Psychosis

Ophelia was numb.

Her soul, her very being, nonexistent within her body.

The cold winter air nipped at her skin, turning her fingers and toes a bright pink. She didn't move to cover her frail body with her tattered blanket. Her corneas burned for the relief brought on by blinking, though she remained wide eyed, staring into the dark abyss that surrounded her. Her lungs burned for oxygen, begging for air, but remained still, taking in nothing. Her right side was beginning to bruise, remaining so still in her bed for so long staining her skin, although she couldn't be bothered to move.

Physically, she was catatonic. Unmoving, non breathing, non responsive.

Mentally, she was petrified. Stuck within memories that left her frozen and murderous.

She could remember as far back as three years old, when she was just a toddler playing with the other children in the orphanage- being there her whole life she could go as far as to call them family. They would run, jump, play and laugh- within the confines of their happy bubble, they never knew the men leaning against the walls, watching them, were viewing their future prospects. They would whisper to one another, adjusting themselves with glinting eyes, as the young girls and boys play, none the wiser.

Frozen on her bed, she had no control over the path her mind was taking, merely a passenger to her mental descent.

She jumped to when she was five, and she was playing with her dirty plastic dolls. Covered in muck from the countless children who had played with them over the years, she paid it no mind, and twirled the ballerina over the carpet as she completed her performance. The TV was white noise in the background as Ophelia mimicked a crowd applauding thunderously for the ballerinas concert. The graceful doll bowed graciously to her audience, until Ophelia's grip on the doll was startled free.

A man in tan khakis came and sat next to the dark haired child who herself mimicked the appearance of a doll. His beady brown eyes roamed over her body in a way that was too closely like a predator stalking its prey. Ophelia shielded herself from the mans gaze with her curtain of long black hair, pulling it between them like a barrier.

He tucked it behind her ear, and brought out his own ruddy plastic doll. He grabbed Ophelia's hand and made her pick up her doll again before having the dolls do weird things. Things that made Ophelia cry. He ruined her game.

Mind on fire, Ophelia's synapses were working over time pushing her from one memory to the next. Her body was pulled like a vortex that left the immobile child nauseous.

She was seven in this moment. Sitting on the carpet with her knees tucked under her chin and her arms wrapped around her legs. The TV was loud in front of her, the screen showing dimmed colors and static most of the time but her eyes, her eyes stayed glued on the screen. Not watching, not observing any of the content fluttering across, she was frozen in fear. The predator was behind her. Disguised as an adult looking for a child to make his life whole, the man sat back and watched Ophelia, not knowing she had her senses on him the whole time.

She could pick them out by now.

The sickos.

The pedophiles.

He looked at her thin back and long arms, her milky skin called to him. Her spine and ribs popped out through her thin hand me down shirt and her malnourished form that kept her looking more and more like a child was a pheromone to the man. Her shiny black curtain of hair was almost ridiculous in its intensity, gleaming a hue of purple in the light of the TV.

Pointed nose, plump lips, wide blue almost white crystalline eyes- she was a doll. She was going to be his doll.

He handed money to Ms. Johnston, the Orphanage owner. She nodded with a chuckle, she knew Ophelia would satisfy the returning customers tastes. She would become his new favorite.

Ophelia began to cry when the man sat behind her and brushed her hair over her shoulder, planting kisses on her neck. Silent tears over silent lips dropped to the floor.

He stole her childhood that day.

As the years went on, Ophelia's body showed ridiculous signs of malnourishment and abuse. Bones protruding, bruises in the shapes of handprints covering her milky white skin were in varying shades of purples and yellows. Varying, absolutely visible, scars trailing her flesh.

She became silent.

She had learned screaming did nothing to help, begging only showed her weakness and made the men whom abused her body more excited. They yearned for her lips to widen with a cry, they longed for the sounds to leave her from the pain they caused her body. When Ophelia had become a favorite amongst the pedophiles was when she learned silence was her only friend. Her mind was her only sanctity; the one place she could be safe.

They tried to take that from her too.

Slowly, their attacks became more violent. Their hits more powerful, their anger overtaking their minds and powering their bodies with a rage that could only be quenched by Ophelia's pain. Slowly, her agony became a constant numb, her aches and tears were daily occurrences and scars became more and more across her flesh until she was was a shell of the doll she had once been so described.

Yet they never tired of her. Her destruction called to their souls, their throbbing urges becoming more excited as they saw tears escape the corners of her eyes, blood pooling on the sheets and splattering across the walls. Ms. Johnston was more than used to ignoring the cries of the children in her orphanage; as long as the money was rolling in she never once interrupted a session.

Though, with Ophelia the new favorite, the other children were slowly left alone.

And they liked that.

So they watched as Ophelia's figure grew starved. They silently looked on as her bruises became bloody scars. Their heads turned from Ophelia's cries until they didn't even notice she had become silent.

They should have noticed, oh, if only they had noticed.

When Ophelia reduced herself to her mind and slowly became catatonic was when she finally felt it.

A friend. A happiness.

It was nothing more than a shadow. Nothing more than a presence in the corners of her subconscious. But it was there. And it was warm. And it was only for her. She pulled farther and farther away from the tortuous reality she was inflicted to and deeper into the embrace of her friend. Deeper into the embrace of madness.

She couldn't care about her blood being spilled on her already stained sheets. About the pain that whispered a thunderous echo she could only just hear. About crying for anyone to help her anymore. The shadow was solely her friend now. It whispered things to her. It told her secrets about those men who came to use her. It told her about their sick fantasy's and how she was the only one who could stop them.

It told her how their blood would taste if she were to bless her tongue with it.

It told her how their screams would cocoon her in ways her blankets never could.

It showed her visions of death and destruction painted in beautiful pastels across the backs of her eyelids as man and man destroyed her. It whispered sweet promises of revenge as they panted in her ears. It protected her from the pain she once felt so vividly, now, just a dull throb she could never quite pinpoint.

She could never force herself to look at her body to find it.

At night, she dreamed she was on an island. And every man she had ever had to entertain would crash upon its shores. And she and her shadow would kill them. Each way different and each way gruesome. Ophelia slowly fell in love with these dark tendrils that allowed her to demolish these lives like snuffing a flame. She wanted these men dead. She wanted to bathe in their blood and lick their tears as they screamed for help- as they had done to her so many times before. She yearned to feel their heart stop beating as it rested in her palm and she could be assured they would never breathe another life.

She became void, a desolate island where people only come to die.

And every night, her islands body count grew.