Disclaimer: Shit, I forget how to write these things! -- Ok, I obviously don't own the show or the lyrics to 'Bother' by Corey Taylor from Slipknot.

A/N: I DON'T THINK I CAN APOLOGIZE ENOUGH FOR LEAVING THIS FIC IN THE DUST. I WANTED TO WRITE THE LAST CHAPTER BUT I KEPT PUTTING IT OFF FOR LIKE A YEAR. I'M SOOO SORRY EVERYONE. I WOULDN'T BE SURPRISED IF I LOST READERS AND IT'S ENTIRELY MY FAULT. I PROBABLY WON'T EVEN GET REVIEWS, I DON'T DESERVE THEM! BUT TO MAKE UP FOR I I'M UPLOADING THE LAST CHAPTER AND THE EPILOUGE! PLEASE DON'T HATE ME! A THOUSAND TIMES I'M SORRY!

Like Petals From A Rose

Chapter 23

Even in Death

As with so other mornings lately I awoke to the silence of the dawn, my own insanity and the depression into which I was steadily falling. A dark place in which I hoped no light could reach me. I had thought that I couldn't get any lower, and apparently I had been wrong. Death was my every thought, every breath I drew. I knew I had to find a way to end this misery before he did.

My life was something I would never let that bastard have - ever. He had already ruled it, ruined it but I would never let him own it. It would be my ultimate defeat, the ultimate mockery of everything in me that hated him. The stickiness and flaking of the dried blood between my legs only fueled the certainty that I absolutely could not survive another day.

Once upon a time it was fear that had held me back from ending my life, and then it had been love. Both were gone and there was nothing between me and the six-foot drop into my own grave. I moved out of the bed slowly and dressed in some old clothes that were laying around. I didn't care that I was wearing his clothes, it would make my mockery all the more pronounced when it clothed nothing but a corpse.

Wish I was too dead to cry

Self-affliction fades

I wanted to cry. I wanted to cry and scream and throw myself against the walls but I was beyond that point, far beyond caring and so far beyond ant form of strength. I wanted to fight him, to kill him and make him suffer like I had. I wanted to see his blood flowing over my hands and onto the floor. I wanted to hear his screams, see his face contorted in pain.

But I wouldn't.

I would hurt him in a way that he feel all the more, hurt him a way that he could never get revenge on me. I would end this myself and leave him in the dust. But I had to figure out how. I couldn't hang myself and I couldn't shoot myself and I couldn't poison myself and I couldn't OD myself. But I would kill myself if I had to hold my own head under water!

Stones to throw at my creator

Machochists to which I cater

And then, without anything triggering it, Yami's face appeared in my mind and my heart gave a great lurch. I wanted to tell him everything, that I loved him, needed him and what Marik had done to me. I wanted him to know everything, how much I loved him, and always would. How much he had given me, how much I still had.

I wanted him to know it all, every last tear I had cried, every smile I ever gave him. I loved him, even now, on the day of my death he still brought a feeling of comfort over me, like a razor to someone slitting their wrists in a public bathroom.

The room was dark even though the sun was shining outside. The blankets I had put up blocked the dreaded light away from me. I couldn't stomach the sight of joy, the sound of laughter probably could have made me deaf. I would claw my own eyes out before I saw someone smile at me, would rip out my own vocal chords before I laughed.

You don't need to bother

I don't need to be

I was slipping, I could feel it, like so many times before but nothing holding me back. Not fear, not hate and not love. There was nothing to stop me. Not even Marik could stop me because he wasn't here. He was outside fucking whores and injecting drugs, spending the money he had made from my rape. Nothing but me and a huge black hole.

No-one was going to come and save me like Yami had in the past. No-one was going to come and stop me from ending my life, no-one was going to hug me and rock me and tell me that everything was ok. Yami didn't know I was here and I had only myself to blame.

I'll keep slipping farther

But once I hold on

I won't let go till it bleeds

And still, I had to thank him. He had given me something that people very rarely get in life. He had shown me love, brought back something in me that I thought was dead, he had given me back my life let me believe for awhile that things did have happy endings. I loved him to death for that. I loved him, and I here I was, about to die. It didn't seem right, did it?

I sat down on the edge of the bed and winced when I felt the pain in my crotch. Those bastards really did a number on me, but it didn't matter anymore. Nothing mattered, except that I was going to get the hell away from him once and for all. If he wanted me, he could come to hell and rip me out of the screaming pits himself.

Wish I was too dead to care

If indeed I cared at all

All of the times I had let him beat me without complaint, all the times I listened to him to prevent them, I was going to show him that he couldn't control me. I was going to scream the thousands of words that I had wanted to before but held my tongue in fear. This was the last day that I was ever going to live and I knew that we he buried me in the ground all he would hear was my laughing.

Never had a voice to protest

So you fed me shit to digest

I got off the bed and walked into the bathroom slowly, taking small steps and trying not to shout in pain from the bastards that had raped me………..again. I caught my reflection in the mirror and stopped, shocked at myself.

I looked exactly like I had when Yami had first found me. Bone white, thin, my hair clinging to my arms, the soft skin under my eyes ringed with circles. For some reason, my own reflection disturbed me. It seemed to clarify that Yami was gone, that everything his love had made me look like had been drained out over the last two days, or was it weeks? I couldn't tell anymore.

I was truly back to being the whore I had been when he first noticed me. And I could remember the words of the stupid blonde bitches in the hallways. Ha ha ha, look what the cat dragged in! I wanted to look away but couldn't. I had put myself under some kind of hypnosis with my eyes, deep and haunted and gaunt, the skin looking like it was stretched too far on my pale face.

I wish I had a reason

My flaws are open season

For this I gave up trying

One good turn deserves my dying

It was the terrifying feeling of finding yourself back at the same tree after days of travel, seeing your own cut marks in it. I was truly back at square one, back to the drugs, the beatings, the being a whore. But I had memories now, I knew what it was like to be loved, to be touched slowly and sweetly instead of pounded into like a insignificant object. I knew what it was like to live. I had seen the light, and for me that was enough.

Before I knew what I had done I heard a shattering sound and my fist was in my reflection and the shards of the mirror were falling nosily onto the floor. My hand was bleeding, the hot blood running over it and dripping onto the sink. It was as if a burst of realization hit me and I suddenly saw my way out.

You don't need to bother

I don't need to be

I'll keep slipping farther

It was so obvious that I had to wait until it was right in my face before I clued in and I slowly saw my bloody reach out and pick up the largest shard of glass feeling as if someone else was controlling my limbs. The glass was cool and I could see my own reflection in it as I held it out in front of me. Something about my white skin and black hair seemed to transfix me and I merely stared. I was going insane, I knew that and I couldn't care less. What did trivial things like sanity mean to me now? Less then nothing.

"WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING?" I jumped and the shard of glass fell out of my hand but I didn't yelp in surprise. In fact, I remained almost unmoving except for the glass falling as I turned to look a Marik. I didn't reply.

But once I hold on

I won't let go till it bleeds

"Fucking psychotic slut." He hissed, walking over to me and ripping the shard from my hand and making another cut. I felt the hot blood rush over my cold hands, taking a momentary pleasure in the pain before I found my voice.

"You only have yourself to blame for that." My voice was hollow, dead. I might as well have been a talking corpse. I pretty much was. He stopped and turned to me, anger in his eyes.

"What did you say?"

"Deaf?" I asked calmly. "Or to fucking stoned to understand a goddamn thing?" He stormed over to me and grabbed my hair, forcing my head back and pain to shoot through my scalp. He was stoned, I could see it in his glazed eyes.

Wish I'd died instead of lived

A zombie hides my face

"Shut your fucking mouth whore." He snarled and something in me broke at the moment. My fist came flying up, striking him right in the side of the face, catching him off guard. Clearly, he wasn't expecting me to try and defend myself. He snarled and spit out blood looking at me as if he was going to kill me. "YOU BITCH!"

He grabbed and slammed me into a wall but I was beyond pain I turned and pushed him back with all the strength I had. I don't remember running into the bathroom or picking the mirror shard but I must have because the next thing I remember is me pinning him on the ground, shard raised.

"Not so fun now is it?" I demanded, feeling a strong sense of power wash over me. "Not so fun when the helpless little girl turns the tables, huh?" I started laughing and knew full well that I was completely fucked in the head.

Wish I'd died instead of lived

A zombie hides my face

"Crazy bitch." He snarled and I laughed again, I couldn't stop. It cost me though because he took the opportunity to throw me off him while I was lost in my own insanity. I hit the floor hard and he was on top of me, hitting everything he could find and screaming at me. "Fucking slut, think you can whatever the fuck you want!" He was screaming and that was all I heard, along with the sound of his fist hitting my skin. Arms, neck, face whatever he could get at. And suddenly, I lost all control.

"NO!" My hand was up and came down in a quick, slashing motion. I saw his face stop, shocked, contorted in pain and surprise before he fell of me. The blood was already flowing, covering him and the floor and all I could do was stare at the shard of glass sticking out his back.

"You……." He tried to reach out and touch me but I back away, watching his silver hair turn scarlet. "You………fucking………..whore…….you…." He was having trouble forming words as he blindly grasped for me. I couldn't get over the amount of blood, it was everywhere. On his clothes, in his hair, in a dark puddle on the floor. He tried to move, stopped, tried again and then he went completely limp, his eyes loosing their glimmer as he died.

Most people would be running around, screaming at the top of their lungs and freaking out but I didn't. I curled myself farther into the corner and stared at his corpse wordlessly. I tried to move further away and my foot hit something. I looked down to see that it was the diary that I always kept with me. The word 'diary' was written across it in golden lettering on a velvet cover.

Shaking I reached out and ran my hand along the cover. I opened the lock, fishing for my key necklace, the one that Marik didn't think was expensive enough to steal and opened it. Slowly, an idea came to me. I found a pen and began writing rapidly, my hands flying over the pages and I was acting as if everything was perfectly normal, like I hadn't just killed a man and his corpse was on the floor next to mine.

Shell forgotten with it's memories

Diaries left with cryptic entries

When I was finished I paused and then flipped to the back of the book, tearing out a page. I quickly wrote down Yami's name and address. I walked past Marik, only pausing briefly to look at his mangled body. I was dying, but at least I was taking that bastard with me. I felt an uncontrollable feeling of power creep up on me. He couldn't stop me. When all was said and done, he couldn't stop me.

That bastard had tried though, there was no mistaking that but in the end I was the one who was laughing, I was the one who owned him, I wasn't the one wearing the collar and being jerked around as he pleased. I knew, somewhere inside me that someplace within my heart I should feel remorse for what I've done.

But once I hold on

I won't let go till it bleeds

But I just couldn't. I stared at his body, his face slack and his purple eyes open and I found not one trace of guilt. Did that make me a monster? Or was I merely a women pushed beyond all levels of control? I decided to let the news headlines reach a verdict, I didn't give a shit anymore. I didn't care if I was a monster, so was he. Hello pot, I'm kettle………

You don't need to bother

I don't need to be

I shook my head, unable to believe myself. I was a suicidal murderer and I was making jokes about pots and kettles. I really was loosing it…… not that it mattered. I walked into the bathroom and looked down at the shards and smiled bitterly, picking one up and feeling the smoothness and weight of it.

I'm going to close the cover of the diary now, tucking Yami's address into the cover. I do this before I place the book on the sink and turn back to the shard, picking it up in my bloodstained hand.

Oh happy dagger.

I'll keep slipping farther

But once I hold on, once I hold on

I won't live down my deceit

A/N: Well, there it is, the last chapter of the story. It wasn't as long as I thought it was going to be but I guess you can only stretch a suicide scene for so long before the readers want to kill themselves, lol. I updated the epilogue with it so please march forward and enjoy. Leave a review if you're bored. I won't blame you for snubbing me. .