The house was eerily quiet, filled with the creepy stillness of age and emptiness. The hallway was dark, portraits on the wall casting bent and menacing shadows into the abyss of the floor. A thick layer of dust lay over everything, washing out the red carpet to a dull brown, the white walls to a filthy grey. The only thing that seemed untouched by time and gathered dirt was the seat of the couch and a small patch of the floor.

A gun lay there, the barrel still warm.

A woman lay draped across the sofa in a cruel parody of sleep, one arm thrown awkwardly as though reaching for the pistol vainly, one leg tossed carelessly over the back of the furniture on which she would forever lie. Her lips parted slightly, eyes closed as though flitting peacefully through a dream.

Blood dripped slowly from the hole in her chest onto the carpet, a Chinese Water Torture of her own body. The arm reaching for the floor trailed a smear of blood toward her palm, her forearm scratched though no longer bleeding.

A small scrap of paper lay near her outstretched fingers, corner saturated with the blood dripping from her wrist.

The pain is gone now and I’ll finally be free.

A/N: I've been having a really fscking rotten day... if you don't like this and are thinking "Ohmygod, this is so much darker than everything else you've done!" Yeah well, bite me.