Notes: WARNING contains suicidal & self-harm

Loser

The instrument lay gleaming in front of her, untouched, virgin. It caught the rays of the distant light of her room, showing nothing all the same. This light held no warmth. Cold and bare it lay, as if mocking her, daring her to touch it with her searing skin.

Trembling hand reached out tentatively, as if scared the instrument, the compass would strike up and attack. Nothing happened. Time continued to flow as if everything was right with the world. And yet nothing was right at all.

Her skin made contact. She screwed her eyes up as if expecting an explosion, yet still nothing. The compass’s silent mocking continued within her own cankered mind. Her thoughts were reeling. Insanity could be tasted upon the stale air of the room.

Then, suddenly, as if struck with some wild passion, she grabbed the compass with a firm and confident hand, clenched fist, teeth gritted, madness showing through her eyes. Raising the compass slightly above her head, she brought it down again reassuringly into the skin on her wrist.

How the pain stung! How the blood flowed onto the tainted metal as she scraped almost feverishly with the compass along her skin, tearing up great lumps and not seeming to care. Again and again she scraped, the motion of the compass inside her arm almost like a hypnotic dance in front of her eyes. The experience was a rush; her head grew light, her heart pounded, and the blood streamed like a poisoned river from the gaping wounds she left in her arm.

The tearing became almost maniacal as a strange fire seemed to burn within her eyes. Again and again she struck, the shapes and lines she created with the compass forming a word upon the paper of her skin. The pain was ignored, the thrill of watching her own blood spill onto the desk before her was much too glorious to watch than to stop now.

Finally, the motions stopped. Her other arm, the one which had aided her self-mutilation, ceased to move. The job was done.

Her other mangled arm lay lifeless upon the cold desk, the ruby red blood slowly oozing into the creases of the woodwork. The fire burned out of her eyes as she watched it with indifferent interest, a blank look upon her face. And her eyes glazed over as they lingered on the word she had gruesomely carved into her skin:

LOSER

Suddenly the pain hit her, stung her, grabbed her with rough hands and tore at her insides as much as the compass had scraped at her own skin. Her grip tautened, and the instrument that was now riddled with blood dropped to the lonely floor with a clatter. Next was the sound of her limp head hitting the wood of the desk with a thud. Darkness prevailed.

The loser lost it all that night.

fin