NOTICE: Shit's about to get real ;)

Translations:

Je vais bien - I'm fine

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"There is something at work in my soul, which I do not understand."

- Mary Shelley, Frankenstein

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Rose woke up slowly, as though she was being dragged out of her own head through layers of molasses. The first thing she noticed was the pain in her neck. However, her body soon caught up, and Rose groaned as all her muscles protested any movement. She must have been clenched up in her sleep.

Sitting up with a few muttered swears, Rose glanced around the room. There was no sign of Sabirah, and maybe it made her a bad friend, but Rose was glad. She didn't want to deal with Sabirah's sympathy, no matter how well-founded it was. Rose just wanted to forget.

Unfortunately, her mind didn't seem to want to get with the program, and as Rose woke up more, she was assaulted with memories, both years old and recent. The phantom feeling of hands on her body, teeth sliding against her neck, pain, fury, and the anguish that came with one's bodily autonomy being ripped away all filled her head, and a scream built up in her throat. Panting through clenched teeth, Rose bolted out of Sabirah's bed and into the adjoining bathroom, wanting some way to wipe herself clean.

Before she could make her way over to the shower--she could no longer willingly enter even a bathtub--Rose caught sight of herself in the mirror. Shock ran through her at the too-thin face, cracked lips, and hollow, near-colorless grey eyes that stared back at her. She looked washed out and downright ghostly, and that was saying something considering her natural coloring. Even the purple tips in her blonde hair were surprisingly muted.

I look like utter hell, she thought numbly, turning away from the mirror and starting the shower. Tapping her fingers against her thigh anxiously as she waited for it to warm up--another thing she couldn't force herself into: cold showers--Rose felt herself glancing around the room, paranoia welling up inside her. She couldn't be sure the brothers wouldn't find her, and that thought alone sent her into the shower, scalding her skin in her impatience.

Rose quickly down the temperature as she maneuvered around the spray to avoid being burned again, and soon she was scrubbing at her skin frantically as though she could scrape away the memories if she cleaned hard enough. Rubbing at her arms and waist until the skin turned red and raw, Rose felt tears well up in her eyes. She was on the verge of a meltdown despite her best efforts, and the pain that flared as she moved to scrub her neck didn't help.

Finally, Rose just sank to her knees and sobbed, the warm water mixing with her tears as they ran down her face. She hated this place, hated the constant fear, hated how she'd run from one cage only to be caught in another. It felt like Rose was living more in her past trauma than the present, slowly going insane under the pressure of the memories, but Rose didn't know how to fix it. She didn't know how to fix herself. You can't.

Rose jerked to her feet, startled by the voice. It felt like someone had whispered it in her ear, but as she spun around, she couldn't see anyone. Look at her, gawking around like an idiot searching for something that isn't there. Poor little Rosie's going crazy. Rose flinched. This one was clearer and dripped with malice, where the other was breathy with sorrow. This wasn't the first time she'd heard voices, but they came from inside her head, and she could respond to them with enough sass and confidence to shut them up. These, Rose didn't know how to handle these. She didn't even know what they were.

She isn't very smart, is she? Rose whimpered, clapping her hands over her ears like a child as she attempted to drown them out. But they were still there, whispering to her, picking at her insecurities with a pinpoint precision that left her dizzy and nauseous. She couldn't drown them out.

"I have to ignore them. They aren't real. I can just ignore them," she said to herself as she got out of the shower. Are you sure we aren't real? "Yes," she hissed, momentarily forgetting her promise to ignore them. Angry with herself for acknowledging them, Rose, tugged her old clothes back on--she should probably move some of her stuff to Sabirah's room since she spent so much time there--and decided to go back to her room for fresh clothes and then to the kitchen for food. She was just tired and hungry, that was all. They would go away once she took care of herself.

A psychotic giggle made her jerk her head to the right. There was nothing. Rose took several deep breaths, trying to calm her frayed nerves. It was going to be alright. It's not. It was. Padding softly down the hallway, Rose found herself shivering in the cold air of the mansion. She hadn't dried her hair properly, and now she was starting to regret it because Jesus Christ, these vampires had no idea what proper temperature settings were. That, or maybe they just embraced the cliche horror movie setting they'd created.

Almost to her room, Rose forgot to avoid a loose floorboard, and the following creak sounded like a gunshot in the stillness of the mansion. Shh! Rose yelped, stumbling forward as she tried to twist herself around, sure that one of the brothers was right behind her. But there was no one, and Rose felt panic begin to claw its way up her throat, restricting her airways as making her heart race. How was she going to function if these voices didn't stop? What was she going to do? What happened to ignoring us, lunatic?

Swallowing back a scream, Rose stumbled into her room, locking the door behind her, even though she knew it wouldn't do much good. She was sure the damn vampires could teleport, and even if they couldn't, their strength was probably enough to break through whatever she tried to used to keep them out.

Sinking onto her bed for a moment, Rose instinctively curled into a ball, resting her head against her knees as she fought off her rising fear. She knew this would happen eventually. It wasn't like she was unaware of the twenty-five percent chance; she just didn't think it would come so soon. She thought she would have more time.

Wrapping her arms around her legs, Rose pressed her forehead into her knees even more as she tried to soothe herself. "Je vais bien," she murmured to herself, her native tongue calming something inside of her for a moment. No, you aren't. You're breaking. "Je vais bien," she repeated more fiercely, voice cracking on the last word as a sob tried to fight its way out of her. She swallowed it back.

Someone sighed, but Rose didn't look up this time. It was all in her head; it wasn't real. A scoff followed closely after, and this time she looked up, startled to see Reiji standing before her, looking pissed off. "So you've finally made an appearance," he said cooly, staring at her with an expression bordering on reproach.

And at that moment, Rose stopped caring. She stopped worrying about how dangerous the man before her was, stopped being afraid of the predatory glint in his eyes. She just stopped. "Indeed I have," Rose said back, meeting his frosty gaze with a glare of her own.

Reiji was unimpressed with her attempt at murdering him with her eyes. "You'd do well to remember that you are nothing but a meal to us. Your attempts to step outside your station will not go unpunished." His voice was irritated and cold, seconds from snapping, but Rose was too far gone to notice. She let out a bitter, mocking laugh.

"Your threats are almost as pathetic as your jealousy of your brother," she hissed back, her eyes goading him to just do her in, to just end it. Danger. He's danger. Good, she thought. Reiji's hand was on her jaw in a moment, grip hard enough to bruise as he studied her eyes. He was furious, yes, but there was something else there, a glint that made Rose feel like a specimen on a dissection table he was about to cut open.

The voices grew more urgent, warning her to look away, to hide from this dangerous monster wearing human skin, but Rose kept looking. Her new lack of care made her reckless and angry. So, so angry. She felt the molten hatred rising in her gut, and she was about to jerk her head out of his grasp and chew him out royally for touching her when his eyes changed.

She was sure they had always been red, but were they getting darker? Were his irises always that big? Before she could wrap her mind around what was happening, blood started pouring from his eyes, running down his face in thick, vibrant streams. Not again.

Rose screamed. Reiji let go of her in shock, and Rose pushed herself to the opposite end of the bed, pressing the heels of her palms against her eyes as she rocked back and forth. A hysterical keening sound was coming from her, but Rose couldn't be bothered to worry about how it sounded, or who would hear.

"Be quiet," Reiji barked, but Rose was too much in her own head to care. Somewhere, distantly, she heard her door slam open with a loud bang, followed by raised voices.

"What the hell did you do to her?" Someone snarled, but even that wasn't enough to get Rose to calm down. Her keening had softened to a whimper, and she continued rocking back and forth as she tried to get a grip on reality.

"I don't know," Reiji snapped, and Rose could sense his icy glare, even with her eyes shut tight. Maybe he was alright; he certainly sounded fine. "She just started screaming like a maniac."

"God, will you just shut up?" The loud voice was now directed at her; though, unsurprisingly, it did little to calm her. Rose flinched away from the speaker--or rather, shouter--and clapped her hands over her ears. She was struggling to get her brain back from fight or flight mode, and the aggressive tone was just ramping her adrenaline levels back up. She heard a sigh, and a weight settled on the opposite end of the bed. "Look, mort-er, Rosemarie. I need you to calm down and open your eyes. Can you do that?"

Rose took a deep, shuddering breath. Then another. The apparent effort to speak in a quieter tone calmed her, as did the evident awkwardness in regards to being nice. She dropped her hands from her ears and wrapped them around her knees, hugging them to her chest. No, don't trust him. He lies. The voice was panicked and hoarse, no more than a faint rasp against the back of Rose's neck, but it still made her pause.

"Is he still bleeding?" She asked softly, her voice surprisingly croaky. Maybe she'd screamed more than she thought she had. She heard a soft noise of confusion from the other side of the bed, one that was echoed by Reiji.

"No one is bleeding," Reiji said in such a terse tone that Rose knew he was holding back a lot of insults. Apparently, all Rose had to do to get these assholes to respect her was to lose her mind and scream like they were murdering her. Focus, Rose.

"No. You're eyes broke, and you bled," Rose replied, knowing how insane she sounded, knowing it didn't make sense but not knowing how else to say it. It had looked so real, but it couldn't have been. Reiji was still here and, unless he reacted to pain by being ticked off, unharmed.

"I give up." She heard Reiji mutter some very impolite things under his breath, and the door slammed shut. Taking this as a sign that the most substantial danger had passed, Rose lifted her head, feeling a small tinge of victory as the voices pleading with her to keep her eyes shut wailed in frustration and fear. Or maybe she had imagined that; the line was starting to blur dangerously in her head.

As she beheld the person who had attempted to calm her down, Rose started with shock. "Subaru?!" She blinked a couple of times to make sure she was processing the image in front of her correctly. Nope, still a white-haired vampire who was looking increasingly angry with each passing second.

"You don't have to sound so surprised. God," he snapped, turning his head away from her. Before he did, however, Rose was sure she saw a faint hint of pink in his otherwise pale face.

"Well, excuse me for assuming you hated my guts," Rose snapped back, hugging her knees even tighter. Joking, she could do. Joking was better than confronting what had just happened and talking about it. She heard Subaru scoff and, without thinking, reached behind her and chucked a pillow at him.

Fortunately, or unfortunately, he turned his head to look at her at that moment and caught a faceful of pillow. "What the hell was that for?" Subaru yelled, springing up and looking ready to punch her. Rose held up her hands in surrender.

"Sorry," she squeaked, trying to hold in her laughter. "Reflex." His anger turned to confusion--Christ, these boys had mood swing issues--so Rose elaborated. "I have three younger siblings. When I see eye-rolling, I initiate a pillow fight to destroy them utterly." He still looked so confused. "Don't you play with your siblings?"

Subaru frowned and shook his head. "Why would I? It's not like I care about any of them," he grumbled, and Rose, despite herself, felt her heart lurch a bit.

"That must be lonely," she said softly. He bristled, ready to fend her off with anger, but Rose continued quickly before he could. "If you ever want someone to hang out with, well, you know where my room is. It's the least I can do after you ran in here to help me." Subaru opened his mouth to protest, but Rose silenced him with her famous 'don't-bullshit-me' look--as christened by Miri.

Instead, Subaru grumbled something about not needing the company of a stupid mortal and made for the door. He paused with his hand on the knob, and Rose stared at him curiously. "If...if you ever want to talk about whatever the hell that just was, my room is three doors down from the library." And with that, he was gone.

Now alone with her thoughts, Rose leaned her head against the headboard, staring up at the purple-flowered canopy. Tears stung her eyes, threatening to fall, but she held them back. Gripping her arms to the point where she was sure she'd have nail shaped bruises helped, even if it wasn't healthy. That doesn't matter. You don't matter. Well, at least this voice she agreed with.

Her phone, which she'd almost forgotten existed, buzzed. Grabbing it from the bedside table it was charging on, Rose glanced at the notification. It was a message from Alaine. Opening it and scanning it quickly, she felt her heart leap into her throat with a mixture of terror and excitement. "Finally," she breathed.

Chucking it onto the bedspread, Rose ran out of her room and back towards Sabirah's, where all the research and outlines were. You're going to fail. You're going to fail, and they're going to die. Rose decided to ignore the voice; she had work to do.

Before I say anything else, I would like to state that the opinions Rose shows and is going to show down the line about her mental illnesses are not my own. Well, that's not exactly true. Some of them used to be my own when I was in a much darker place in life and my own head. So, keep that in mind if you continue to read. I have to put my characters through development somehow, and sometimes that development is letting go of unhealthy ideas and stigmas surrounding mental illnesses.

Speaking of those stigmas, that's kind of what led me to create this character. There's a massive stigma around schizophrenia and disorders like it (we still have such a long way to go regarding mental health), and that interested me. I wanted to create a character that wasn't like those stereotypes. Of course, not having schizophrenia myself, this required a lot of research. I could link all the medical websites and studies I looked at (and even then, I'm no expert so I'm sure I got stuff wrong), but they weren't the most helpful. These videos were. And I recommend you watch them if you're interested in this mental illness.

If no one has told you today, you are wonderful, important, and loved. <3

~ Avie

What schizophrenia sounds like: 

https://youtu.be/afbKXWCQMvE

Voices: Living with Schizophrenia:

https://youtu.be/C7Jl9_59tfY

Ted Talks:

https://youtu.be/xbagFzcyNiM

https://youtu.be/syjEN3peCJw

https://youtu.be/NjL2dqONIqQ