A teardrop slips down a crestfallen face, scarring a stone-cold cheek with the touch of its dampened hand. This face, so broken, so cold, so blue- freezes beneath the warm touch of saltwater, skin turning to stone as the water slices through what flesh was left behind.

Colors swirl about once proud, sparkling, eyes- freezing pools of cold blues in the grey of an icy winter's day, clouding their vision as if a fog was being placed above a meadow in the dead of night where stars no longer dare to open their eyes.

A soul, a weightless apparition, retreats within- hiding beneath these fogged waters, away from what was and what might be- in fear of what is.

Impending darkness sucks away all light, all hope, all freedom- and in the corner of this eclipsed mind a small figure sits huddled, alone in the desolate scape.

His light flickers, fading. His color darkens, dulling. The gold of his heart dies away into the blue of a saddened soul, the demented feeling so many have forced upon him.

The practiced facade he had created falters here, in his mind's gloom. A sculpted visage loses its solidity, crumbling to dust. Tears stream down this rock hard face, cracking stone, destroying what was left.

His heart cracks and shatters, dropping across the floor as if it were worth no more than a decaying beast left to rot in the rancid heat of a midday sun.

His body lurches as he falls limp to the dark, abyssal floor of this world- entrapped within. Around him spirits form- memories, subconscious creations, ideas. They speak to him.

"What even are you?"

"What could you possibly offer?"

Around him they swirl, growing stronger. Like the colors outside the abyss, away from the melancholy madness of mind and soul.

"You're nothing."

"Disappointment."

"Failure."

"Mess."

"Embarrassment."

"Broken."

A cacophony of words explode about him, an amalgamous- dark symphony, as if a bow was being ripped across the strings of a cello- screaming at him with an unbreakable volition meant to destroy and break the same way an axe is meant to chop, and cut, and kill.

Outside, things were happening. A body shuffled, weary muscles moved, tired eyes blinked away tears, creaking bones shifted and stretched- reaching, wrapping around a slender object.

"I-I", within the figure stuttered and hissed as a scratch, a small cut reached its way up his thigh, glowing in the bright- shining crimson that slowly pooled around the wound, slipping its way down his leg, dripping to the floor of the mindscape in a narrow stream.

Around him voices grew louder, more ferocious, more taxing and harmful. He curled into himself, around his wounded leg, crying as voices grew and searing pain engulfed his entire form.

"You don't belong here."

"Just die."

"No one loves you."

"Go away."

"...kill yourself.."

Outside water grew red, light glinted off steel, eyes fluttered closed, breathing slowed, and colors faded away. A body fell limp in warm water, and fogged pools glazed over for good- covered by a black and blue lid.

An object clattered to a white tile floor, spattering a thick- crimson liquid across the fabricated granite, staining the pristine stone red.

Lungs expelled a single breath before leaving a mouth hanging limply open, grotesquely so, exposing white teeth and red- chewed up- flesh.

All was quiet on the inside, all was gone on the outside. Everything was still and silent but the sullen drip of the faucet as water fell into clear-stained crimson.

A body lay there in the water, and never once did the colors return.