A few years back, she was hailed as the #1 most beautiful woman in TChandler's list of most beautiful people in the world. Now she looks like an ogre that just crawled out of a swamp. She looked disgusting, as if she had been rundown and devoured by a plague. Her eyes lost its spark, and only darkness was left inside.
Though her eyes remained emotionless, her body and her actions were showing an entire different thing.
Matthew senses fear from her, and yet when he looks into her eyes, he sees something else. "I wonder what's going on inside that head of yours, Astrid Starling? I wonder… how many loose screws are in there… or maybe cats are whining, shrieking inside?" He licked his glossy lips, and his sharp canine tooth peered beneath his lips. "Tell me, humor me… have you suffered through these years?"
Astrid Starling breathed in deeply, letting the warm air escape her parted lips slowly. She couldn't help but wonder what she was thinking when she agreed to go out with this man. She wondered what she saw in him. Was it his money? His influence or his arrays of gifts?
As she stared into this man, she remembered that day of their wedding. How they exchanged their vows in front of the priest, their parents and the visitors. Everything was a blur, except for his deep and cold, cold ocean eyes.
While the ringbearer hands over their rings as they say their 'I do's' a voice on the back of her head cascaded rivers of signs and signals that he was bad for her. Boy, how she wished she listened to the voices on the back of her head that day.
A string of silence filled the dark and empty halls of John George Mental Hospital. Realizing that she made the haughty, arrogant and cocky Matthew Cullin silent, Astrid's lips slowly curled up, displaying a wicked crooked smile that was almost mocking.
"Seems like I'm not the one who is tongue tied, Matthew Cullin." She said as she leaned her head to the side, still sporting that cocky smile. "Are you not satisfied with my answer?"
'This is a game.' She thought. 'A mind game.'
And it was a game she told herself she should win.
She slowly lifted her right hand, placed it against her left shoulder and patted off the dust, debris and built up hair on her stained clothes. She would be lying if she said that she wasn't scared of Matthew. She was scared of what type of man he is. She's scared of his power and what he could do. She knows his influence. But even so she would not let fear take over her body.
She knows him so well that his psychotic tendencies sank into her bones, enough to give her nightmares. But after not seeing him for five years, she slowly learned to conquer her fears.
Now, it is time to test it out.
Astrid stilled herself as Matthew took a step closer to her. He pinned her against the wall. And as his hand crawled up to her shoulder, Astrid pursed her lips together to stop herself from shivering --- from screaming and calling for help.
His blunt fingers dug against her clothing, barely touching her skin, and yet, it was antagonizing.
The moment Astrid looked up and saw his face up close, it was getting even harder to breathe. His perfume was overwhelming her senses, filling up her brain and making her recall things. She unconsciously bit her inner cheeks again and again to make herself think of anything else but fear.
But then when she was at the point that she was able to calm down, Matthew leaned closer to her right ear and whispered,
"Hm, turns out I am wrong, huh." He said with a grin. "Seems like you still need time to reflect since you're still not pleading guilty. Maybe they're going all soft on you, hm? Or maybe... I need to put you in a place where you'll lose your mind completely until you beg for forgiveness."
And after she heard those words laced with venom, Astrid Starling kept that crooked smile. "How can a person beg for forgiveness when they don't know what they have done wrong?"
Astrid matched the air around the proud man the best that she could. She tilted her head slightly and it revealed a number of scars on the side of her cheek, on her lower jaw and on her neck. Not only that but the scent she was emitting was almost unbearable. A lot of patients inside John George Psychiatric Hospital are not given the luxury of a proper place for them to bathe. Nor could they change their dress for days, sometimes weeks. What makes it worse is that the toilet isn't situated inside a bathroom, but is inside the room itself.
Exposed, humiliated and stinking to high heavens, she lost any resemblance with the beauty she once was. What remained was her wit and the shameful past she still carries up to this day.
"I must say, I liked how rattled you look. And I can proudly say that I, Astrid Starling, killed that bitch with my own hands."
The man whose self control was as thin as a spider's web snapped.
Matthew's long and candle-like fingers landed a crisp slap on Astrid's face. The sound echoed on the empty halls, and with a sharp intake of breath, Matthew's wrist snapped and hit the skinny woman on the back of her head.
The side of her face crashed against the drywall, leaving a print of her blood in it.
"Fuck you, Matthew." She turned her head to look at the condescending man before her. Fearlessly, she faced him and stared at his eyes that lacked empathy. His ruthless and brute demeanor finally leaked out of his fine shell that had made him appear to be a gentleman.
"Matthew Cullin, you are a wolf in sheep's clothing." She hissed.
"So I've been told."
Astrid let out a hearty laugh. Her shoulders shook as her deep cackle came out of her diaphragm. And when she felt like Matthew was about to hit her again, she said, "I didn't expect Matthew Cullin, the top Bachelors listed in Time's to be so ruthless and cruel to a woman who had been dead for five years." She hissed. "I can't believe you're in front of me again, showing how venomous you are. A hypocrite trying to maintain his status in society by marrying a trophy wife, a slut even… And even though you promised me a lavish life filled with happiness. You hurt me, turned me into a murderer!"
Her breathless scream made the nurses from the station step out of the room. Along with Juanda, the others carried a straining jacket and a few tasers, ready to apprehend the crazy woman. But when Matthew lifted his head and signaled them to go back inside the room, they reluctantly agreed.
"Sure enough… you still haven't had enough of torturing a poor lowlife like me, right, Mr. Abel?" Astrid smiled wickedly again. "How long will you leave me here to rot, hm? Ten years more? Twenty?"
But unexpectedly, Matthew did not answer her nor did he mind her lace of insults. He reached his hands towards her pale face and wiped the blood from the corner of her mouth.
Astrid gasped, eyes wide and felt as if she's a deer who's about to be run down by a truck. Hairs on her body stood and tears well on both of her eyes. "What the fuck do you think you're doing?" She asked with an uncomfortable grin. "Why… why are you… just what are you doing?!"
Like a maniac, she repeated the question again and again as she burst into tears.
"Is this some kind of practical joke?!"
Still, Matthew remained motionless. As quiet as a ghost whose eyes remained staring at her. Looking, observing.
And it made the beasts, the monsters inside Astrid's head go haywire.
"What more do you want to take away from me?!"
The question itself painfully came out from her bloody mouth as she screamed. What kind of beating will she receive this time? What kind of horrible things would Matthew Cullin compel others to do to her?
"What more could you do?!" She asked as if she's a broken vinyl record.
Broken legs. Being sterilized and left to heal inside an unsanitized room like an animal. Beaten by other patients every single day. Only had one meal a day. These are all the things she had to endure.
Astrid was hyperventilating as she imagined what kind of 'Hell' could she be experiencing now that Matthew's in front of her. She was gnashing her teeth as both of her hands were on her head, fingers laced on her clumpy hair as she pulled and pulled…
"What could I do?" Matthew spoke. "Well… that's something I'd be keeping for myself."