a/n: ...i wouldn't quite consider this outright character bashing but it's not exactly a particularly flattering portrait of lady maria either. if you really like or love the character, just do your duty to keep that in mind before you go further.

[CN/TW]: implied/referenced suicide, some mentions of self-harm.

I am a good person. I try to be.

Perhaps, though, that's the lie I tell myself? According to Laurence at least.

There is blood on my hands, splattered across the cuffs of my sleeves, but I can't see it. I know it's there. I can feel it on every inch of my fingers, it's soaked into my bones and arteries beneath my skin. I wear gloves to conceal it — and this invisible blood slowly infects me. It fills up my lungs like suffocating sea water that stings of salt, smothers my kidneys, drips into my stomach where it's burned up by acid.

There are no corpses here. There are no corpses here. There are no corpses here.

Except there are. If they had died violently, gruesomely — leaking blood and organs spilling out like sweets from a torn package — then there would be someone to take the blame (it wouldn't be me. It couldn't have been me).

There are three primary suspects as to the murders — no, slaughters — at the Fishing Hamlet.

The first is me. (And it couldn't have been me. There is someone else's blood contaminating my insides, but I know it isn't mine.)

The second is Gehrman. (I have too much respect for him, more than I should. Because still he looks at his brother as though he's a child who needs protecting, absolves him of any and all possible guilt).

The third is Laurence.

Laurence.

He hates me. I know he does. I don't believe he's ever said it to my face, but it's still all-too present when it comes to his tight-lipped smiles around me. I've confronted him about it and his urgent insistence that he doesn't hate me is the only confirmation that I need. He wishes I was dead.

(Maybe he'll get his wish soon enough.)

It has to be Laurence. Laurence has to be the sole culprit.

Prideful, ambitious, dishonest Laurence, once Willem's favorite and now cast out from Byrgenwerth because he grew drunk on his own ambition; his own selfish, selfish, selfish ambition. He turns himself inside-out and claims he wants to help people (which is what I do, except I really do want to help people. I haven't done anything worth his ire). Once upon a time he looked up to me when he was younger, where did that bright-eyed child go? What's with this gaudy phantom that took his place?

If there is blood on his hands — and I know that there is — he's done a proper job of concealing it. The strained moments we have had in passing during our meetings have said enough. I've borne witness to the flashes of disgust on his face; to him I am a poisonous spider that needs to be done away with in other circumstances, it's just that Gehrman is the only person keeping this situation from shattering to bits. He's responsible, you see. He hides everything, plays delicate so that he can have Ludwig (who he loves? or do I only think he does? I don't know anymore, I don't know about anything. I really don't.) swoop in and save him. Too weak, too fragile to do the dirty work himself and too dishonest to even admit to being capable of it.

Gehrman tells me that Laurence and I are more alike than either of us would like to admit. We would do anything to pursue our ambitions. Mine, though, is far more for the good of Yharnam than his. I know that Laurence is far from a good person, he's the reason that there's blood on my hands and this place smells of rotten eggs, of burnt, crumbling corpses. He's the reason I'm here.

I only ever wanted to help people. Nary a selfish thought has crossed my mind in regards to our circumstances. And yet — and yet —

This blood still itches underneath my skin.

The moon whispers secrets to me, I don't know what's fake or real. If there is no blood on my hands and I am absolved of guilt, why does the smell of rotting flesh linger, why can I feel someone else's blood curdling my organs? But it couldn't have been me, I joined this cause with only the best of intentions. That's what I know to be true, and that's what everyone else says. Am I being lied to?

I need a way out.

I need a way out if I am responsible for the massacre. I need a way out because I don't want people to know. Because I don't want to know. This is a secret I will take with me and I don't know for how much longer I can shoulder that burden, nor for how long I was able to.

(I was guilty, wasn't I? I was a monster just like the rest of the lot back at Cainhurst.)

No one must know of the truth. It's to protect Yharnam (to protect me). To protect Gehrman.

My world distorts, skewed. I scratch at my throat enough to make the thin skin there bleed and for red to crust beneath my fingernails from where flesh thinly peels and splits but there is no relief. In time I will find a way out and people will know the truth about Laurence, about how he warped me into an image he has of me and made me into a siren hiding amongst humans.

In time I will wake up from this nightmare.