She knows she is a captive. The truth is excruciatingly painful like an exposed nerve of a broken tooth. Every day, Monday Tuesday, to clean, Wednesday Thursday, to cook, Friday Saturday, to . It is all she amounts to. His every wish, she is willing to abide. She is made to be willing and as such, she is less than human. And the shadows know this. As some marinate on the white washed walls, others satirize her regression down the spotless hall. They dance and dance... to the tune of her ultimate demise.

Her soul-wrenching screams and the heavy drag. They entwine in a soaring crescendo as her blood, the ink, thins out and descends.

"I love him. I love him?" The fabricated lies.

"I don't love him? I don't love him." She fixes the reply.

Her fingers coil around the metal barrel, wanting nothing more than to unlock the suffocating chains of routine strained with deception. Both her body and soul are drenched with sweat and tears.

She stops at his station. Her silence is spine-tingling. She knocks a glass beaker off its shelf. Then another, and another, and another. Only after the fifth does he take his eyes off his work.

"What are you doing here, Xinling?" He removes his glasses and spots the shotgun visible between her legs. "Where did you get that?"

Her heart pumps frantically in her chest. Her world shatters with each fallen beaker. Heavy sighs turn to sobs. Sobs turn to moans. Her sporadic gasps make hollow echoes while the rest of the world seems to hold its breath.

"You trust me. You've always trusted me. So stop this. Just stop it." His mouth is in conspiracy with his eyes. They refuse to convey anything apart from the lies.

She shakes her head and clenches the shotgun to her heaving chest. "How many times do I have to say it?! I don't love you!" She backs into the shelf and more glass shatters.

He stands up and approaches her with a syringe in his hand. "This doesn't need to be about love."

The air is lethal. "For me, it does." She wipes her face and struggles to breathe. He reaches out to her with an upturned hand. His eyes still urge her to trust. "Get your ing hands off me!"

", Xinling. Just listen." He moves in closer, further crushing the glass shards beneath polished black shoes. 

She lifts the shotgun with her two trembling hands. "I'm warning you... get away... get away from me! I ing hate you!" The metal barrel rams against the shelf and another fragile container falls.

He holds back the syringe, wanting to know how far they can go. "Everything will turn out just fine if you'll just—"

She no longer wishes to hear. Enough is enough. She drops the heavy shotgun and covers her ears. "Liar... Liar!"

"!"

To embrace the spirit, she screams and that soulful scream drowns out to the deafening sound of a shotgun.

DEC 08 2013 | 500 | M♥H