Chapter 2. Crimson shadow

At first the crack in the glass is small, barely the length of hair pin. It shone almost blackish in the subdued light that filtered through the shuttered window. Before the distress button can even be depressed it accelerates, branching like a drunk spider's web, then like a coil suddenly relieved of tension the new fragments flew outward, only a raining down of fragments sharp enough to cut on contact could be seen.

Before her brain could register the sound as breaking glass, her eyes shut tight and a million new knives cascaded softly over her exposed skin. She froze, all but her heart remained statue-like on the wet tile.

When finally Adriana allowed her sealed eyelids to flutter open she noticed that the ground was stained red, the colour caught and creeping outward amongst the icy shards until the crimson river lay still yet vicious...

Watching the tiny crystallized glass fragments embrace themselves in scarlet dye was a horror with a mesmerizing beauty. The breaking glass appeared to fall with the grace of snow, yet in truth it is more of a wild avalanche and just as deadly.

Adriana felt nothing.

Why did she not feel anything? She was crisscrossed with cuts, yet she felt nothing. Was it not a good thing to not feel pain?

No one wants to feel pain in life, so why did she panick when she felt no pain?

Where was the Sharp pain that would lance across her being?

Where was the jarring pain that would exposed itself?

It had disappeared.

She felt empty.

It was like a void. A dark void. A never ending dark void that consumed everything, leaving her with nothing. Empty. Nothing to subside her hollow soul that hid in the shadows, away from the light and humanity because her souls emptiness was consuming that it could not bare to pretend that everything is okay. Nothing was okay!

People walk around this earth each day and pretend that everything is okay, and it always will be. Why can't we all just admit that we are just hollow plastic dolls with a painted happy face revealing no guilt, sadness, emptiness - emotion.