[WARNING: BLOOD AND PSYCHOLOGICAL ABUSE. Feel free to skip :)]
"Eirene!..." The man called out to the fast-walking woman in front of him, gasping audibly.
"I'm fine..." Eirene replied between her breaths, not sparing a look at the person following her.
Jaxon knew when a woman said she was fine, she was at the farthest point from being fine. And the same applied to the actress, but in her case, she wasn't looking for comfort from someone. She preferred to find calmness by being alone in a small space.
As the manager had expected, she entered the women's bathroom.
"Eirene... Sorry. I didn't know this was going to happen..." Jaxon apologised from the outside.
The muffled reply came back. "It's not your fault. No need for an apology... I just need some alone time."
The man outside the bathroom looked around guiltily when he found a woman staring at him from a far corridor. He offered her an awkward smile. As expected, the woman hurriedly entered one of the private rooms crept.
Jaxon sighed and asked, "Do you want me here?"
Before he could hear Eirene's answer, the phone in his jacket pocket rang. He checked the caller. And there was the name of one of the sponsors of Team Onyx.
As if the woman was by his side and saw what he saw, she told him, "Take it. I'll get out soon."
Jaxon took a glance at his ringing phone, "Okay." He then left the spot after some time.
-----
Only after Eirene heard the emergency door close, she breathed out a choking sigh. She then placed a hand over her wild heart and faced her reflection in the mirror.
The woman in the mirror was far from a normal human figure. The face was so pale that the green veins at the temple and the cheeks were visible and beating. The dark circles under the eyes were those of a possessed and starved person.
The mirror figure shook her head as saliva dripped from her gasping mouth. She looked like a witch possessed by a demon.
Eirene glared at herself. She had to keep on repeating Estella's words didn't have any meaning behind them and should be taken as a pure compliment instead of connecting it with the parts of her dark past.
Strength drained as if removing the plug from the bathtub. The actress slowly fell to the ground with a painful thud directed at the knee. But the sharp pain did nothing to the gaspy, abnormal breathing.
'I'm fine. I'm fine...'
The words that she told herself became nothing more than a buzzing noise TV created when it went static or had poor reception.
The more Eirene attempted to blindly chant the words, the buzz became louder to the point that those were the only thing she could hear.
She unconsciously pinched her arm where she usually sliced and tried to regain her sane mind. She could feel the fresh five wounds she made last night reopen and the warm red liquid flowing out of them like pouring grape juice from a bottle.
The cuts were quite deep, sending shooting pain and bleeding more.
The pain in the arm worked like a miracle. They lowered the buzz in her head, returning her to a sense of awareness and alertness. She almost believed that pain was her saviour.
The pain didn't lie. It didn't betray. It was the reality and the only thing that kept her going.
As Eirene closed her eyes and waited to completely return to her normal state that she habitually did, a voice called out to her.
"Eirene..."
She couldn't determine the source or the person, but the solace she had was fading away.
"Eirene, I love you..." The voice told her near her ears. She could almost feel the warm breath.
Without not knowing whom or how her underlying mind knew who it was, she answered the voice. "You never did!"
The voice spoke to her other ear, "I always loved you from the first time we met. Didn't you tell me that you felt the same way too? That we were meant to be?"
Eirene grabbed her own head and shook it as if she could physically shake off the voice. "Stop twisting my words. You manipulated me!"
"Darling. I'm your only one. How could I do that to you?" The voice was the personification of disgust and obnoxiousness. It was sending uncontrollable nasty chills everywhere the actress.
"YOU USED ME!" Eirene screamed. At this point, her mind was fully taken over.
The voice laughed as if it witnessed pure comedy. "Ahh. You never cease to amaze me, my love."
The woman gritted her teeth. Cold sweats were forming everywhere, but she wasn't cognizant. "I am not, your love."
Suddenly, the voice had eyes that stared right into her unopen eyes. She had her eyes closed, but somehow, she could see what kind of eyes the other had.
The voice spoke into her mind as if it belonged there. "I am your love, and you will be my love forever. That is never going to change. No matter what you do, you can't erase our history. Every second you live, you will remember always remember who you belong to."
"No, no, no!!"
"YES!" The voice shouted. Eirene flinched. Then it continued with a skin-crawling sweet voice, "Say my name, my love. Tenderly."
The woman kept her silence.
"Say my name like you used to..."
"Say my name..."
"Ivan. Call me Ivan..."
Eirene shook her head like a maniac. "GO AWAY!!! GO AWAY! GO AWAY!"
The voice remained its sereneness. "You know you can't send me away. I am part of you."
"No, you are not! GO AWAY!"
"Only if you could remember the feeling... The love we shared."
The words that came out of Eirene's mouth trembled, not being able to hide her fear. "There was... nothing... between us..."
"Haaahhh." She could see the eyes rolling themselves. "I remember you being more kind, Eirene."
"Stop saying my name!! You disgust me..."
The voice's psychotic laughter brimmed the actress's mind. "It's not good to lie, my love." It then happily began humming a song that was once in the past, Eirene's lullaby. But now, a nauseous melody haunted her almost every night for a decade.
Eirene shook her head harder and screamed like an animal being devoured alive. "STOP! STOP! STOP!"
Although she felt like her throat was being torn, the tune was immune to her plea.
Just as she painfully and shrilly screamed in a futile attempt, somebody called out to her which, at once, blanked her head and mind. It was clear as a crystal and had the power of the sun chasing the dark away.
"Ms Queen, is that you?! Are you alright?!"
-----
Ares could only hear the heavy, choking, irregular breathing from the closed door of the women's bathroom.
If he hadn't dropped his belongings from his unzipped bag and collected them before calling his friends, he wouldn't have heard the painful screams from there.
His first thought was to call one of the female bartenders and ask them to check the bathroom. But when he turned his back to run downstairs, his ears recognised the voice. He had been longing to hear her but not the scream of pain.
At once, he knocked on the door, but the scream didn't stop. Only when he called out, she stopped and pretended like she wasn't in there.
"Ms Queen?!" He knocked on the door again. This time, harder.
"...I'm fine..." The whisperLy reply that sounded like the ghost's last breath was all he got. In addition to that, it wasn't one bit convincing.
Ares said worriedly and impatiently. "Ms Queen, please tell me the truth. Is there anyone with you that's causing that? Should I call help? I know you are not alright."
She repeated the damn words, "I'm fine..." At least she added after, "Just need some time..."
Uneasiness sat at the bottom of the boy's stomach. "I... I... I'm sorry but I'm calling someone. I can't trust your voice right now."
Ares declared at the woman behind the closed door and turned his back the second time.
He had only taken a step when he heard a clicking sound of the door being opened and a feeble tag on the jacket at his elbow.
"...don't go.... please..." The person behind him pleaded weakly.
Ares looked at the source of the voice and found the woman he yearned to see for more than a week, looking extremely small and fragile. And her fingers that were holding the edge of his clothing were evidently shaking for some reason.
He did not need to think or wait for another second more to bring her into an assuring embrace like how his grandmother did when he was scared as a child. Ares then caressed the back and the head of the woman and did his best to calm her down.
He let her cry on his shoulder, not caring about the stain that would definitely be left by all the tears and makeup.