[i]Mary[/i]

Mary was currently trying to keep herself from falling to pieces. Or at least, keep the rest of her from falling to pieces. She was sitting with her back to the wall, eyes tightly shut, tear streaks on her cheeks, knees drawn as close as she could get them to her chest, arms wrapped around them. She was saying something repeatedly under her breath, like a chant. “Shut up, shut up, shut up…” A fencing blade was laying a few feet away from her, where she had dropped it. She had just been practicing the forms Lazarus, when he wasn’t on one of his mad ‘don’t bother me’ stints, had taught her. While she was doing the repetitive task that she admittedly should have been concentrating on more, her mind wandered. She remembered that a friend had once accidentally stabbed himself through the foot because he hadn’t been paying attention to where he dropped his fencing sword. For about half a minute, she smiled at the memory of him embarrassedly explaining it while she visited him in the hospital. Then she remembered that he was dead. Everyone she knew from the old world was dead. Especially her parents. 

Tears had immediately rushed to her eyes and she dropped her rapier, nearly repeating her friend’s mistake. A choked sob escaped her. If that had been all, she would have been fine. She would have eventually regained control over herself and picked up the rapier. She would have returned to the repetitive fencing forms with a will, if only to have an excuse to forget things. But her unwanted guest had to comment. [i]It[/i] Had to make its presence known. [i]It[/i] had to talk. [i]It[/i] had to try and offer assurance. [i][b]If it’s any consolation, they likely died quickly.[/b][/i] Mary screamed. Not in fear, or surprise. No, this was a scream of pure frustration. “I’ve fucking told you,” If anyone was still alive who knew Mary for a while, the fact that she was swearing would have revealed a great deal about her mindset. Mary never swore. Not even when her patience ended. Lazarus certainly knew this. “to shut up and [i]leave me alone.[/i] I don’t want anything to do with your ideas, your conversations, or your therapy sessions! In fact, I would much prefer that you pretended to not exist! That way, at least, I can imagine you’re nothing more than a reoccurring nightmare!”

[b][i]Now Mary-[/i][/b] It never got a chance to complete its sentence. Mary screamed at it, “[i]Shut up![/i] Then she broke down. All of the repressed emotions from waking up in the ruins of your home and realizing two hundred years had passed, from realizing the only person that might still be alive that you knew was a vampire who had repeatedly threatened to kill you. She broke down and sobbed. It continued to try and comfort her, but failed, succeeding in only making her take up her chant. She hadn’t asked for this. She hadn’t asked to be kidnapped, for her parents to be killed because she ran away, to be dragged into a world that she had always distantly regarded and at times thought of as fake. But here she was and the scars on her body refused to let her believe, if only for a moment, that it had all been a dream. She had been in hell that much her body told her. But she couldn’t remember any of it. [i]It[/i] certainly remembered the ordeals her body went through. But she wasn’t going to actually initiate a conversation with it. That would require her to acknowledge that her life had been taken away from her and perverted. That would require her to acknowledge that she was more than just a college student, dragged into a world she had nothing to do with. That would require her to acknowledge that she belonged in this world. This world of monsters and horrors. And she would never do that. 

So, she sat there. Eyes squeezed shut, arms locked around her legs, knees pressed against her chest, chanting under her breath.