She cannot cope.
It is impossible to cope when the urge to survive is ingrained in every shattered atom of her being, when the marrow in her bones and the flesh above that are as infallible as water lapping at the shores. Even if it isn’t the same water, it is the same ocean. The same means to the same end. It is impossible to cope when every part of her ruined soul aches for the oblivion of death and yet she cannot go quietly into the night.
For how can she live each day with blood on her hands and a darkness blossoming like a stain upon her breast. How long can she endure the dreams where she sinks thirsty teeth into the throat of her sister, her mother, her father, where she wakes to the metallic memory of blood on her lips and the way it had made her soulless heart beat just a little faster.
There was a girl. He says, and she can feel her sanity draining away into the dirt at their feet.
“There were two girls.” She responds inching closer, those green eyes like emeralds on fire, too wide and fever-bright. “Two girls.” She repeats and even though her mouth is against his neck and her breath must been burning holes in his sanity, it isn’t him she’s thinking about.
She thinks about having hands and feet and fingers, about the knife held loosely in her fist until the moment the blade buried itself in Nerissa’s spine. She thinks about the hunger in her soul, like a fire raging through her veins and burning away every atom of who she used to be. She thinks about the fluttering pulse at Lena’s neck and how her humanity had felt when she sank her teeth into flesh and drained away every drop of her stunted life.
Her lips pull back and suddenly the flat and white of her teeth are pressed to sinew of his neck. “And now there are none.”
MALIS
makai x oksana