The first thing Chloe awoke to was the cold neon green rain that lightly danced upon her body. Looking up at the giant obsidian orbs in the sky, the small orange-haired girl thought back on what had happened to her over the past ten days.

Especially replaying the moment when she had been in a frenzy stabbing Nathanial’s lifeless body until she herself became lifeless.

In the middle of a crimson intersection, Chloe lay on the concrete floor, unable to move from where she had found herself.

Struggling to grow accustomed to the fact that her left eye was no more, reducing her vision by half, the small girl weakly tilted her head so as to survey her surroundings.

Soon, among the decaying skyscrapers that littered her field of view, she found two black figures.

The first was a familiar face who’d been with her for the better part of eight years; the second was a newcomer, but still someone Chloe recognised immediately.

“I dealt quite a bit of damage, didn’t I, Leach?” A rugged voice sounded, the figure examining his stabbed and blackened body with intrigue.

Coal-black hair adorned his head, his face poorly stitched together with blue thread where Chloe had stabbed him multiple times. A small smirk appeared on his slashed lips, turning into a series of chuckles as he turned to his left to look at the other figure that silently stood next to him.

“So you’re as crazy as I thought~. Tell me? How did killing me feel? It seems like you lost yourself in the moment, I mean, look at me! I’m a complete mess! My handsome face is no more!” Nathanial chuckled, strolling over to the girl who was unable to move.

The blackened boy was standing ten or so meters away from Chloe, pinching himself on the cheek before letting out a surprised hum.

The small girl’s vision blurred all of a sudden, Nathanial reappearing right in front of her debilitated self.

“I should just get revenge on you right now, while you’re unable to retaliate!” The boy pondered aloud, covering the small girl’s throat with his fuzzy black hands when he reached where she was lying.

Chloe hatefully looked towards the once blonde’s new figure before looking over to the other black figure, who had just been silently standing still.

The boy tightened his grip, enjoying the painful look that spread across the helpless girl’s face. Suddenly his countenance lit up, and he let go of Chloe, the latter gasping for air whilst curiously looking towards the monster.

“On second thought, I think another type of revenge would be most satisfactory. You may have been able to cover up your first murder, but your second… That’s always a different story. Let’s see. Will your friends stay by your side? Or throw you to the side after learning who you truly are,” Nathanial chuckled, looking up towards the abyss-like sky whilst reminiscing about his own past.

Chloe lay still, no words coming from her mouth.

“Perhaps he is correct. But, even so, I’ll believe. In Aaron. In Lea…?”

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And so days passed, each without any visits from the two of them. One week turned into two which then turned into four. Over the past month, perhaps only a few things of note had occurred while she was healing from her injuries.

Firstly, it seemed like she would lose consciousness every few days, subsequently losing memory of anything that had happened on that day. So far it had happened eight times in total, but Chloe brushed it off as a side effect of her mental instability.

Secondly, Nathanial’s father had turned himself into the police, submitting evidence from CCTV tapes to prove Chloe’s innocence and the misdeeds of his son. Whilst under the surveillance of the police, he came to see Chloe, verbally promising to give all of his assets to her as an apology. At the time, Chloe hadn’t understood what he meant.

The next day she received notice of his death. The cause? Suicide. Apparently, he had hung himself with a rope he had smuggled into his holding cell, the cleaner finding him the morning of the next day, face a purplish red colour due to the asphyxiation.

“I suppose that’s what he meant when he said that he’d be giving all his assets to me…” The small girl mused, not even slightly affected by the news of his death. Perhaps she’d lost what remained of her humanity in that dark chamber.

However, Chloe never received a single penny. Nathanial’s family claimed that his father was not in his right of mind when he changed the will so as to give all of his assets to the small orange-haired girl. They instead claimed that it should be split between them instead, leaving the small orange-haired victim with nothing.

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Limping out of the hospital with the help of her new best friend, a pair of good ’ol crutches, Chloe started the trek back to her house.

The cold October weather sent a shiver down her spine as she navigated the familiar streets that lead to her apartment, bumping into lampposts and walls due to not being used to only having one eye.

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“Seems like my depth perception skills have gone to shit…” Chloe grumbled, hoping that it wouldn’t affect her ability to dodge a glass bottle or two.

However, what sent an even chillier feeling throughout her body was the looks she’d been getting from onlookers. Those terrified expressions that they wore. The way they stopped whatever they were doing to stare at her figure, quickly peering towards the ground once Chloe had noticed their staring, as if holding eye contact with her would result in them contracting some lethal plague.

Reaching her old home, the small girl groaned at the sight of the flights of stairs that she would have to ascend.

“Getting used to walking was already a challenge… and now I’ve got to go up a fuck-tonne of stairs?” The small orange-haired girl sighed in despair.

The two black shadows behind her cheered her on as she slowly climbed what seemed to be a never-ending flight of stairs, the girl sending a middle finger towards the blackened boy after a comment he’d made, “If you fall, I’ll take it as though you chose the easy way out~!”.

Knocking on the door to the apartment felt like she’d just volunteered to jump into the pits of hell, but she felt there was no other option; Nathanial had taken the key away from her, threatening to kill the older woman, but that had no effect on the girl, so he had thrown it out at the time.

As if Chloe were standing in front of a tombstone that was slowly moving so as to reveal a secret passage, a heavy moan erupted from the rusty iron door, a sign that its hinges were dying for some oil.

Dishevelled orange hair flooded Chloe’s vision as a taller figure filled her vision. Dark bags slept under their eyes; barely any clothes clung to her body as the strong smell of alcohol

Despite the fact that she had clearly just woken up, the older woman was still equipped with a bottle of alcohol in her left hand.

Two groggy orange orbs slowly edged downwards, pupils shrinking once a few orange locks entered her sight.

There stood Chloe in all of her glory.

A white gauze had been strapped over her left eye, her face filled with cuts, deep and shallow alike. The small girl’s remaining orange-orb calmly peered at her older counterpart, both of them not saying a word.

Dragging her eyes over the rest of the small girl’s body, the older of the two found even more injuries. Biting her lip when she saw the two metal crutches that Chloe was using to support herself, her expression softened slightly before hardening once again.

“I heard ya killed the bastard. Ended up messed up, you and him both. Still alive, eh?” She chuckled, placing her hand behind her head whilst continuing to look at the scars that covered the young girl’s body.

The blackened boy approvingly nodded in the background at the sight of Chloe’s mother, as if he were pleased that his original hypothesis had somehow been proven correct after just one line from the woman and a few expressions.

Chloe remained silent as she inquisitively peered towards the older woman’s face, or lack thereof. A black mist had completely covered all but her mouth, the words flowing from her mouth sounding as if they’d come through an old 20th-century radio.

The older woman noticed Chloe’s gaze, causing them to maintain eye contact for a few seconds, unbeknownst to the smaller girl.

She reeled back after observing the look that the small girl’s orange orb held, one of complete exhaustion. It looked as if all of the colour had been wrung out of it, leaving nothing but the empty husk of the colour it used to be.

Chloe thought that the older woman had stepped out of her way, so she slowly limped into the dark and messy apartment, making sure not to step on any of the new and old shards of glass on the way to her room.

But after no longer than ten seconds, she heard a small chuckle sound out behind her, causing her to look towards the origin of the noise.

There stood the older woman, the door now closed behind her, shutting out any remnants of natural light from entering the apartment as if she’d just closed the exit from hell behind her, leaving no path for Chloe to escape to.

Some artificial light poured out of a small TV set in the corner of the room, the laugh track from a comedy show playing in the background as the small orange-haired girl peered towards the no longer calm face of her older counterpart.

The older woman’s fists were tightly scrunched up into fists, her knuckles turning white from the pressure, although Chloe didn’t notice due to not having gotten accustomed to the low light level yet.

Blood drizzled down the taller woman’s face as she wound her left hand back as if she were about to throw something.

“YOU! ARE YOU MOCKING MY MIKHAIL? WHY WON’T YOU JUST DIE ALREADY?” She screamed, launching the glass bottle, which sped through the air before smashing against Chloe’s forehead, throwing her to the floor, where even more glass shards pierced into her back, eliciting a small scream from the girl.

“Fuck! I thought the bottle was farther away than it actually was!” Chloe cursed, trying to push herself up to the ground before letting out another yelp when she saw the sight in front of her.

The older woman sprinted over to the smaller girl before mantling her, tightly grasping her small throat with both hands.

The woman’s deranged laughter filled the room alongside the chuckling of the two monsters who were crouching right beside the two women.

Chloe felt her breath becoming scarce as she weakly flailed around her arms in a pointless act of retaliation before slowly accepting her fate.

“Why can’t I ever just be allowed to be happy?”

Blood dripped onto her lips from above as her vision started to darken, the irony taste spreading within her mouth.

“Ha! Serves you right, Leach! I told you! I didn’t even need to do it myself. Everyone around you despises you! Your friends have abandoned you! Your mother is going to kill you! What have you got left to live for?” Nathanial sang, his charcoal grey orbs staring up towards the obsidian pair of eyes that had blossomed upon the ceiling of her apartment.

Chloe’s orange orb bore into the pair that had appeared above her, one final thought appearing in her mind before she prepared to shut her eyes close for the last time in her life.

“Aaron… You haven’t given up on me, right? You haven’t thrown me aside, have you? No… No… It can’t be. NO! No. Lea. It has to be her doing… She… She took him away from me… I’ll… I’ll take him back… If it’s the last thing I do.”

As her eyes shut close and her mind came to a stop, a solemn tear ran down her face.

Chloe Barker tried to do the best with the cards she’d been dealt, but her best was never good enough. A glimpse of happiness snatched away by her at the last second. But it’s fine. She’s used to it.

Everyone had a breaking point, and hers had arrived long ago.

For Chloe, it was just a matter of time before she embraced the demons within.

“Ahahhahaha~!DIE!~”

STAB