Splinters

The girl had a horn on her head. A long, beautiful white horn grew out from the smooth surface of her forehead, standing
out with grace and pride. She couldn't help but stare at it. It was so unnatural, yet it seemed like it would have been so
not right if it hadn't been there. What was this girl? An angel?A fairytale? A dream?

Or a nightmare?

The girl's grey eyes stared straight into her dull brown ones, with almost enviable serenity that was so opposite of her disastarous insanity. She felt like drowning in it. She /wanted/ to drown in it. She wanted to feel peace.

The girl smiled, her eyes shining like two splinters of crystal.Was that possible? "Hello, Diane", a soft voice spoke, sounding
so peaceful and gentle. Had the girl talked? She wasn't sure. She wasn't sure about anything. "Welcome to Nature's Bell, your
new home. I really hope that you will enjoy your stay here."

New home? She had never had a home before, not if the home meant that you were forced to live with parents who don't love you. And just what did this girl mean with 'stay'?

She felt a burst of anger within her heart, and glared harshly back in those misty grey eyes.. stabbing, hurtful words were
upon her lips, ready to be spilled out but she never spoke them aloud, not when seeing the girl's kind smile. Nobody had never smiled to her before.

Especially the one who was a human unicorn.

"My name is Unala.. but you can call me Mother."

Another smile. This time, it had an unpleasant curl in it. "Everybody else do that. Call me Mother, I mean."

Oddly, she felt like trusting the girl. So she smiled back.

~*~*~*~

Her roommate was a scrawny boy with long, auburn hair. He was sketching something in a notepad as she stepped into the
room, feeling more than a little shy when the boy lifted his gaze and stared at her for few moments. Then he smiled. Gently. In
the way all the others smiled.

"Hiya", boy said cheerfully, starting to get up from the bed. A smile turned into a wide grin, grin that was much, much more
alive than all the smiles she had seen together (except for Unala's smile, she didn't remember it anymore), stretching out his hand. "The name's Aaron. And you are?"

She stared at the hand, wide-eyed. Then, hesitantly, she reached out for it with her own hand. Aaron squeezed it firmly,
his eyes still staring in hers. He was warm. /So alive./

"Diane", she replied. The warmth of his hand was suddenly too much for her, so she pulled away. There was a flash of something - hurt? - in his eyes, but it disappeared in a mere second. "Diane.. that's a nice name. Nice to meetcha!"

He grinned some more, then walked back on the bed. He started sketching, nearly forgetting her precence. Or so did she think before he spoke again: "So, what's your problem?"

She blinked. Problem? "Huh?"

Their eyes met again. His eyes were light blue, steely, yet soft. Could iron be soft? "Well, if you were brought here, then ya have to have some kind of problem. So what it is?"

She blinked twice, feeling uncertain all of the sudden. Problem? Was there something wrong with her? She nearly started to panic. There was something wrong with her and nobody had told her about it?

"Diane?"

Rage. Hatred. More rage. She wanted to kill someone.

"Hey, what's wrong?"

She screamed.

He had stood up again, reaching out for her, but froze to his place as she shrieked. His eyes widened in shock, in slight fear.
She stared blankly back at him, wondering what the hell was wrong with him.

Then, it all came back to her.

The attacks of uncontrollable anger. Glass broken, wounds ripped open. The scars. Her arms were full with scars.

"THAT is my problem", she said. Her hands felt cold against her temples as she rubbed them. She hadn't even noticed when her hands had rosen up to massage her aching head.

"You get angry too easily?" A statement, no question. She nodded.

He did that too, sympathy worn upon his face. He was so nice. Only few people had been nice to her in her lifetime. "Yeah. And yours?"

Aaron quirked up a brown eyebrow, confused, then understanding lit up his eyes. "I'm hearing voices", he told her. He sat back on the bed. His sketchbook had been placed on the little desk, abandonded.

"Voices?"

"Yeah." A frown settled upon his elegant features, darkening his face. "Bad voices. They are telling me to kill my family. They say that everyone wants to hurt me. I came here so that they would go away."

Now it was her turn to be understanding. "Did they go?"

He glared at her again, but this time there was no peace in his eyes. There was sorrow in them. Deep sorrow that kills one slowly inside. She shivered at the sight of it. "Not yet", he whispered. She barely heard his voice.

Then, he suddenly became optimistic again, grinning at her. "But they will go, someday. Mother said that they will."

"Mother?"

Grey eyes. A horn.

"Yes, the Mother!"

And she neatly forgot that she wasn't supposed to call anyone mother ever again.

~*~*~*~

She got used in living in the Nature's Bell, though she didn't know why the place had such a stupid name as that. Sure, it sounded cute and calming and all, but was there any use of calling a house, that laid in the middle of the most beautiful garden and was full with people who were completely, hopelessly insane, a Nature's Bell since it wasn't shaped like a bell at all?

She made friends too. Not too many, but enough. Aaron was just the first one. She wasn't sure about their names, since some of them said a different name everytime she ran into them, but she cared for them. And they cared for her. She was happy, for the first time in her life.

She learned to love Mother too.

Though she wasn't sure if she was the only one to see the horn.

~*~*~*~

Then one day, something began to change.

Mother had always been small, delicate and pretty. But when the day came, she was even smaller, the bones literally shone through her thin, peachy skin and there were deep wrinkles in the corners of her eyes. She looked old, while she was young.

Or was she?

Nevertheless, she continued to look old. And tired. And so very drained.

It didn't take too long before the fear spread into all of their hearts.

~*~*~*~

"She's dying."

She froze, then snapped her head around to face Aaron. He was drawing again, looking more serious and gloomy and usual. He was gripping his pen with a white-knuckled grip, unspoken rage could be seen from his white cheeks as a bright red blush.

"What do you mean?" Her words were showered with quiet disbelief, although she had suspected the same thing. Mother, dying? Could it be?

No, it didn't have to be! She didn't want to believe it. Mother couldn't be dying. Not after everything that she had done for them all.

"How do you know? How could she be dying?"

Aaron glanced at her briefly, then turned back to his task of sketching something. Why was he always sketching? What was he doing, anyway? He had never told her. "Just think about it, Diane.. Think about how sick she was been lately. How tired. How dead." The volume of his voice quieted down a bit and he looked away. He didn't see how her face went pale. He was silent for a long, long time before finally continuing:

"She is like a shell, lifeless and empty.. can't you see it? She's not with us anymore!" He was screaming now; he had never screamed to anyone before. She was too concertrated on staring at him in shock to notice how the others started to gather around the doorway of their room, listening. "She is going away! She's not gonna be there for any longer, I can feel it!
We're loosing her.."

His voice shattered, dying out. He collapsed down on his side from the sitting position he had been in, expression of intense inner pain spreading over his face. Tears ran down the white cheeks. He was crying.

"We're loosing her.."

And they all knew that he was right. And felt his pain.

Now only thing they could do was to wait.

~*~*~*~

At some point, it seemed like Mother was actually getting better. Her skin became smooth again, her grey eyes got their gentle light back, her long straw-blond hair started to shine with health. She had strength to smile, to laugh again. Her horn was strong and proud, mightier than ever before.

But when someone touched her, one noticed that her skin was cold as ice. As death.

~*~*~*~

Then, Mother died.

She was telling them a good night-story, holding the smallest and weakest of them, Little Harry, in her lap, rocking his lithe figure back and forth in her lap. Aaron was the only one who wasn't smiling when looking at her, wasn't delighted to notice her well being. This confused the girl with whom he shared his room. She knew Aaron, knew that he cared. So why wasn't
he happy?

She found out the right answer soon. Too soon.

Mother had just spoken out the two words that ended everything, words of ultimate overness, when a wave of pain ran over her face, twisting her pretty features into something ugly and disgusting. She gasped for breath, coughing blood, her grey eyes staring into nowhere, empty. Little Harry started to cry, crawling away from her. Mother was keeling over, arms wrapped tightly around her narrow shape, crying out without whimpering or shedding tears.

Then she collapsed on the floor, dead.

Her horn had shattered, to thousand similiar pieces that soon disappeared into nowhere, as if it had never been there.

None of them could understand what had just happened. Even Aaron, who had obviously expected this to happen, was shocked. His lips were parted in a silent shout of anguish. There were no screams.

Then the full realization hit all of them. Along with something else.

Along with the screeching voices, with maddened urges, with soul-deep hatred that would poison everything around it if it was let loose. Along with the fact that there had never been Nature's Bell, any Mother, any peace and serenity. /Anything./

~*~*~*~

Because there was only Diane. She was Aaron, she was Little Harry, she was Mother, she was Nature's bell. She was everything.

Along with her vivid imagination that had attempted to bring something comfort into her madness-stricken mind, to help her to live with the fact that she was no longer in the control of herself. Failing.

Because there would never be any peace. Not for the one who had been totally lost in herself for twenty years. And that was the only thing that was true in her world.