Narcissa watched her husband silently as he slept. His right arm was stretched out towards her, but she lay purposefully just out of his reach. Because when he touched her, she felt cold.
When he touched her, she wanted to die.

She watched as his white chest rose and fell gently as the air passed his pale lips. If he had not been moving, he could have easily passed as being dead. It was hard to believe that blood actually ran through the veins under his milk white skin, and that his heart still continued to beat.

Narcissa rolled onto her back and stared up at the grey silk hangings of the bed with ice cold eyes. A breeze from the slightly open window trickled gently over her naked skin, and she shivered, pulling up the sheets to cover her breasts and glancing out at the moon.

It stood full and proud amongst the stars, ivory white against ebony black. Narcissa yawned, and closed her eyes, falling into slumber almost immediately.

The sun rose several hours later, it's rays penetrating the cold glass of the window and falling softly onto the bed.
Narcissa stirred gently, and opened her eyes. Once again she found herself alone, entwined around the cold grey sheets.

She climbed gracefully out of the bed and wrapping a silk dressing gown around her slender figure, she crossed the room and opened the door.

As she walked slowly down the hall towards the bathroom, she could almost hear her footsteps echoing off the cold marble floor.

Her husband was not in the manor, she knew. Where he was, however, she did not know. Nor did she care. Too often he had arrived home with lipstick stains on his shirt. Too often he had got into bed, the scent of an unfamiliar perfume on his skin suffocating her.

She had loved him, once upon a time. But he'd turned her love away, shut her out. And now, she had forgotten how to love.

Once entombed within the white marble bathroom she gazed into the mirror set in the wall by the window. A pair of icy blue eyes stared back at her. They filled slowly with tears, and she looked away. She despised weakness of any kind.

Instead, she reached into the cabinet beside the sink and took out a small packet of white powder, and a slender silver tube.
Breathing heavily, she tipped some of the powder out onto the windowsill, and arranged it carefully into a neat line. She placed one end of the silver tube into her nostril, bent down, and placed the other end at the end of the line of powder.
She sniffed hard, and the snowy powder arranged so carefully vanished.

Her slender fingers released their hold of the tube, and it slipped down onto the cold marble floor, clattering loudly as it landed. Narcissa did not notice.

She leant back against the cool wall, her eyes closed, her head spinning, and a smile on her pretty face. That was better. Much better. Now she could think straight.

She opened her eyes, and her gaze fell on a silver dagger lying on the windowsill, glinting dangerously in the sun.
Her fingers reached for it, gripping the handle so tight her pale knuckles turned even paler. Her hand shook ever so slightly as she raised the dagger, but in her ice cold eyes there was a fire of determination.

Slowly she slid the blade across her right arm, cutting deep into the ebony skull burnt there.

Blood ran down her arm and dripped onto the floor. Deep red contrasting with the white marble.

Narcissa slid down the wall and sunk into a crumpled heap, clutching her bleeding arm and gasping, her head still spinning. She closed her eyes and sunk into the comforting darkness.

The darkness she'd been pushed into all her life. The darkness she'd tried for so long to resist.
The darkness she now embraced, and welcomed with open arms.

Arms that were cut and scarred and bleeding.