Were her eyes the lush cyan blue that you have always longed for? Did they glisten and shine with a multiplicity of positive emotion, which captured her every asset? Did her hair shimmer, tinsel-like, a scintillating, sunflower blonde? Did her curls bounce with ease and fluency? Were her lips the shade of sweet berries, forever arched in an open grin, wide but composed? Did her cheeks blossom soft rose when she smiled with merriment? Does this show her happiness…?

This innocent, young woman may have appeared to be perfect but behind every face, expressive or not, is a complex story.

You should have known…

Winter had finally entered the village, perhaps unwillingly, hoisting with it a deathly frost. It had always been cold in Pawley but this year, there was another dimension to this pain-cradling season. Trees were wedged tightly between the various bruised autos that had not been manoeuvred in months, their dendritic fingers clasping the windows in a tenacious hold. The once faithful grasses were bitten and broken by the everlasting torture of the near arctic conditions. This was no place for life.

Yet, there stood a slight child, her fair and tiny ringlets ricocheting with the excitement which all infants should experience. Their naïve minds cannot fully comprehend what the future may hold; the supposedly insignificant hints made then, in just a few years time, would have made all the difference. Intuition could have saved a life.

Her dino-sized footsteps, relevant as they were, were a patter of silence. Instead, diverse strains of argumentative language were splattered upon the walls like paint that would never peel. This was all new to a toddler, so much so that her broad blue eyes began to fill with tears as she toppled over once more. Her icy nose dripped with the familiar salty liquid and her knees with splinters from forever labouring around the filth-ridden floors. Since she could not yet walk properly, there were piercings, cries for help, along the crimson walls from recent attempts. Gritty, her nails were so overgrown that many of them had snapped in a simultaneous motion.

Smashing against the glass came a sudden wine bottle, shards shattering everywhere, more knife-like than ever before. A shrill cry emerged from the midst of the pile, from her tiny yet able mouth as one of the pieces of shrapnel dug deep into her limb: this was an avoidable mistake. Her wail was fast joined by a growl of impatience which soon appeared to belong to the anger-filled male who raced towards her. With arid charcoal slits, he stared hard at his daughter, roaring abuse into the three year old’s still damp face before he had decided he’d had enough. With a concrete grip, he spun around and around before flinging her into an already broken mirror on the fireplace. Looking a little more satisfied, he sauntered slowly back to the kitchen, punching the door as he passed, returning with another whisky beverage. She had not been conscious to remember the further pain and despicable physical infliction she had experienced.

And to think… you thought your life was less propitious than hers…

The once tiny, insecure youngster was now an older and more matured female; she moved with the elegance of a dancer, leaving every surrounding heart beating, beating to the sound of her tapping pace. Her hands softly knocked against her hips in a simultaneous rhythm as she strode with effortless superiority in her ruby pumps. Her beam lit up the corridors and passers by so that they too could feel the warm magnificence of her glow.

Gently breaking her confident march, the girl discontinued her path to find a boy; his eyes had always been a dark onyx but when met with hers flushed soft chestnut, glistening brightly, lost in the opposing sapphires he couldn’t help but gaze into. His fingers shivered nervously, irrelevant of the weather, brushing against her manicured nails and slowly gathering her hand in an unyielding embrace. She smiled gleefully as he bent to kiss her knuckle, as he always did: she was so happy…as I’m sure you noticed. She thought all of her troubles were in the past and was ready to move on – you were the one to stop that.

It twists, it turns: the spiralling vortex that is your mind is beginning to unravel once more. What were the tenacious knots of pain and anger within you now whiz apart far too rapidly for one normal being to notice. They stretch and spin in such a maladroit way that your emotions and memories are torn along the way. The secrets you hide in the depths of your mind are all too extraordinary and far too real for even a slight suggestion that they had been devised. However dark the mysteries are hidden, it has always been quite simple to tear them straight out, like a wolf devouring a weak carcass. It just takes one. If only you had known…

The beat stopped that night, her heart halted and her new widely terrified eyes began to build with tears. In that alley, the girl who stood before her was in no way friendly or inviting and her glare was sinister and unpredictable. Much to her bewilderment, she found her long tanned legs had been forced into a corner by the mysterious girl, who was attempting to cover her mouth, threatening to end her squeals with knife threats. Her feet cracked against the salt snow, but she wasn’t shaking because of the cold. Immersed in black, the girl jabbed at the long, silk blonde curls, ripping great chunks away and into the gutters before taking out some scissors, beginning to slice away the excess. She lifted the jade green scarf, scrubbing away at her raspberry lips before deeply slitting lines of weakness, disabling her speech further. The black figure had now taken enough pleasure in playing with her appearance and so discarded her onto the concrete slabs before walking away with few strands of her gold.


The barren landscape of danger had beckoned the once beautiful, young woman into a world of hatred and jealousy. She had naively skipped into the sharp threshold, therefore subconsciously submitting herself to a life of pain and torture from the start. She took herself and another: the maternal thread which clung to them both, what remained, was being destroyed. Anguish, anger and tremendous desperation seeped from her like blood melting away from an open wound, an infection waiting to prey on it.

Not only did you end her life, but her tiny, guiltless and undeveloped little boy was blast from existence. He would not have once seen the sweet morning sun as it streams down onto the thirsty lands. He would not have heard the roaring engine of a car or even his own cry. He would not have smelt the harsh scent of burning, the way it lingers ignorantly. Most of all, he would not have experienced friendship, truth and love. Such an insignificant, yet meaningful being he was that his potentially powerful life, given chance could have ascended like a thousand fire flies attempting to take flight, off and into the world: the freedom he could have had, the small yet incredible life there could have been–

Can you live with the guilt? You blamed her – now she blames you. However desperate you feel, the suffering that she equated was much dearer than yours. The pain that churns inside of you will eventually die – will hers? How do you feel now? Remorseful? Still insanely bitter towards her? Whatever you feel, there is one thing you now know: she always wins. Death isn’t the end, and for her…it’s just the beginning.