The Broken Children
-Molly-
She's an artist who only uses red, her paintbrush is a razor, her canvas is her wrist.
The scars cover her arms from palm to elbow, forming a tapestry of perfectly parallel cuts, some white with age and others, the most recent, pink and sensitive beneath her tracing fingertips. It's a work of beauty, she thinks, a single fragment of perfection upon a body of imperfection.
She hates herself for being so weak . . . but loves herself for finding such sweet release.
The first cut was accidental, a slip of a scissor.
There's no mistaking her purpose now though, she's grown since then, and her blades are like extensions of her own hand. To take them away now would be akin to ripping out her spine and asking her to stand tall.
A low hiss of pain escapes her lips as her nail prods open a barely-healed cut, fresh teardrops of red blossoming across the filigreed skin but she takes it, a smile spreading across her face because it feels so good to release the anguish that is the only constant in her ever-shifting reality.
She longs for a deep sleep, one that she will never wake from . . . but she is too afraid to truly make her dreams come true. It isn't as though she has ever been known for her bravery anyway, she's the one whose always been the first to cower.
What more can the world expect from a traitor's daughter?
They mock her at every turn, using the fact that her father had betrayed his family during the last war as leverage against her. For years, she's had to deal with their teasing, the vindictive comments gradually wearing her down till she was little less than a sack of meat and bone, devoid of spirit.
A dementor could kiss her now and find no sustenance.
She's too hollow, after all.
Closing her eyes, she lets her fingers close upon the tiny shard of metal and in one perfectly executed stroke, she runs it along her wrist, cutting through the skin like a hot knife through butter. Her heart bounds as the ecstasy overwhelms her, filling her with a sense of pure bliss and comfort as the slender rivulets of blood run down her arm and pool across the white tiles.
"Molly! Are you in there?" he mother's voice filters through the crack between the doorframe and the door, and it's followed by a hasty thudding against the door.
"Molly? Molly! Open the door before I blast it down!" shrieks Audrey.
She doesn't move an inch, instead choosing to stare at the ruptured vein, realising that she's hit one that isn't going to clot on its own. A sigh escapes her lips . . . maybe now that she's gone just a little too far, she'll be able to atone for proving the world right.
After all, she did support her cousin in his rebellion against the Ministry, just like her family-disowning father before her.
The price for her sins.