Breaking Free
Prologue.
She wondered away from the empty cafe, her now cold coffee still in her hand, and she absently threw it in a trash can as she passed it by. The air was cool, though she didn't notice, didn't react as her skin changed from warn to prickled with goose bumps down her arms. She walked down the street, seemingly far away from the bustling people, cars and life all together.
She found herself at the entrance of the movie theatre, the only thing playing was a pirate movie, but she didn't care. Paying for the ticket she slipped between the doors and into the theatre. And watched with unseeing eyes a movie she could not for the life of her remember the name of. She saw explosions, saw betrayal, love and hatred, and vaguely she heard people whisper and praise the actors and producers, but she did not see it at all.
She was in a trance, stumbling through life without purpose. She walked out of the theatre, and absently noticed that it was just passed midnight. Somewhere in the back of her mind she noted that she should head home. Her mother might be worried. But then she remembered that her mother was dead, and slightly surprized, she blinked before shrugging of the stray thought and wondered back to the cafe she came from.
She ordered another coffe, taking a few packets of sugar, she dumped them into the cup and mixed it with a plastic stick that seemed to do nothing at all. She sat by the window, watching people run by, talking to others or on cellphones, watched the buss stop every few minutes and saw more people spill from behind closed doors. She didn't drink her coffe, didn't look up when someone walked inside.
She was watching everyone with a sad fascination in her dead eyes. Some people were happy, she noted absently, as she plucked the mixer from her cup. Some were tired, and sad, and even a few miserable one's wondered by. But none were like her. Everyone else was feeling SOMETHING. While she was dead to the world. She did not feel the burn of the heat like she should have. And many times while she sat in the bath and turned the heat on full blast, she put her hand under the water, and watched it turn a blistering red, she wondered why she did not feel.
She did not feel the cold. She sometimes contemplated going out in shorts and tank top in the middle of winter, wondering if she'd feel the cold, but doubting it. Her soul already seemed frozen. She wondered if she would feel herself getting sick. But that though quickly vanished as well. She did not feel. Her fingers brushed against her wrists, feeling the scars that adorned them in a pretty design she carved there. She could not feel.
But she watched the people. Watched them live. Watched them die. Watched, just watched from the sidelines. Like a ghost that no one saw. A mistake? A voice is the back of her head questioned. She wondered at the possiblity, but dissmissed it. She wasn't invisible. Insignificant, maybe. But she was real.
She looked at her purse. It was opened, and the contents were spilled across the table. Her shiny silver cell phone was there, blinking red numbers telling her it was past two in the morning, and she vaguely wondered why she did not feel tired. Then she wondered why she had a cell phone.
She smiled hollowly at nothing at all, knowing in the back of her mind where a tiny shred of hope still existed that she wanted someone to call. But no one did. Except her boss, he sometimes called to inform her of schedule changes. But he wasn't calling HER, he was calling some girl who worked for him. Her eyes strayed back to the people. She wondered if he even knew her name. She blinked slowly, not seeing the people she so loved to watch. She doubted it.
She wondered if this was normal, this empty feeling. Seeing the people going through their lives, she knew they felt something else. She watched a girl run by. She saw her tears, spilling down her face. She saw the sadness, the pain. And she saw the boy, running after her. Watched him catch her hand, turn her back. Watched as his own tears fell, and saw his lips move with words she knew to well. He loved her, he said. She wondered cinically if he was lieing. She saw she girl sob, and throw her arms around the boy, kissing him. She watched as they changed. The light falling down on them from the old streetlight seemed brighter, almost annoyingly so, but not quite. Taking a sip of her coffee, she grimaced. Too sweet.
Pushing the cup away from her, almost snobbishly so, she wondered what was wrong with her. Her eyes found the couple again, sitting in the buss, the girl had her head on the boys shoulder, and his arm was wrapped protectively around her. They were happy. And she was not. Briefly she thought she felt anger, but it passed before it could really settle, so she dismissed it. What did it matter anyway?
She picked up her purse, pushing her things back into it, and leaving the coffee on the table. It was getting boring sitting there. Slowly, she pushed her way down the street. Gangs of kids were strewn about. Wearing bandanas and playing with knives they didn't know how to use. She wondered how their parents reacted to this. But it passed quickly. She didn't care.
Her feet were bleeding, she was sure. The heels she wore were uncomfortable, though she barely noticed. She was no longer stable on her feet, and to anyone else she would almost seem drunk, stumbling gracelessly against passerbys. The straps of the lace up sandals were digging into her skin, and she was sure she'd see deep red lines when she took them off later, but it didn't seem to matter all that much. She wouldn't feel the dull pain. She was almost immortal, in a sense. It was a crazy thought to seek this, this nothingness you become. She wondered why anyone would want to.
She was pushed to the side by a bunch of kids on skateboards, and barely felt her shoulder connect with a corner of a small store that was still open. In the back of her mind she thought that, that SHOULD have hurt, but the though dissapeared just as fast as it came. Sighing inaudibly, she pushed the store open, bored of the cars and the noise that she wasn't even aware of. It was dimly lit, and as she wondered through rows and rows of black clothing, she wondered why she's never been here before.
She pulled out a few skirts, really short, but fluffy and rather cute. Picking the one in her size, she kept walking, all the while wondering why she needed a new skirt. When she stumbled back out of the store, a black bag with the skirt in hand, she wondered if the air always smelled so dirty. Sudenly tired of everything, she turned down a dark street, not knowing where she was going, but knowing she'd get home soon enough.Street signs and cars and people blurred by, and she wondered why she felt so tired NOW.
Her hands reached out, key already in hand, and opened the door she didn't know was there. She was home. Or something like it. She lived there, she knew that. It had her things, her name was on the lease. All pre-tenses say its her home. It didn't feel like home, but she shrugged that off. She wasn't feeling much of anything lately.
She dropped her purse, and her bag, and locked the door. She didn't know why, force of habit she guessed, but she did it anyway. Her bedroom seemed empty now, as her eyes traced the bare walls of the room. The bed seemed too big for her alone. But she doubted she was going to redecorate anytime soon. Slipping out of her clothes, she grabbed a loose black shirt and slipped it over her head. Looking around, she grabbed her dirty clothes and dumped them in her laundry basket. Her closet was open, and she looked at all her clothes. Everything was black. Her shirts, and pants and skirts, and jackets. Even her shoes. Her peeling nail polish was black, as was her messy hair, and messy make up. But her lipstick was red. Crimson red and unforgiving. Walking over to the closet, she pushed away the mountain of black until she saw her treasures. A few red outfits, pretty and stunning. Absolutely new, never worn. She wondered why she kept them, and a stray though flew threw her mind, telling her she used to love red. She nodded, pushing everything back. She kicked off the shoes, not caring about her scarred feet, and fell into her black bad. The pillows swallowed her, but she didn't notice.
All she saw was the big white moon outside of her window, sinking into the horizon because it wasn't really night anymore. Her eyes closed slowly, her brain not functioning anymore, and for a few seconds before everything faded to black she felt all the things she was unconciously supressing crush on her, almost knocking the breath out of her. But she was already asleep. Far away from the world she didn't belong to anymore. Far away from haunted memories. Far away from the unfeeling place she made for herself.
If she stumbled in her thoughts long enough to remember, she would have known she wished it this way.
Empty, painless reality, of a broken doll.
A prisoner she was, in a cage she locked herself in. With a key right in front of her that she refused to notice.
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