The blood was rinsed from her body painfully, the water swirling down the drain in a whirlpool of red. With her eyes closed and her forehead resting against the cool porcelain wall, Tizzrah flinched as the scalding vitae dug into her open and throbbing wounds.

Salty tears burned those pale violets as she cried for the end of innocence and the darkness that possessed her soul. It had caught up with her again, dragging her down into the abyss that was her own personal hell. She had thought she had been free of it; she had thought she had run far enough and fast enough to escape it. But her lungs had burst and finally she had fallen again, the gutters waiting to drink from her flowing blood.

[Only seventeen and I've lived too long.]

The thoughts danced morbidly in her head, seducing her brain. The temptation to kill was strong; fortunately, her willpower was stronger. The blade had already been stained. She was too tired to use it again.

Tizz dragged herself out of the shower drunkenly and wrapped a towel around herself; the bright yellow contrasted oddly against the dripping black of her fur. She stumbled back into the bedroom where the crime had been committed. The evidence had seeped into her new bedsheets, the weapon of choice tossed haphazardly on the dresser. For a moment Tizz could do nothing but stare at the proof of her destruction, and then her vision was blurred by a storm of overpowering tears. Her knees collapsed under her and she fell. The towel fluttered to the floor beside her, already ruined by her mutilation.

[Pink ribbon scars that never forget, I've tried so hard to cleanse these regrets; my angel wings are bruised and restrained.]

Bruised and restrained. That was all she was. Beaten and molded into some worthless toy. Chained to misery. Tizz sobbed softly for herself, for all the promises she had made and couldn't keep, for all the love she had given and gotten nothing in return. She had tried and failed to be normal and now the hope was shattered. Shaking fingers reached again for the knife.

The blade was brought up to her face and studied. Her reflection was distorted through the crimson streaks that patterned the metal; distorted, she thought, by her own ugliness. She clenched her teeth and lowered her hand to tease the cutting edge against a gleam of unmarred skin. It wasn't long before willpower dissolved and slowly the keen blade sank into pearly fat, dragging along her thigh and scraping the muscle away from bone. And it wasn't as if she felt it; numbness pulsated through her entire being, guising the agony and misery she felt. Blood sprang to the surface and peppered the dark carpet. Another stab was aimed at her side, slicing apart flesh as if it were butter.

An aching sob escaped a pale throat streaked with red. Alone. she was alone. This thought only drove her farther into grieving insanity and the thin edge peeled flesh away from flesh until a swelling, dark red line appeared and then started to drip down her thigh onto the floor. This was done a few times more until she finally lowered her hand, letting the knife drop limply beside her. Purples slid shut in pain and exhaustion and she then lay slowly down, nursing the feeling of emptiness inside. Finally she slept.