Marionette

Cosmos, Chapter Eight - Genivierre

Time immeasurable had passed by the point Amaya had all but given up on deciding the way she was going to end this hell inside her head.

The sun had begun to rise by the time some kind of decision had been made between Genivierre and Heinrich in one of the nearby rooms.

A sleepless night for all but Samuel, who had taken the opportunity to curl up with his head in her lap while she'd been stuck with the soft-spoken German man cleaning up the mess that was her feet.

Apparently, there wasn't an awful lot of damage, just the abusive running for many city blocks had managed to worsen the stitching in the arches of her feet, and gravitational wise, since her feet were the lowest part of her body, blood just gravitated that way. Her feet looked more worse for wear from all the blood.

If it were a perfect world, she would have to stay off her feet for at least three days just to give her feet a chance to heal.

But of course, this wasn't a perfect world.

She would be back on her feet within hours, and there was nothing she could do about it.

The corrosive hell inside her head seeped deeper, rooting itself almost permanently inside.

Like a parasite determined to live forever in a single host, the laughter and whispering of callous and cruel words were almost permanent now.

It sapped the life out of her bit by bit, gradually wearing her down beyond any extent a lack of sleep could ever manage.

Aside from the small moment Genivierre had wandered out while Heinrich was tending to Amaya's feet, the woman had been resting, for the most part.

The amount of blood she had lost was clear, and Amaya had enough run-ins with rather painful injuries to know just how exhausting blood loss was.

In truth, this should have been an opportune time for her to get some rest as well, though she refrained from it.

She was somewhat paranoid of whatever hell might reveal itself to her in the darkness of her sleep - It was always rather rare for any mild memories to sew itself into her dreams, and with the reverberating voice practically tormenting her to tears, it wasn't a good idea.

Though the lack of sleep was starting to wreck havoc on her - She couldn't keep her mind from wandering, and an incessant need to constantly check over her shoulder had instilled itself in her, in spite of the temporary safety this place was. The three times she had almost fallen asleep, she'd frightened herself right back awake when she realized there were hands wrapped around her neck.

What was worse was when she'd reach up to pry them off of her, and realize they were her own hands.

She almost jumped at every sound that echoed through the strange building, though most of those were sounds within her own head.

She couldn't trust her own judgment anymore - she was honestly starting to fear she was losing her mind, already.

The sun had begin to make its presence known outside as the skies began to lighten from its dark, near-black hue when footsteps echoed throughout the building.

The presence of others conscious at these early hours didn't go unnoticed, though Amaya's worsening sense of paranoia had her believe at first that the footsteps weren't from a friendly being.

Though the soft-spoken morning-greeting from Heinrich told Amaya who it was.

'I take it the young boy has been sleeping this whole time?' Heinrich had questioned as he spotted Amaya still stuck being used as a pillow in the corner of the studio-room.