All pain, no gain as she sold her soul in the suburbs
GOD had blessed her with the most beautiful eyes.
Bright and inquisitive; a direct reflection of her character.
They had this way of almost twinkling, every time she laughed that infectious laugh of hers — the laugh that was seldom heard any more.
It had been evicted, and replaced with a raspy, sarcastic hiss, accommodated by the tarred mess that were her airways.
But the effect that the toxins had on her body were nothing compared to what they had done to her mind.
Her virtues and goals were as lost as she was, made so by the one who had led her astray, guided her on to the path of destruction, and abandoned her there once her purpose had been fulfilled.
Slowly, her infatuation with him had turned to dependency, the sick lust fed by the medication he provided.
The more time she spent with him, the less she cared.
School, church, family — all living in the shadow of an overwhelming addiction.
She never wanted it to be this way. All she ever wanted was his love. To look good in his eyes: mature, experienced, worldly.
The first time she tried it, the way it made her eyes water and body quiver in agony did not matter, as long as it made him happy.
‘‘No pain, no gain,’’ she would recite in the deteriorating mess of her mind, not knowing that the only thing she was gaining was a position in a psychological vice, one that gripped her tighter than his hands around her neck — his abuseproviding accommodating hands.
Time had no meaning for the pair. They lived in limbo.
Days were dictated not by the transition from light to dark, but from high to sober.
A life seemingly void of responsibilities. Although she thought she was free, she was more trapped than ever — tied down by what she thought was love.
The girls did not want to be saved. Her perceptions of the world were seen through rose coloured glasses when she was in one of those drug filled trances; a world where everything had soft edges, and where he would never leave her.
Until he did.
And when he did, she was torn in two. Increasingly powerful; a manic, drug-hungry psychopath, liberated by her sober self, a despondent wreck, freed from another dimension, dragging the demon out with arresting tendrils of smoke.
The beast knew no emotion. Names, places, memories were all irrelevant.
She would commit heinous acts with no remorse, as long as they got her what she wanted.
Of course she knew no heartbreak, no pain, which is what made her such an attractive alter ego for the girl to live as.
Frenzied and lusting, she would break into faceless people’s houses and would strip them of any valuables.
These people did not have names, or emotions, or families.
All they had, in her eyes, were sources of income for her, treasures able to be pawned off to support her sick habit.
This neighbourhood was the cash cow.
Wealthy families with all the money in the world resided in these houses.
They were arrogant to the point of neglecting home security altogether, as crime was absent in the lavish suburb.
The first house, inhabited by some kind of antiques collector, yielded about a grand.
Next came an old couple, without much of value.
The third house was humble, yet called to her for some reason.
‘‘Druggies’ intuition,’’ she bitterly laughed to herself, and broke in.
Rummaging around in the goldmine of a jewellery box, all she could see were dollar signs.
Rings, chains, pendants — enough to keep the ravenous beast satisfied for almost a fortnight.
But something was wrong. Her withering subconscious screamed deja vu, halted her with such a force that she saw through the blinding mania, if only for a second.
On the corner of the mirror was a sun-faded Polaroid of a young child with eyes as bright as her future.
The abruptly sobered girl looked between the photograph and the grimy reflection. And she knew.
She was no longer that child she was an empty shell of a person, eyes now as vacant as the life she had left behind, for she had sold her soul to the devil.