Why hello there, small child! I've decided to douse my woes by writing WORDS :D
*Ahem* So I've began to write this during English, when we're learning how to write essays, and speak and write formally! I DUN NEED THATS! :D *cough*
Oh yes, I nearly forgot to mention: I made a facebook page for teB360! :D The link is on my profile; JOOIINNN EEETTT!
Song: Beautiful- Eminem
Disclaimer: The disclaimer won't steal my rights to Beyond, right? RIGHT? ... teB360 owns and dominates all ;)
Chapter 20: Mirror Mirror On The Wall
The door slammed shut with a shuddering effect down his spine. Such a noise like this would surely wake the other orphans at a time like this. The first thing that was noticed as he entered into the bathroom, was the amount of steam pooling out of one of the occupied shower cubicles, fogging up the mirrors and air around him.
He stepped in front of one of the clouded mirrors, and spread his palm across it, printing the shape of his hand across the glass, before slowly wiping the condensation away.
Looking back at him was a teenager of about fifteen, with almond tanned skin, wavy black hair that hung above his shoulders and dark brown eyes. Underneath his eyes were lines of sleeplessness due from the past few nights of extra studying.
Sighing, he wiped away the remainder of the haze on the mirror with the back of his sleeve, only to be revealing milk white tiles of porcelain lining the floor and half of the walls like scales, and the shower, being the cause of the steam.
Zero turned the tap on below him and icy cold water rushed out of the faucet. He dipped his hands in the stream and splashed the liquid upon his face, feeling a sudden chill shake through his body. He wiped his face on the sleeve of his shirt, which was already damp from wiping at the mirror.
The mirror had fogged up yet again, but it was still possible to see the marks of where his hands had been pressed upon. It looked as if the hand prints were that of a spirit, or perhaps a ghost on the other side. Sighing, he wiped the mirror again.
Zero's breathing hitched and his heart stopped in place with an aching thud as something that contrasted against the white of the tiles began to seep thickly and slowly across them.
Zero didn't know what it was, but he knew that it didn't belong. He could feel his chest begin to tighten and the back of his throat begin to dry. He felt his breathing start again with a sharp thump of his heart and the mirror fogged up again from the steam of the shower.
He hadn't noticed it, but the hairs on his arms and on the back of his neck had risen with an uncomfortable feeling rising in the pit of his stomach. Something wasn't right.
Quickly, he turned on the balls of his feet with a painfully abrupt breath. He wasn't sure what he was expecting to see. At most, his eyes were probably playing tricks on him. That stuff... He didn't even register what the colour was, he could just memorize how it oozed. It oozed in a strangely similar way to blood. .. It couldn't have been blood! No. No way. It was water. It had to be just water.
Or, nothing at all.
Zero's heart leapt and his mouth gaped. It was nothing. His mind was playing tricks on him. This was one of the effects of not sleeping for the past three days; you start imagining things that aren't really there- hallucinations, if you will.
The shower was continuing to steam out wet, white haze that clogged his lungs, keeping him from breathing easily. Zero coughed. He'd only just realised then how much he'd been sweating since he'd entered the room. His shirt was completely damp and itchy... If he was suffering outside of the shower, then what about the person inside of the cavity? They'd get it ten times worse. Scalding hot water burning their skin, chest tightening steam and no breath.
Who was in there? Was it nobody? Did someone forget to turn the taps off after they left? Zero dismissed that last thought. These taps were mechanically reinforced to turn themselves off after half an hour, and even if a little spray of water was on for less than that time, the entire bathroom would not result in something like this.
Somebody was in there, torturing themselves with water. It was too obvious.
Zero stepped closer to the source of the steam, feeling his stomach begin to lurch with a sickening feeling begin to swell inside him.
There were only three other boys in the orphanage and in true fact, it could have been any one of them. L had insomnia - he barely slept, but most of the time, he forced himself to stay awake with coffee and cold showers. That ruled him out of the picture.
B? Nobody knows if he has sleep deprivation problems. Especially not with all that black makeup he cakes on, around his eyes. He could be in the shower, and Zero wouldn't have put it past him to have the water scalding hot.
Next was A. A was number one in the orphanage only because L wasn't rated. A was smart, but at the same time he was stupid and unstable - nearly nobody noticed this. He never left his room after 9 at night, or so that's what was thought of him. Zero chose to believe the fact that A was in his room, fast asleep.
Backup was in there.
Zero grabbed onto the thick, canvas like material of the shower curtain and ripped it open with a flex of a muscle. He was cascaded by thicker steam, making it absolutely impossible to see anything. His breathing difficulty reached its peak and he began to choke. His chest drew in tight, as if there were a belt pulling it closed and his throat was aching monstrously.
He needed to get rid of the source of the steam before it's too late. Before he collapses.
Zero threw his arm in the shower. He tried to ignore how the water felt like hot oil on his skin as he twisted the taps with as much force as he could muster, abruptly stopping the rain from the faucet.
He managed to brush the fog clouds away, despite that the heat was forcing its way down his throat in thick lumps, and soon enough, shapes began to form.
His eyes, which were stinging from the hot condensation strained to make those very shapes out. Huddled in the corner was a grey shadow. Something bright glinted from it and suddenly it dulled.
"D-Don't get any closer!" The shape demanded. His voice was rough- it sounded dry, like it hurt to speak.
Zero's heart stopped right on time as his eyes widened. That wasn't Backup's voice. There was no way in hell that could have been his voice. Whoever this was didn't have the chiding tone that B always had, nor did he have the usual mock or sarcasm dripping from his words. Instead... There was something else. Pain.
"... A?"
There was no reply.
A's eyes, once again, began to wetten and his chortled sob choked out of him with a wrench of his heart, like somebody had taken a wet towel and just twisted it, but... All that he felt was the simple wash of pressure begin to slip from its holding place.
He clenched his fists tightly to the point where something sharp began to create a throbbing pain on the palms of his hands but he easily ignored it.
"Zero?" He whispered as the sound of unsureness faintly began to echo his words.
"A..." He whispered back "Wha- what are you doing?" He asked, forcing his voice into it's most gentle tone. He tried to clear the fog away from his vision to get a good look at A, but he could barely see his face. Just his features.
A tightly closed his eyes as the throbbing from his hand began to thicken just as the hot sticky liquid, otherwise known as blood, dripped off his hand, in between his fingers, across his knuckles, and onto the tiles below.
"Can you see me?" He asked. He tried to imitate L, by keeping his voice empty; void of all the emotions he was experiencing; Pretending not to feel anything, when really, all he wanted to do was cry. Cry himself a river and drown in it. Just like Pandora, only his box of evil was given to him by Beyond.
"No." Zero admitted. "I can't." He suddenly felt a tight knot begin to grow in his stomach. What was A doing?
A's jaw trembled and he tried to suppress the tears he knew were going to fall out at any second now. His heart, yet again, felt like it was being wrung like a wet towel and then shredded to pieces by bare hands. All this was Beyond's fault. Beyond fucking Birthday did this to him. He fucked him up. Messed with his head. Destroyed whatever stability and sanity he originally had, and yet Beyond didn't care. He found it funny, humorous, a source of fucking entertainment! He was one sick, sick person. A sadist in true light. A fucking psycho.
A could feel his wrist pumping in rhythm of his heart beat as his own blood was slipping from his body, wasting away onto the milk white tiles scaling the floor. The pain wasn't that bad. It was nothing compared to how he felt inside. It was just another scratch inside a big dent.
Nothing.
"Zero." He began, mustering up as calm a voice as he could. "It's probably best if you don't see this." For his sake. Not for Zero's.
If A were found covered in his own blood because of his own stupid choices this early in the morning, the person who caught him would end up telling Roger, but... This was Zero. If anything, Zero wasn't a tattletale. He couldn't trust him, but he couldn't completely hide everything from him. He was understanding, especially with everything he's been through.
Everything he's been through with C.
Zero's mouth gaped the word 'what' out of confusion. His dark eyebrows knitted together tightly.
"Hold your hand out." The brunette continued. "Please." His fist clenched tightly once again and yet another mark of shame was made on his palm. Again.
Obligingly, Zero held his hand out blindly into the cavity of the shower cubicle. A bit his lip as he raised a clenched, bleeding fist, and grabbed onto the other teens held out palm just as quickly as he slid it out, landing it on the wet floor besides him.
A had placed something in Zero's hand.
Zero's stomach lurched as the sickening feeling of illness began to raise in his stomach like bile. The blood smeared on his hand wasn't the trigger for this. It was what had caused A's very blood to spill. A razor blade. A fucking razor.
Zero cupped his mouth as he felt like he was going to spew. His hands began to shake and the razor dropped to the ground with a clatter by his feet. His heart was hammering against his ribcage and he could feel hot liquid begin to corner by his tear ducts.
/ "Why are you so worried?" She giggled light heartedly as she collapsed on her bed with a soft thump.
Zero glared at her from the doorway. "Ciera, he's dangerous. I can sense it." He snapped.
She raised a dark eyebrow. "But you should know me well, Zeki. I'm into the dangerous type."/
/ "You can see it as well as I can, Ciera! He's not good for you! Look at yourself!" He snapped.
Ciera resembled a porcelain doll with the amount of makeup she was wearing. Her hot tears streamed down her cheeks, causing ugly black lines from her eye makeup begin run.
The thing was... Ciera never wore makeup. She'd never found the need for it.
"Where have you gone? You're not the same person you once were. You're not the same person I know." He continued. Zero was on the verge of crying himself. He hated him. He wanted to fucking rip that bastard's head off for doing what he did./
/ "Ciera, it's summer. Why are you wearing long sleeves?" Zero tugged at the oversized black jacket she was wearing and she pulled away from him with as much force as she could possibly muster. Zero's eyes widened. "What are you hiding from me?" He held onto her small forearm tightly.
"Nothing! Now get away from me!" She growled, breaking his grip completely before tripping over her own shoes and falling to the ground. The sleeves slid up her slender arms, and that's when he saw them.
Stripes running up her arms. Scars. Cuts. Self torture.
She was purposely hurting herself./
Zero's breath was coming in harshly, making it hard for him to actually breathe and he knew, he just knew that he was about to cry.
A knew it was a bad idea to let him in on the secret and he felt regret begin to sweep inside of him. He leaned up against the wall of the shower and closed his eyes.
Surrounding him was not a pool of water, but a pool of his own blood. The blood dripped from each individual cut he'd make on his body.
'Cut' wasn't a word strong enough to describe the damage he'd done to himself. It was 'hack'.
A had hacked at his arms and legs. There wasn't one piece of skin on his thighs or wrists that wasn't swollen or bleeding.
"I shouldn't have done this." He whispered, hoping as hardly as he could that Zero had heard him, but alas... He hadn't.
.-.
Three loud knocks erupted in the room, pulling Hood out of her doze. Her blue eyes half opened in response as a groan mumbled out of her lips.
Yellow morning sunlight streamed out of the window, telling her it was probably time to start the day, not that she was interested in getting out of bed.
Three more loud, hollow sounding knocks echoed their way to her ears.
"What!" She yelled, throwing a heavy feather pillow over head.
The knocks slowed in rhythm. 1... 2... 3.
In frustration, Hood threw her pillow to the floor, jumped out of bed and thumped over to the door. She swung it open with as much force as she could. She stopped in place when she noticed that a couple of orphans were standing in front of her door from across the hallway, or actually in front of Kay's door.
"W- what's going on?" She asked.
Before she got an answer, X and Z shuffled away from Kay's doorway to reveal Beyond leaning against the frame. His hands were dug deeply into his pockets and a lollypop was jutting out of his lips. His red eyes, hidden from his choppy black hair, glinted as he acknowledged her presence.
He was wearing nothing but a pair of jeans and a thin tee shirt. You could clearly see the ribbon of bandages wrapped around his forearm, following his hand down into his pocket.
L soon emerged from the room with Roger and Quillish Wammy by his side.
"Kay's gone." He declared. "Long gone."
Hood's eyes widened to the size of saucer plates. 'Gone? How?'
"She's been gone since last night."
.-.
:D YAY I FINALLY UPDATED! :D And at least this chapter actually brought us somewhere ^^
Oh and Ciera is pronounced as 'Kiera'. It's just another spelling!
I hope you all enjoyed the update :P PLEASE REVIEW! :D
Could I pllzzzz have at least 5? :3