"I thought the most beautiful thing in the world must be shadow, the million moving shapes and cul-de-sacs of shadow. There was shadow in bureau drawers and closets and suitcases, and shadow under houses and trees and stones, and shadow at the back of people's eyes and smiles, and shadow, miles and miles and miles of it, on the night side of the earth."

- Sylvia Plath

...

Insidious

Raoul had been locking himself in the bedroom every night, early on in the evening when the sun still streamed gallantly through the windows. He had abandoned sitting in his study; he quickly found he could not bear to sit comfortably surrounded by shelves lined with books…ever since Christine had worn the blood red robe; since the moment she had dissolved in his embrace. Now, the room had changed itself; it had been mocking him with its stench of whiskey, mingling with the tears of his wife that had fallen onto the carpet. She had tumbled down as if falling from the heavens; she had been Icarus with wings melted…destroyed, as she crashed down to earth.

The study had seemingly closed in on him once he had entered – it would shudder, as if the walls were moving around him, swirling and changing. And while they morphed and laughed and took his very breath from him, his mother's words rang in his ears, resounding in cycles that repeated over and over; and there was no end, no beginning. It was a circle of pain that he could not escape from. There was no safety anywhere, anymore…there was only pain in every shadow that passed over him, passed through him.

The mansion would groan and creak at night, and the only sounds that could be heard were servants scurrying around like ants…and their footsteps seemed to echo too loudly in his ears, reminding him of the emptiness; of the void within the house and within his very heart…of the sounds that used to play as background music in his life. The laughing of a daughter, the smile of a mother, a wife…yet now, the void served only as a heresy, a sickening humiliation. It was his prison now, and there were no doors that led to the outside world.

This particular night, to him, felt darker than the rest. He was a man, yet only a shell as he moved through each hallway, looking over his shoulder every moment, perhaps to see a daughter; his daughters, running to greet him. But there were only shadows that grew from behind his form; shadows that laughed wickedly, lashing his eyes with their twisted and vile shapes. There would never be a way out. His mother had stated it; she had made it so.

Raoul made his way to the bedroom once more, locking the door quietly behind him. He hadn't been allowing any servants in his quarters since Christine had left; it was his place to wallow, to drink himself into a blind stupor; a lethargy that might drown out the contract that had been written in blood. Every night the same thoughts came to him; that maybe, perhaps the poison that dribbled down into his veins might numb his very being to the core – that it might kill him from the inside out.

He had brought the table of glass decanters into the bedroom; and there it stared from the corner, sneering at him, beckoning him with a crooked witches' finger. As if under a spell, he glided up to its mahogany surface, fingers uncorking a smooth and tall decanter, pouring himself a glass of amber liquid that swirled with unblinking eyes. He sipped from its depths, savoring the bite as it sealed his throat shut. Another swig gave him the pleasant numbness that he had been longing for…a feeling of unfeeling. A feeling of nothingness, a cave where he could cower and wilt from within; a flower dying in a winter's harsh wind. Yet, he reveled within its depths – he was in love with its coarse feeling. And he would not stop tonight. If he stopped, he feared he might do something terribly impulsive – he might run down to the train station on foot as the night cast over the city. He might sprint in bare feet like a peasant boy running from the law; he might throw himself aboard a train to Lourmarin. He would abandon himself, and beg his wife for forgiveness. He would give up everything, his title, his mother, his father…all in one thoughtless barefoot run to the train station.

But he could not do it.

Raoul's thoughts began to itch at his skin, scratching his brain with its horribly insolent questions. Who would he be without his title? It was the only realm he had ever known. He had been raised to take this role; this burden that now crawled and wept inside of him. How could he have known the heartbreak it would bring? The terrors and horrors that were being unleashed inside of him, making him queasy at every turn of a corner, with every breath that he dare take?

And shadows followed him everywhere, now. And there was no escape. There were physical doors to the mansion, and air that whispered outside of its depths. But the threshold in which he stood upon, dangling like a tiny piece of thread…he could see no doorways, anymore. He could only sense the walls as they changed, and the shadows that crawled behind his grey blue eyes.

Raoul set the glass down on the table once he had emptied it. His fingers twitched, looking for something, suddenly. An uncontrollable urge directed his consciousness, then… moving his mind like the walls within his study. A contortion, a house made of winding trees – and somehow he knew, nothing would ever be the same. He would never be the same.

Clarity breached his mind then; clearing out the demons with a gut-wrenching sigh. He needed to control something, anything! No matter what form it took, no matter how strange and absurd the thought was! Raoul carefully walked to the connected washroom, closing the door gently behind him. Maybe the shadows would not follow him, here. It was a room of cleansing, a room of mirrors. Maybe he would finally hear silence within the void, instead of the laughter that the walls consistently gave. An insidious and hallowed feeling of nothing; yet the feeling seemed to be everything.

The mirror above the sink presented his face, yet he did not recognize the man behind the grey blue eyes looking back at him. This man was disheveled, with bags under his eyes that hung like dead skin, clinging to the small bit of life it had left. This man gripped the sink with arms that shook, for even his amber poison had not been enough to calm his nerves. But the strange voice of clarity continued to whisper in his ear, calling him, directing him…and he would do it! He would follow its commands…and it might give him control back – it would give him something! Something that the walls might stop whispering about; something that might cure the abhorrent irregularity within his heart that thundered within his chest; a storm upon the horizon.

Raoul opened the medicine cabinet with fingers that had somehow regained their strength, choosing a razorblade and a silver pair of scissors out of the haphazard mess. He moved back to the mirror then, looking at the man once more. His hair, a beautiful sandy blonde, now almost fell past his shoulders. He pulled a piece of it up within his fingers, snipping it with the scissors. The long tendril fell into the sink – a piece of his puzzle, completed. His heart pounded. Just one more piece. For the sound of the scissors was an absolute for him; it was his clarity, then! And the clarity still sung to him, guiding his fingers as he began clipping away at his treasured locks. Soon he was in a frenzy, desperate to get rid of it – to rid himself of it, to change one thing in this desolate world that he could; his appearance. And his mother would hate him for it…she had always loved his hair long – and now he found himself hating whatever it was that she loved.

His fingers worked fast, and as the sink began to fill with hair, his breathing began to hitch, quickening with every deafening snap of the scissors. He slammed the silver tool down when all of it was gone, viewing the man in the mirror once more. The man looked insane – eyes red as the devil's palm, with mismatched patches of hair on his head. Now, for the final touch. The razorblade.

He cut the entirety of it. Down to almost the quick of his scalp, he shaved gently above his ears, feeling around the back of his head to even out the spurts of hair that the scissors hadn't been able to grasp. His heart pounded with every scrape of the razor against his neck, against his head…and once he was finished, he dropped the razor as if it had burnt his hand. Raoul looked into the mirror at the clarity, and saw his own eyes staring back – lost and afraid, like so many years ago when his mother's voice rang out in every hallway…he was still there, in that mansion. Perhaps the shadows were his mother, taunting him, disciplining his choices and his creativity…wringing his bones dry.

He would always be pushed into this corner, this darkness…and there was no way out. There was no sliding door, no egress, no entrance nor exit. Just a pile of sandy blonde locks in the sink, and a man with deadened eyes and hair shaved down to the quick.

Was this insanity? Was this what Christine had been feeling? For his chest was tight, and he felt as though he could not breathe. He sank to the floor in front of the sink, running his hands over his now cropped hair; tears exploded from his eyes like a strike of lightning…yet, instead of lighting up the darkness, the tears only fed the lake that he drowned in. There was no light – there was no Christine. There was no musical laughter of his daughters…only silence that roared louder with every contortion of each wall, of each undiscovered feeling of sadness that seemed to crash in waves.

Raoul sat there for a long time, weeping with his head rested upon both knees. Why did it feel as though he were dying? Had he been shackled his whole life; had his mother been holding his leather leash? Had she wanted this all along?

Why couldn't it be different? Why couldn't there be love again, why couldn't there be any hope? Why was there only darkness…why was there a man in the mirror with short hair – a man he did not know?

And clarity left him alone then, leaving him with the nothingness; the sleeping shadows that called him by name. There was a blackness that surrounded him, a collective of phantoms, of shadows…tree roots that sprung up and twisted around his feet, planting him to the ground, unable to move, unable to breathe…

And he sat in the washroom, bent up on the ground like a dying man…and he wept. He held his head in his hands, his body shaking…and his hands kept feeling the hair cut close to his scalp, and he didn't even question why…perhaps his hands liked the feeling.

Perhaps his mother might hate it so much, she would hate him…and maybe, she might disown him too.

It wasn't what he wanted. He could not give up who he was. But now, he feared…as the windows and doorways disappeared around him…

It was not his mother to fear. It was not his mother who had caused this, no…she had simply played a small part.

He was responsible. He had known the consequences. But love had ignited in his heart. Should a man be punished for love? Even if it led to death?

His body shuddered as he cried. He was alone, cold on the tiled floor of the washroom.

And there were no doors. And the windows had disappeared.

And there was no way out.

…

Author's Note: A HUGE apology to my lovely readers for the extremely late update. But never fear, I shall be back to updating regularly :) Any comments, thoughts, or feedback is always greatly appreciated!