ghostly white. She told me that I once had darker skin, but the "process", as She called it, had taken that from me as well. My hair was just as dark as the shadows that covered my body. The hair I'd ripped out days ago had rapidly grown back. I fingered the ragged edges of my rebellious hair. I hated it. I wished I could rip it all out and revel in the pain and blood from my scalp, but I knew that the traitorous strands of black would only grow back. I released the ragged ends I had been considering tearing from my head once more and felt like screaming at them as they lightly swept over my bare chest. I was repulsive.

I wanted to glare at my reflection. Mutilate it just to change something, but I couldn't. The hair that had grown back was proof. No matter how I destroyed myself, ripped at my skin and watched as blood ran from my wounds, by the next day it would all be the same as it was before. Nothing will have changed. I had nothing. Not even the power to destroy myself. I slammed my fist into the mirror. It shattered and crashed to the ground. I kicked at the shards and walked out of my room where I had confined myself for the past day.

I needed to take a walk. It was the only thing that calmed me down and equalized my emotions to the same level as my expression. Nothing. I needed to be nothing right now.