'Angst Week 2015'

Disclaimer: I do NOT own GH...

Prompt 02: Blood

Word Count: 699

'For her, death was a finer option compared to loneliness...'

Blood.

The spurting, crimson fluid was the only memory of that one horrible night which she could recall with stark clarity.

"Masako?"

Clean, white walls stared back at her. The colour such a contrast against the red hue that marred her pale hands. She had scrubbed them clean of all evidence, trying to wash them of all memories but nothing worked, the colour mocked her. Reminded her of every single sound she wanted to forget, every single image ingrained in her mind, the violence etched deep into her consciousness.

"Masako, can you hear me?"

She heard all of them; saw the concern in their eyes, the desperation in their voices, comprehended the fact that they wanted her to get better, that they needed her.

No. They had needed her. Before she had gone and murdered an innocent. Before she had painted her hands in red. Before… before -

"Dammit, Masako! Talk to us!"

She did not respond. Instead, she concentrated on the walls in front of her. Walls were safe. Walls were clean. Walls were white. Not red. Never red.

"Don't let it destroy you, Masako. Do you hear me? Please."

Masako ignored them. Could they not see that she wanted to be left alone? Could they not see that she wanted nothing more than silence? Nobody should come near her, not after what she'd done - not after the… the murder.

"Quiet. It's her father. He's finally giving a statement."

Her father.

She concentrated on his face. The patrician nose, the cold grey eyes and the aristocratic jaw; a profile that never failed to intimidate and found herself wanting to hear him say something in her defense. Wanting to hear him say that it hadn't been her fault, that it had been a séance gone horribly wrong. A paranormal phenomena.

Anything. Anything that hinted of him caring for her.

But when he spoke, she saw the muscles in his jaw ticking, the annoyance etched onto his face.

And for one clear moment, she knew that the blood that tied them together had been nothing but a tenuous thread, waiting to be broken.

"It is indeed true that Hara Masako committed a murder, regardless of the witnesses stating that she did it under the influence of a spirit."

Someone in the room gasped. A low, horrified sound.

She just stared ahead. Walls. White. Stark. White. Red. White. Red.

Red. Red.

Murderer.

"Masako has always been a… disturbed individual. I should have seen the signs of a mental disorder in her person when she claimed to see spirits but, alas…some things are discovered late in life. I - I shall ensure that she receives the best treatment. Let us hope for her complete recovery. Thank you. No further comments."

"The man's insane!" Mai claimed, physically lurching towards the television screen as if to confront her father. "He can't say that! Masako's not mad!"

But Mai did not see it. Nobody did. She was mad. Mad and tired of seeing things she did not want to. Tired of a gift that had done nothing but bring her torture, toying with her mind until she couldn't endure the grief, until the pain threatened to consume.

Nobody would understand. Nobody would know that the screaming of the man rang in her head when she laid it on a pillow at night. Nobody would know that she remembered his silent pleas to stop.

She remembered the colour of his blood, the stickiness of it on her hands, the stench of it in her nose.

That night, she stared at the ceiling long and hard. Tried to pull apart the seams of an incomplete memory.

Nothing worked.

So she stared at the sedatives on her bedside and contemplated all the ways that could lead her to oblivion.

And the last thing she recalled of that hazy night - with the dark beneath her eyelids and the agony in her mind - was the blood, oozing out of the wounds she had inflicted and the blood that no longer held any meaning to her family. Her father. She was a murderer. An insane woman.

A lonely woman.

And death was a finer option compared to that.

A/N: So yeah... not one of my finer pieces of work but I was mildly depressed and contemplating the concept of death (I have an essay to write, you see) and this popped into my brain. Initially I was going to make it from Yasu's POV but something in me called for Masako. And here it is. Review!

Much love,

-borntoflyhigh-