Chapter Text
She wasn’t sure when it had gone wrong.
Was it the slashes of crimson paint, angry, raised like welts, becoming more erratic each time she raised the brush? Was it the midnight phone calls from a frantic Tenna, going unheard and ignored?
Or was it something deeper?
Devi sat at the edge of her shabby couch, bandaged hands undoing her hair. A sleek violet wave tumbled down, kinked from being tied in her customary pigtails all day…and all last night…and the other day, entirely. She felt her stomach twist and grumble; food was becoming foreign, now that getting Chinese with Tenna was out of the question. She drummed her gauzed fingers against her temples, the sharp prickling pain in her fingertips keeping her alert.
“Just give it up,” a small voice whispers.
Devi jerked, startled, the room swimming up before her eyes, smears of dingy purples and blues, pre-dawn colors. What time was it, anyway? She glanced at the clock, bleary eyed. 5:24 am. Another day spent in a red-streaked haze. Her shoulders trembled from exhaustion, but still that little bitchvoice echoed in the cramped apartment.
“Give in already. This is just getting pathetic.”
“Go to hell. Fuck’s sake.” Devi mumbled under her breath, too tired to properly cuss the doll out.
“There you go with that word again. I need to get you a thesaurus.”
Devi stood in a rush, her head spinning violently, but still managed a mean right hook to the canvas the little doll perched on, sending it spiraling to the floor in a blur of white and red, smearing paint into the threadbare carpet. The doll jumped down nimbly on its insectile legs to the couch, sitting daintily, crossing her tiny arms over her chest.
“Petty, petty little girl. You always have to make my job harder, don’t you? And yet…” she smiled, the slash of crooked white sinister as anything Devi had seen. “Look at how far I’ve gotten in such little time.” Devi grimaced, shaking her head, and retreating to the bathroom to hastily smear kohl across her eyes, draw the wand of plum rouge across her lips, and grinned, a look that seemed a bit unhinged on her increasingly gaunt face.
Sickness hopped up onto the cracked porcelain of the counter, frowning now, peering up curiously into Devi’s face.
“What are you doing?”
“What does it look like, dolly?” She grasped the blade-legged doll by the back of its dress, lifting her up to meet Devi, screw-eye to green eye. “I’m taking your advice.” She flung the doll back into the living room, skidding on the carpet. Devi grasped her long coat from the hook on the door before opening it, lavender light seeping into the apartment.
“I’m going out.”