No one talks to her when she arrives. Instead, they all avert their eyes, mumbling amongst themselves as she passes. No laughter. No comments about how she deserved everything she got on that forsaken island. No point in telling someone something that they already know.

She can feel their stares on her back, and she knows that their eyes are all dulled with a silent, burning hatred. It doesn't bother her or make her angry, although she knows it should. In any other case, she would direct some biting comment at them, but there is a certain numbness that restrains her from doing anything at all.

She receives her key and walks stiffly to her room, not bothering to slam the door shut in some immature tantrum. She does not take any comfort in the fact that her new temporary living quarters are clean, free of mosquitoes, and actually kind of nice. She just lets her bag fall to the carpeted floor, slips off her shoes, and curls up on her bed, creating wrinkles in the blood red sheets. For the first two hours, she does not rage. For the first two hours, she does not plot her revenge. For the first two hours, she does not try to collect the pieces of her shattered thoughts. For the first two hours, she does not even feel.

For the first two hours, there is just silence.

Finally, she rises, retrieving her bag. With a heavy slowness, she makes her way to the washroom. She looks in the mirror, which taunts her with the image of a loser with no friends, half a head of hair, and nothing to taunt her except for her own mind.

She sighs. Might as well get it over with.

She switches on the razor, shaves, and the last of her shredded black hair falls to the floor. Her now bald scalp feels uncomfortably cold, but she ignores it, averting her eyes to look at anything but her own reflection.

I should be on that island. I should be in the final two. It should be me, she thinks, gripping the washroom counter-top as if it could provide some sort of support. I shouldn't be here.

She trembles, her fingertips digging into the granite, teeth clenched, eyes shut in self-restraint. A torrent of emotions swirls without control in her chest and it's horrible and and nauseating and awful all at the same time. She wants to lash out, to crash her fist into the mirror and unleash the storm inside her in one burst of raw power. She wants to yell, to fume, to scream her white-hot anger to the dying sun outside of her small window, but her fury manifests itself in only a few choked, held back sounds that perish in her throat before they could take form.


Playa des Losers. Perfect name for a place like this, hmm? Perfect place for a person like you, her own voice taunts her. Stubborn, she angrily bites her lip to keep any undignified sounds from escaping her mouth, although it makes blood from torn flesh drip down her dry throat and the burning sensation in her swollen eyes only worsens. The comment makes the imaginary mental wall she's built as a means of defense start to crumble, but it is the next thing it says that tears her apart and sends her spiraling down. The worst thing about the next remark? There is not one word that doesn't drip with horrid, slimy, disgusting truth.

And remember, it says, pausing to chuckle momentarily, you deserve it.

Feeling that its point has been made, the voice leaves her, and although such a shameful act makes her face burn, Heather, caught somewhere in between the real world and the black depths of what could be insanity, buries her face in her hands and sobs.