Paint Splattered Teardrops

✤

!warning for supposed suicidal thoughts!

"OW OW OUCH," Jolene hissed as she peered down at her now crimson soaked hand. With her head thrown back, she allowed a strained breath of air to run from her mouth.

It was probably going to get infected; no maid had been here. 

And then her whole hand would have to be severed off to save the infection from spreading into the deep tissue below her wounded skin. People would call her Captain Hook. Ironic, right?

This creaking ship was really getting to her. If it was the seasick thoughts overruling her practical ones, she wouldn't really know. It is hard to tell anything when you're stuck in a cabin with some crazy pirates and a stuck up teenage boy. Though she didn't show it to herself, deep down she couldn't bare it, she wanted to go. 

That's what she had evidently tried to do: leave the ship. She had stormed over towards the old dresser that, atop it, stood the rusty candle holder. Picking it up and throwing the remains of the outdated candlewax away at the floor, Jolene had made her way back over to the side of the bed where the window was. She climbed onto her tower she had previously assembled and bared her fist tighter around the object before swinging at the grimy glass. 

It broke... a bit.

Not enough to fit her through. 

The metal handle was still grounded at the bottom of the blue depths beneath her. She wondered if it was living a better life down there amongst the tranquil sea life. That would be nice.

She had tried to break away the stubborn shards of glass that clung to the edge of the wooden frame, but sliced her palm where her life line was marked. 

That was the cause of the nasty cut. 

After unsuccessfully trying to escape the prison walls and rid everyone else of the burden she carried and dragged around the ship, she found herself sinking to the ground where her emotions lay. She could see them; they were displayed bare in front of her. 

A sudden wave of vulnerability flew through the girl and shook her up. If anyone could see her at this moment, they would first notice how her irises blackened with sorrow, and the reflection in her blue orbs mirrored an evil. An evil only described in the second-hand fantasy books she used to read all the time. A bird, almost as dark as the buttons of coal in her eyes, drove his wings round the walls of those eyes. It was trapped. Trying to escape evidently made it's task harder, but the poor bird did not know that. As he plummeted himself against the cage walls, his wings grew tired, and with every wrong turn he took, he came crashing down. Scattered feathers fell down from him, and the limp in his body became more obvious; obvious that he was too far gone.

Jolene could have described it like spiders. Furry, eight-legged creatures hiking their way up her body and abusing the ladder of bones that ran down her back, seeking something high up, it felt to her. Her whole body twitched as they reached the top where her necklace lay. The necklace she hadn't removed since she had received it.

It was a resin pendant, delicately encasing a browned amaryllis petal. Threaded through the improvised loop within the resin, strung a weathered piece of hanging rope: they had told her. The gift had been presented to her from inside a book she treasured dearly. The Worm Ouroboros. Anyone could have told you that Jolene carried that battered cluster of pages with her everywhere. Whoever had managed to sneak their way behind her back to slip the handmade gift into the old book had their wits about them, for sure. 

"HAVE YOU EVEN read it? You can't judge a book by it's cover, Charles!" the young girl laughed. In her left hand, the book titled: The Worm Ouroboros.

The pages fluttered between her fingers from the soft breeze of the coast and the crocheted scarf blew towards the west alongside the plaited pigtails in her hair.

The taller man sighed playfully and woke a grin from the corners of his mouth. "Well, that's right," he nodded and continued, "But can you even read it? That book is far too old for you, Tails, don't you think?"

"No, I don't!" she exclaimed. "Just because you don't have a brain and I have three, that doesn't mean you are dumb enough to underestimate me, because at any minute, you could turn your back and the next thing you know, your head is on the floor and your peasant blood is on my mighty sword," the little girl stood proudly after she said that, jumping down from the curb she was previously balancing on.

"Three brains just means a bigger head," said Charles, shrugging. "And if you happen to gain anymore information from all of these books you're reading, your head might just explode,"

The girl gasped and her hands met the sides of her face, making sure it wasn't going anywhere.

"No! I will just have to get another brain, then!"

"The more brains, the bigger th-"

"I do not have a big head," her eyebrows furrowed and she shoved the man's sleeved arm away from her. "If anyone has a big head, it's you," she pointed at him, "With the size of your ego!"

The man's mouth hung open and he placed a hand to his chest, entertaining the small girl beside him.

She then continued, "Seriously, if you think you are just getting away with this slandering language, you've got another thing coming,"

It was the man's turn to laugh greatly. "Oh really? Let me guess, another one of your plans to take over the world and become Queen Of Tuskenvale?" 

She laughed alongside him and reached up onto the sidewalk to pat his shoulder with her fingertips. 

"Precisely,"

A SINGLE SALTY tear splashed onto the dirtied dress shirt she wore that layered the Kings Of Leon sleeveless she had on under it. She was definitely ready for the red carpet. Her underwear was covered by the thin shirt material that rested just above the large yellow bruise on her thigh.

Jolene tucked her tangled hair behind her ear and ran her hands over her face, cautious of knocking the fresh cut on her palm in case it started bleeding again. 

She still winced every time she slightly grazed it - it was a big ole cut. The hiss she gave whenever it stung through her hand generated enough saliva in her mouth to momentarily quench her thirst.

No hip flask of water or any food had been dropped off under the door the argument. That gave Jolene a clear impression that Carl was really upset with her, or she had really upset Carl. She hadn't meant to, but confessing that the next time he visited would probably stray him away even further, and she probably wouldn't get any food or water. Not from him, at least.

That sounded selfish on her part though. She didn't want to take Carl for granted, he meant too much now. It was like she had signed a contract of commitment. Like a friendship with business terms. Although the spiked fence that drew the line between "two kids that have to get along because they are practically living together" and "friends" did well to keep the two sides to themselves. It was just sometimes hard to distinguish. 

With a big heave and support of a right hand on the floor, Jolene stood upright, correcting her stiffened spine. She rolled her neck to the side and stretched her arms to her fingertips, shaking the strain away. 

Sniffling the very last of her sniffles and dusting the tears that painted her rosy cheeks, Jolene finally peered back towards the cracked window, sighing before her head slung down to her chest. She felt truly defeated. There was no escape for her, if you could even call it that. 

Carl's group had, in a way, in a really strange way, saved her.

Without them taking over the ship, only a higher power could ponder upon that question as to where Jolene might have been. Goosebumps rode along her arms and legs at the thought; she was grateful, at the end of the day.

Her thoughts were interrupted... again.

Knock, Knock, Knock.

"It's Rick," he said.

There was that strange grumbling sound he always made before speaking. Why did he always do that? 

"We're gonna let you out," Rick factually stated. The girl behind the door did believe him.

Jolene then spoke to the man.

"Just not right now, right?" the girl answered for him. For a while she wasn't in need of a response, since she never gave one. It just only seemed fair, and that is what rick seemed to be playing out behind the door, but no. 

"Right," he sounded ashamed.

He almost didn't know what to say or do, and that didn't sound like a Rick Grimes thing. So, Jolene spared the unsettled tension and spoke up. That didn't sound like a Jolene thing.

"I don't understand why I am here," she started. "and why... why it's just me," 

Jolene's breath staggered in between words; she is opening up.

"Nicolas told me what they do... what they did," she really worried about him. "who they are," she continued.

Rick heard the cracked voice crack even more, and let her talk. 

"That was supposed to happen to me," Jolene bit on her cheek before gripping the 'band-aid', preparing it. 

"I'm supposed to be dead," her words took one single breath.

Just like ripping of a band-aid.

The man swallowed hard at the shallow words that left the young girl's mouth. After all, that is truly what she was: a young girl. A girl. A child. 

"But you're not," Rick said. "you're here,"

Those words echoed in her head.

You're here, Jolene.

You're here.

You're here.

"Am I?" 

A/N

micheal bolton got me through this chapter. its not that i didnt wanna write it but just its a filler and so boring kinda not really BUT i have some very very exiting chapters planned and coming up. also there was no carl in this one, sorry : (

thank you<3

TikTok: goblinnbbg

Tumblr: goblinnbbg

Instagram: goblinnbbg