Cry.

Silence, eventually.

Silence, cold, everything inside slowly freezing over as the realization strikes. Time, again.

She didn't want to do this. Didn't want to BE this. Starving, worries, they're horrible to face, yes? But wouldn't it be better to salve her pride than to sink this far down and once again face the fact that someday she'll drop so far that she can't climb back up?

Silence, still.

The whispers of a half-heard constant conversation in the back of her mind are muted. There's no music. No reason to dance. Nothing but the gnawing certainty that this is where she will always be, where she perhaps deserves to be. Masochism came early and clings to her, answering every question with the same tired, painful, bitter refrain: not worth saving.

Not worth anything.

She understands how others can find themselves shadowed with such words and such moments; understands as well that like them, she does have some hope, some spark. Knowing it is there makes this worse, really. She is so certain there is some hope, some chance, some other way...

...and she can't see it.

Silence, inside and out. One small voice whispers, laying out the course she will follow, the actions that must be taken, setting her once again to the path she truly hates to tread. She's memorized every step on it, knows where it leads, knows that if she ever reaches its end she will reach her own as well.

She huddles down for a moment, arms wrapped around herself to try to draw some spark of warmth out to give what comfort it can. Her eyes are dark with frustration, knowing that for the moment she has failed, no way to save herself and no way to redeem her errors. She sees so clearly the trouble she has brought, sees it as sharply as if it were etched in the air before her. Perhaps it is. Perhaps there is something there, something surrounding her, that causes her to fail.

She knows better, though. Her own choices brought her here. Her own pride and need and hope are the very things that tear her to pieces now. Humility, pain, fear, shame. That's all that is left.

She'll walk this road again, make sure once more that she keeps her promises. It eats at her soul, but that's really of no matter to her. She sold the rights to that long ago.

She remembers being told that sin, betrayal, filth, that it was in her blood.

Is it any wonder that at moments like these, she wants nothing more than to bleed herself dry?

She knows that too would be a waste, and so she draws her breath, pauses, and once more pastes on the masks she needs as she walks just a few more steps on the road to nothingness.