The knife gleamed innocently in the candlelight. It would soon be a dull, rust coloured blade, lying forgotten in her room. Just like she had been. After two weeks of absence and unanswered phone calls from her high school, she had finally been left in peace. For years she had endured her parents ceasless neglect and the threats of violence from every other person she had come in contact with. She had tried every other way imaginable to get rid of her pain, to make herself more appealing to the world, but she had just been used every time, and then thrown away like a broken doll.
Well, not anymore. No, now the pain she would feel would be the pain that ushe/u decided on. Pin that ushe/u would cause. Pain that would burn her and break her, but eventuslly give way to the relief she so desperately craved. The very thought of a place where she could go unbeaten down, day by day, made her stomach leap with excitement and joy. Where she was going, she could be beautiful by her own means, much unlike the world she lived in now. Here, beauty was decided by the stereotypes and by media, not by who or what a person was.
Thoughts of her pitiful past pulled her into a depression so deep that even she was at a loss for breath. But her cheeks remained dry the whole time. She had long since run out of tears. She had used them up early and had learned that crying made no difference in her position. It earned her no pity, it didn't hold back anyone's hand from hitting her, it didn't silnce the tounges that threw word-darts at her. It didn't change a thing. So, she didn't cry.
Sighing deeply, she cringed slightly when she saw the knife lying in her hand again. The full meaning of what she was about to do hit her like a tonne of bricks.
iThis is it/i she thought. iHere we go.../i
The knife pricked her skin at her wrist and cut deeply into the blue vein that she knew lay beneath her skin there. She didn't make a single sound as she forced the knife in deeper and drew it slowly down her arm, all the way to her elbow joint. Already her fingers were loosing their sense of touch from lack of blood. Shaking, she switched hands and did the same thing to her other arm. Crimson pooled around her, and any pain she felt made no mark on her face. With nothing left to do but wait, she lay back and sang softly to herself in a fading voice;
"Please, please forgive me,
But I won't be home again.
Maybe someday you'll look up,
And, barely conscious, you'll say to no one,
'Isn't something missing?'
You won't cry for my absence, I know.
You forgot me long ago,
Am I that unimportant?
Am I so insignificant?
Isn't someone missing me?
Even though I'm the sacrifice,
You won't try for me, not now.
Though I'd die to know you love me,
I'm all alone.
Isn't someone missing me?
Please, please forgive me,
But I won't be home again.
I know what you do to yourself,
I breathe deep and cry out.
Isn't something missing?
Even though I'm the sacrifice,
You won't try for me, not now.
Though I'd die to know you love me,
I'm all alone.
Isn't someone missing me?
Even though I'm the sacrifice,
You won't try for me, not now.
Though I'd die to know you love me,
I'm all alone.
Isn't someone missing me?"
Her voice softly faded away into nothing and her eyes took on a glassy and vacant expression. Her body was empty, and though it's true that when one dies here, one is reborn someplace else, it is not always true that that soul can't return to this world. For as Trish Newenport lay dying, another creature was born, not far away, in the land of the holidays. In Hallowe'en Town, a shadow materialised and began to bend an contort until it finally took on the shape of a young human girl. This shadow did not, however, change colour at all, except for the hands which turned a moist blood red, and the eyes, which became as pale and colourless as the freshest, virgin snow. Mistress Umbra was born.