Warmth spread throughout the small girl’s fingers as she sank to the bottom of a seemingly endless crimson ocean.

In front of her stood another feminine figure; her features blackened, and a snarky smile spread across her countenance.

Slender black fingers reached out towards Chloe, strangling the submerged girl whilst giggling, seemingly unaffected by the warm liquid that flowed into each and every one of its orifices.

Black lips opened, a grating voice echoing within Chloe’s mind.

“How long are you going to play pretend?”

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Launching forward from the bed in a cold sweat, the small orange-haired girl panted hard as she touched her throat, pain flaring throughout her neck just by touching it.

Her long orange locks fell to her sides as she plopped back onto her mattress, wincing due to the discomfort she felt stemming from her back.

“Must have slept in the wrong way... Wait… How did I get here?” The small girl pondered, surveying her surroundings to make sure that this was indeed her room and not the boring old hospital room that she was so used to.

Hopping off the bed, she felt the cool floor hit her feet, once again reassuring her that she wasn’t dreaming; her dreams were never as detailed as this.

“Agrh, this again? What is it now, the ninth time? It seems like I lost another day’s worth of memories... but it doesn’t seem like they were that important anyway. Probably just got beat up by the old woman again…”

Chloe felt a pair of eyes on her small figure stemming from her right. Nathanial was quizzically looking towards the girl, his expression incredibly befuddled.

“You. You don’t remember, do you? What happened yesterday?” The ashened boy asked, his charcoal fingers intertwined as he waited for the girl to answer.

Nodding slightly, a series of hysterical laughter flowed from the broken boy’s stitched mouth, red tears slowly leaking from where his brilliant sapphire orbs used to be.

“Oh Chloe, you are hysterical,” he cried out, a wide smile equipped.

The small orange-haired girl gave him a confused stare before pushing the matter to the back of her mind.

“He’s probably just fucking with me, bloody nuisance…” She concluded.

Whilst walking out of her room, using her new crutches, and into the bathroom, she quipped at her once captor, “Couldn’t you have just stayed dead like a good little boy?”

Nathanial just smiled, deciding to keep quiet and see how things would play out instead of intervening any further.

Peering at her reflection in the bathroom mirror, Chloe grimaced.

“Y/n… he won’t mind. In fact, I doubt he’ll even notice!” She wholeheartedly thought, wincing at the bruise marks that covered her neck.

“She must’ve been pretty rough with me yesterday... I wonder if she’s at work now... Hopefully so…”

Brushing her teeth after washing her face, Chloe’s reflection started to morph slightly, startling the girl.

The lower half of her face had been completely replaced, a fuzzy blackened version with an ominous, large grin splayed across its charcoal lips.

Shaking her head slightly, the vision disappeared, her scars returning alongside the frown that she had been wearing.

Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

Unbeknownst to the girl, a crimson substance pooled within the bath, not too far from her.

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Chloe had never minded being isolated from her peers. She’d gotten used to the feeling of being alone when she was young, so she hadn’t been that phased when people started to avoid her once again.

But the reason this time around was different compared to when she was young.

They were scared of her.

Of the girl who killed another.

Of the girl whose scars spanned her whole body.

Of the girl who only had one eye.

Of the girl who was not like the rest.

Strangely enough, it seemed as though any random student that she had run into had the top portion of their faces distorted by a fuzzy black material.

All she could see were the horrified expressions that they would make upon seeing her appearance.

The whole time Nathanial and the other black figure had been snickering at the students reactions. Chloe swore that if they had popcorn, they would have been stuffing it into their stitched faces.

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Turning a few corners, Chloe soon found the two that she had been looking for. Hearing that they were having a conversation, she slowed down, wanting to listen in on their conversation.

“Did you hear about what happened to Chlo?” A masculine voice queried, worry evident within his tone.

A tall female figure shifted slightly, a frown appearing upon her countenance. Her movements clearly showed how uncomfortable the topic was for her.

“I can’t believe she killed him... I heard it was pretty gruesome too,” she said, once again shifting in place.

Y/n’s expression became conflicted for a second, an understanding look eventually surfacing upon his countenance, his lips opening as if he were about to speak.

But Lea beat him too to it, “I mean, surely she could have avoided outright killing him, right? I know Nathanial is a bastard and all, but killing him? I don’t know. Just seems a bit far, no?”

This time Y/n’s expression turned sour. He didn’t like what she was saying but could understand where she was coming from.

Chloe unconsciously held her breath as she waited for his response, Nathanial softly chuckling behind her as if he already knew what Y/n would say.

“Yea. I get where you’re coming from. Murder. Killing someone, huh?” Y/n replied, looking as if he was about to add something else to his sentence before he heard a loud noise from not too far away.

The small orange-haired girl had fled from the scene, her mind a mess.

“Eh? What? Y/n… he… Lea… Agreed... that I’m... a murderer?”

She felt as if she was being choked by someone, as if her life was all of a sudden draining out of her.

“Hahahahaha! I told you, didn’t I? The second murder is always different! Face it, Chloe! You’re different from them! The only people you can trust have turned their back on you! What else do you have?” Nathanial quickly blurted out, his speech impeccably pronounciated as if he’d been practicing those specific lines for quite some time now.

His words made the small girl stop dead in her tracks.

“What else... do I have? Y/n was all I had… All I’ve ever had... And he thinks of me as a murderer!” She concluded in despair, feeling as though her life had just lost all of its meaning.

“If Y/n isn’t there... then what reason do I have to live? To continue taking beatings day in and day out...

The small girl’s body swayed to the left and right as black spots started to fill her vision. Soon she started to hyperventilate as she left the school grounds and aimlessly wondered back to her apartment.

“So end it all! Do it with a bang!” Nathanial cheered her on, as if he were watching the series finale of a rom-com series where the main love interests were about to get together.

“Why should I... go on? I’ll just kill myself.”

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The dark apartment was only lit up by the small TV set, which sat in the corner of the lounge, a random comedy channel rambling on in the background as Chloe held up a sharp kitchen knife up towards her throat.

“Suffering… Suffering.. More suffering… Isn’t there anyone... ANYTHING out there... except more pain for me? Is my life really just that cruel?” The small orange-haired girl pondered as she brandished the metallic weapon.

Reliving her past, Chloe realised that her life really was just made up of agony. She’d murdered her father at the age of ten, failed at taking her own life a week later, was abused by her mother for the better part of the last eight years, and was tortured for ten+ days straight by another murderer just like her because of her upbringing.

In comparison to all that suffering, the only joy that had been brought into her life had been the time she’d spent with Y/n.

But even that had to come to an end.

Because of her.

But it didn’t matter anymore.

She didn’t matter anymore.

Because it would all be over soon.

A glimpse of happiness snatched away at the last second, but it’s fine. She’s used to it.

But how could you blame her for giving up? After all. No longer was there any light at the end of the tunnel. In fact, the tunnel might as well have collapsed in on itself, leaving the small girl to die alone due to dehydration or hunger. Whichever one claimed the girl for itself the quickest.

“If only she hadn’t existed.” Chloe sighed.

But “What Ifs” had no place in the real world.