After a tiring day of bloody mind games at school, I would saunter down the road behind, the hidden alleys winding down to an unfathomable darkness to my home. The walk through the blissfully serene and comfortably chilly alleys was the equivalent of a hot bath after a tiring day. It cleansed all my depressed and furious mind to a pristine blankness, fresh to be painted a gorgeous work of art.  

With its diminishing streetlights and lack of surveillance cameras, it was the perfect place to get mugged. But I absolutely loved it. I felt like I could completely blend in with the backdrop, and camouflage myself in the shadows. 

My mother would always sigh, and ask me if I had absolutely no sense of self-preservation whenever she saw me emerging from the alleys. She would sternly tell me, that I was nearly a ‘women’ now, and how ‘bad, horrific things’ were always bound to attract me.  And I would always, sweetly snap back at my infuriatingly caring, murky mother, that I would risk the danger if it meant that I had a half-hour everyday when I didn’t have to stay inside this screwed-up, too-familiar household. 

As I walked down the alleys that particular, damned Christmas Eve, in the distant, I heard someone sobbing loudly, and the hazy outline of two figures embracing underneath the street lamp. I swore silently underneath my breath. I would be damned to not let my therapy session be disturbed by anyone, no matter how depressed they were.

I tried to stride as fast as I could to avoid the awkwardness. Their outlines were getting more distinct. I prayed I would not catch their eye, or even worse, recognize each other. I felt a small wave of shock as I made out that the two outlines were of two girls. And I felt another, fiercer, wave of dismay in my stomach as I recognized the wavy golden locks of the girl so tightly embraced and wailing. And the auburn ponytail of the girl who was patting her back. 

I flashed back to September, almost a year and a half before. The first day of school. The primitive, ugly struggle for survival started the moment I had set foot inside the linoleum floors. I’d just moved from a nearby town. It was a blank, clean slate, and I was frightened to death of the vast space that’d only had myself to contaminate. I’d been trying to muddle around the background, trying to figure what figures could and could not be befriended. The simple size of the bustling, self-confident crowd petrified me. I vainly looked around the unfamiliar landscape for something sweet and comfortable to hold on to. I saw nothing but the chilling rows of blue lockers and a hoard of repulsive flesh. 

Then I saw her. 

Amidst the muddled blurs, a figure simply radiated blaze too bright for our dimming eyes. She was the most beautiful, ethereally graceful person I had ever seen in my life. I could not tear my eyes away from her face. From the curve of luminous, lush hazel eyes, plump lips, the ski-slope of a perfect, triangular nose, the nape of her neck, … every inch about her was what I would imagine a goddess of beauty to be. Every detail about her was what I had so desired. What I’d imagined so intently, in the fabricated world of my mind as my body would be.

Amelia. I learned, later, her name from a classmate. Even her name was as sophisticated and lithe as she was. Amelia. Am-ee-liaa. I rolled the syllables around in my lips. It tasted like ice cream- sweet and rich.                            

My eyes would always follow her around, unconsciously, and instinctively whenever I would catch sight of her. I drank in her beauty, her glamour, her appeal. It was irresistable, the basic, coarse, human instinct of striving for a level of finesse one could never achieve in their lifetime. Every inch of her was utterly impeccable, and she simply exuded the draw to absorb and indulge, and to scratch that contaminated canvas of mine clean and paint it with her streaks of tempting crimson.

During break, in the hallways she was always surrounded by her group of worshippers, as pretty girls often were. They were her shield, a bundle of solid nastiness and reverence towards their goddess. It was nearly impossible to be able to even try to look at her without a snide remark. No commoner could dare try to communicate with the goddess without the priest’s approval.

But during class, during class was a god-given sixty minutes where I could completely immerse myself in her. I’d memorized, I’d consumed so much of her to the point where I could dye myself in Amelia, and ecstatically whitewash my vulgar, crude being. I would be her, I would choose return to the too realistic fantasies, the world I’d created inside my head and to bar and latch shut the reality clouding me. Gently easing out the Amelia I had memorized, the way she tucked her locks behind her ears, the way her eyes creased whenever she smiled, the way her slender fingers twirled in anxiety, I would feel myself as her, see myself as her, live myself as her. In that enchanted paper world I had created, I could be her, in every single inch. Only after secure myself inside the veil into my phantom wonderland did I felt I was who I was meant to be.

But all would be deprived of me in the blink of an eye. I was back into my rags and pumpkin coach, back ‘derneath the sea with my accursed, webbed fin.

After months of infatuation, the frost had settled, and its chill was rattling our bones. And finally, in the distant, we could very faintly hear the sound of jingle bells. Christmas was to come, and Mr. Claus to judge us if we’d been naughty or nice.

I peered into the hand mirror with the corner of my eye, careful to avoid the sight of my history teacher. My too sleek hair, translucent skin, sunken, squinty eyes- the features, the dull, blunt repulsive, too-familiar features infuriated me. I stared with a touch of hysteria and frustration at the unchanging, blank face. I felt a dark impulse take hold, and the mirror almost met the gruesome fate most of my mirrors faced (which would have caused a lot of minor trouble- breaking your mirror in the middle of class for no apparent reason is not exactly on first of the list of ‘acceptable things to do in class’). It would have had it not been for the single pair of eyes, staring with such, dark, guilty intensity that had been reflected in the mirror.

It was Emily. The frizzled, frazzled burst of mismatching colors. Mesmerized, by the looks of it, and probably scrubbing the shame of having to bear with oneself away inside her phony land of hopes and dreams that’d never come true. I felt a sense of competitiveness. Only I was to feel this way, only I was to be part of the ecstasy Amelia radiated. I felt a sense of nausea sweep over me. 

The bell rang with a jolt, calling for the abrupt end for both our dream.s

Emily shoved her books into a bag and hurriedly left class. 

And yet, almost a year later, it was Emily’s auburn ponytail who was so passionately embracing Amelia ‘derneath the dim streetlight. Her streaks of crimson interweaving the soft curves of Amelia’s hair. Her rough hands patting her porcelain, not-to-be-tainted back. She the one comforting, She the one  devouring all of her amour, her attention, her love. All of her was concentrated on her. On her. 

I was jarred back to reality as I heard hoarse voices arguing. The two girls, so understanding of each other and comforting before were flying at each others throats with equal passion.

“Get off me you freak. I hate you. Don’t come near me, you freak.” screamed a shrill voice.

“I thought…,” another weak voice stammered, “ I thought you loved me too.”

“Love?” a voice, usually so level and controlled, wildly splattered into a craze of swirling neon lights. “Why would I love you? You are a girl, you freak. I love boys, Get off me. You disgust me. I’ll make sure everybody hears about this tomorrow. I always knew there was something rotting about you. Get off! Get off or I’ll report you to the police.”

“But what about all those times you-“

“ I was taking pity on you. You don’t have any friends. Now I see why, you disgusting piece of scum.”

An blackening, tarring silence followed.

I watched in horror as the fingers tightened around her neck. Push… Push… your waxy, tapered fingers sweetly around her fair neck… Tighten your grasp into the thumping, vigorous core of life… just pressure more pressure into strip of skin and sinew… I could feel the excitement pounding away, the heat, the fervor of it all heightening the passion and hysteria. Push… girl, push … down the wisp of what is life… 

I blinked, and saw that what had rolled with such agony were not humane, but naught but a stray dog and a cat, hissing, biting, tearing each other apart. I watched in horror as the dog, a maggot-filled, saliva-dripping, repulsive black brute you could ever see, held the bleeding cat’s tail with a paw, and calmly, ever so calmly pressed upon its throat. 

I saw the repulsive creature slink back into the shadows, the trace of its trails a droplet of dripping blood, and a mangled body of the so majestic creature in shambles. Maggots flew over, crawling into its ribcage, festering the now empty shell. Swarming… swarming… to feast on defeated glory and shattered beauty. The sight nauseated me. I bolted from the spot.

The next morning, I searched around the school, intensely searching for Amelia. For Emily I did not want to see. Her auburn ponytail I’d spotted first, the glint of insanity behind as her fingers stopped the beating pulse, if any of that had ever happened. My head was throbbing, and it seemed the thin veil that’d so meticulously kept my desires from overbearing was starting to tear down, string by string. Colors overlapped. Sound became fuzzed, then unbearably pitched, boring into my head. I felt around in vain for the face I’d so well known, touched, loved. Everything else was a haze of blurry color.

But I could not see anymore.

I could not sense her radiance, nor catch sight of her feel of unquestionable beauty, of gracefulness and etherealness. I could not see her clear-cut figure among the mist. I could not. See. Her. 

I grabbed a wrist nearby.

“Where did Amelia go?” I cried out wildly.

“Who?” it asked back, bewildered.

“Where did she go?” I repeated each word with increasing, intensity, and lengthened the vowels for Amelia. I could see the fear behind its flickering eyes. It tried, in vain, to unclasp my clutch on her wrist. I could feel my fingernails bitting into its ragged flesh. Its squeals died down into a slow fuzz of whining, a nasal pitch drumming at my ears. A slow, numbing ecstasy came over me as I tore through its skin, ripping apart into her skin, sinking deeply, drenching in blood.. I devoured the sensation of plunging deeply, slitting apart the skin an inch by inch..A deepening blanket of pleasure thrust my nails deeper, channeling my wrenching, tearing fear into her pain.

“She moved to another town. Nobody knows why. Her family was just gone the next day. That’s honestly all I heard. And I have no idea what Emily you’re talking about. There has been no Emily in our class, not now, not before, not ever and I.. just don’t… get.. Why.. you…” she let out another inhumane, piggish squeal of pain.

Numbed, I let my fingers slip through. She, ran, as fast as her legs would take her splattering blood all over the hallways. I did not even notice, not her, nor the blood and skin underneath my fingernails, nor the path of crimson sin I’d sprawled out in front the moment I had embraced her and wiped her tears away. The feeling that she and I were one, and that I was she and she, every inch of her porcelain skin was mine; Amelia… and my fingers, my fingers of wax, held tight around her fragile neck with its wildly beating pulse.