Chapter Two

Diana awoke with the sun in her eyes. She groaned and pulled herself into an upright position.

The sleeve of Diana's shirt was still rolled up, exposing her blood stained wrist. She had been too overcome with grief to bother cleaning it up.

Removing her clothes in front of her full-length bathroom mirror, Diana inspected herself. She'd become much prettier since the ending of the FAYZ. She no longer had the appearance of the starving girl she'd once been. Her hair was healthy and long, and her cheeks weren't hollow anymore.

But still, Diana couldn't shake the depression that had hung over her head like a storm cloud, no matter how great things were. She knew she should've been happy, like Sam and Astrid, but how could she? How could she be content with her life when Caine didn't have a life at all?

Tears threatened to fall from Diana's eyes, but she quickly blinked them away. Her eyes were still sore from the crying she'd done the night before. Blinking made them sting.

Diana stepped into the stand-up shower, cranking the hot water on as far as it would go. Scalding water sprayed from the nozzle, fogging up the glass door of the shower.

Hot water, Diana knew, was a luxury and she was thankful every time she used it. It almost made her laugh, comparing a shower like this to the cold lake she used to bathe in during the FAYZ.

Grasping a wash cloth in her hand, Diana began scrubbing the crusted blood from her arm. The small wounds reopened, and the blood that welled up was quickly rinsed off by the running water.

"Damn it!" Diana hissed, holding the cloth against her wrist. She was used to the pain, but the scalding water drumming against it was still uncomfortable.

After the shower, Diana pulled on her clothes for the day, feeling like the undead as she slipped into her usual morning routine. She wore black tights, a black sweater that dipped in the back, with sleeves that covered her whole arm, and black boots.

She stared at herself hard in the mirror. Admittedly, she almost looked good. But still her eyes were too dead, and her mouth was too set.

For the longest time, Astrid had been telling her that she was depressed, that she didn't have to feel like this. But Diana knew that this was how she was now, and no amounts of medication or therapy could help her recover. Supposedly people healed with time, but you couldn't heal the dead, and that was what Diana was inside. Dead.

The urge to punch her reflection welled inside of Diana, and she had to tear her gaze away. Her breaths came faster, matching the quickening pace of her heart. She wanted to scream, wanted to break things and hurt people until they were as miserable as she was. But it was pointless, because Diana knew no one could ever have felt loss as terribly as she did. No one was as self-hating as she was. She was alone in her way of thinking and her emotions.

Flinging the door open, Diana marched out of the bathroom and towards the kitchen.

A familiar voice sounded from inside the kitchen, and Diana paused in the hall, trying to identify it. The voice was female, and hardened from experience. It was-

"Lana!"