Red is the colour of blood.

As a child, red was her favourite colour. It seemed feminine – like pink. Pink is just light red; but why weaken something when you have the utmost form of it? The colour red gave her passion, pride and attention.

Attention she did not like, for it made her self-conscious. Her like for red soon transformed into a like for black. Black absorbed all colours, and is therefore the end of everything. It proved simple and often unseen by others.

When her life was taken over by all sorts of problems, she saw two things: the light and the darkness. The light was her religion, and the darkness was her faith. She was caught in the middle.

There was, unfortunately, one thing that she did not understand as a child: sometimes the most complex is also the most simple. If she did not want to get noticed, for instance, she should have dressed in all the different colours, rather than just black. And now she was making the same mistake again: trying to be simple by staying on one side. If only she had the common sense to stick with Miss Average, life would have been a lot easier. Miss Average, that is, who allowed herself to laugh and to cry, to love and to hate, to dress in not just black, but also green, yellow, blue and rainbow.

For a while she did this, but she found it a struggle. She said her prayers and killed her sister’s Barbie. She went to church and screamed when she was alone. She tried to hurt herself with the confirmation cross.

The cross was obviously not harmful enough. She tried again with her finger nails. They used to be red, when she was five, because red was pretty; ten years later, they were red still, this time because red was apocalyptic. A mere month ago, when she felt helpless she would simply look at the thick, shocking redness of her nails and the thought of blood would horrify her enough to make her feel somewhat better; but now, it seemed that the psychological impact was not enough, and the metal cross could not create sufficient physical effect to calm her down. She looked at the long, beautifully yet uselessly red nails in doubt, and scratched her arm lightly. Not a change. She dug five of them into the flesh of the opposite arm, and the physical pain somehow eliminated the pain within.

She had very sensitive skin, and soon the marks were noticed by other people. So the next time, she used a pair of compasses instead – the tiny dots would disappear in no time.

This became addictive and before long, she was debating whether or not to use the famous razor blade.

.oOo.

It didn’t hurt at all. Her nerves sensed the very strange feeling, and that feeling made her relax. And who the hell cares if there's a mark? If you did it somewhere hidden, no-one would dream of seeing it.

Two cuts make a cross; she now has nine crosses on her arms. Well, which side is she on now? It doesn’t matter anymore, because she is on her own side.

The razor blade doesn’t solve any of her problems, but it makes them seem less obvious for some five seconds or so. Just to watch the skin, blithely bleed and leave a thin trace of red. Much as she would like to, she cannot exactly carry a razor blade with her and bleed herself whenever she feels like it. But it’s ok, because she has found an alternative. She now wears red.