Shatter

I think I´m falling. I´ve been falling for a long time, tumbling and twisting wildly out of control. Despite how much I want to put this all behind me, I like it. I like the adrenaline rush from being out of control, but somehow I know at the end of the insanity I´ll crash, and then I´ll shatter.

I find excuses like I always do. It´s the pressure everyone puts on me that makes me like this. Or maybe it´s fear of what I will become. Or fear of what I´ve already become, and the things I´ve done, the things that torment me when I´m alone with only the darkness of my mind to keep me company. They´re things I want to take back, but will never be allowed to. Or maybe it´s just me. Maybe I´m the only one to blame for my own sickness.

I smash the just empty liquor bottle against the wall and watch as delicate crystal shards fall like rain. I grab one of the shards and fall back on the coldness of the floor. I stare at the ceiling and find the room is spinning. It won´t stop. Somebody please make it stop. Please, I beg pathetically, uselessly.

Using my little piece of glass I cut at the Dark Mark burned in my arm. Now, it feels I´m detached from my body, watching myself from across the room. I observe this poor wreck of a man as he cuts a crimson line across the ugly skull etched upon his skin.

"Get it off!" he cries.

I want to help him, but I´m useless just like I´ve always been. He cuts again and again until all I can see is the blood running down his forearm. But when the blood clears the Dark Mark will still be there. It´s always there. I know this, and he does too, because next he places the glass against his wrist. His hand trembles, but he steadies it with the most willpower I´ve ever seen him use. The glass presses deeper until I see the sickening red against the pallor of his skin. He seems dazed as he moves the shard back and forth and watches the effect.

"Severus! Stop it, you drunk bastard! You can´t keep running, you coward. That´s all you´ve ever done!" I hiss at him, but he doesn´t listen, and I knew he wouldn´t.

The other wrist ... now the blood is everywhere ... in his clothes, on the floor ... everywhere. There´s no one there to help this horrible man. Even if there was someone around I think they might let him die. Wouldn´t it be better that way, with one less troubled soul around to make the world bleaker for everyone else? I struggle when I feel myself fading back into him, but it´s inevitable. I want to scream and kick and curse this man, yet I can´t do it. I pity him more than I´ve ever pitied anyone before. He is just a shadow, a wraith of something that used to be alive. I fade back into the darkness that comes from within and wonder if I´ll wake up again, but even as I wonder I know it doesn´t matter. Not to me, not anymore.