Darkness and fear ruled this country now, war was upon it. It was raining cats and dogs. The rain was like little bombs leaving scars, which seemed never to fade, not missing a single spot. The storm was looking down on the city, threatening to take away the few left behind lives, which hadn’t gone to the front of the war.  Lightning was now and then seen inside her room, like a deafening quiet sound soaring through the air, but she was still fast asleep, no storm could wake her. For sleeping was her only cure and memory of her long gone husband and son, who were both lost in war. She could bring them back to live, like a story. Relive happy memories. The room was possessed by the blackness of a dark shadow. Only now and then, letters could be seen, which she kept close by her. They were very old letters from her husband. Next to them lay letters from her son, who was also in the battle of blood. The clock made twelve even, thunderous bangs. She still held on tight to her hypnotizing and spellbound sleep. Sleeping was now all she did. She used it as a drug against the pain caused by the quietness and frightening thoughts which haunted her every second of the day.

Suddenly all the known and familiar sounds seemed forgotten and washed away, like the sun being shut away from dark clouds, in the sudden strike of the once known and kind door bell, like a shrieking and ear-splitting cry of a lost soul. Marie was awake within a second. She lay wide-awake with terror and horror filled eyes. Her hands were trembling like small earthquakes, which rumbled inside her body.  Her heart was hammering against her chest, threatening to leave behind the body and escape the fears and emptiness of this already uninhabited body. She stood up, pushing herself quickly forward off her bed. Her feet were dragging her fragile body forward like never before.  It was like she was controlled by dark magic. As she finally arrived the door she stood still, like a flower frozen between cold ice. Slowly her hand was moving to the doorknob, hoping for the shadow in front of the blurry glass to go away, but he did not. Not in time, it was too late. Her hand had reached the doorknob, slowly pulling open the door to the mischievous night, revealing a soldier holding something tight. As she saw him, she wanted to shut him away again, but she could not, it was the curiousness pushing the words out of her mouth, “Can I help you? What are you doing out at this time of this night in these forgotten days?”. “Ma’am, I am sorry to give you this telegram, but word has reached us from the front line,” he said with a steady and even voice. “What do you mean? I don’t understand?” she asked in wonder, but deep down in her heart, she knew exactly what had happened. “Here ma’am, I must go on. I have more to deliver,” he declared without any sign of emotions. He pushed the small innocent-looking telegram into her shaking hands. She watched him walk away, looking for any excuse not to look down at what she held in her hands. She shut the door slowly and reluctantly, which she did not want to open at all a minute ago.

As she found herself in her bed again, with the unsuspicious piece of paper next to her, the heavy rain was heard again, but this time like an old friend knocking against the window. Like in a trance Marie took the telegram and started to unfold it, as if it was an important paper made out of gold. It seemed like time had stopped, the world had frozen and everything was unimportant, just the telegram was being read by a deserted, vacant, crumbling flower.

“No, it cannot be. It can’t. IT CAN’T!” she was whispering to herself, getting now louder and louder. The dam, that had been standing to hold the tears down broke and pouring out came they, using the built streets of the days before to built forever lasting tunnels. “I don’t believe it. I won’t. I WILL NOT. NEVER,” she almost screamed.

Unexpectedly she stood up after long minutes of deafening silence. She was pacing from left to right, left to right. Shaking her head furiously, shaking off her tears, which fled away now abandoning the tunnels. Her hands were crunching the paper tightly in her fisted hands. She then threw away the telegram, not being able to cope with her emotions and stormed into the bathroom. Searching like a wild animal for something, smashing her toothbrush with the glass from the sink. It fell to the ground, shuttering in tiny pieces. Now the mirror fell down, breaking the once whole image. The tiny glass pieces reflecting the insaneness of herself. Then all was quiet. She was holding in her hand what she had been longingly looking for, high up, like a trophy. Her eyes no more filled with terror, but with madness and insanity. It was sharp, tiny, shimmering a pair of scissors. Icily glittering like a brilliant diamond in a strong light. Her breath and hands were steady and her eyes fixed upon the weapon. Her head empty, as if erased.

She turned the scissors slowly towards herself and started lividly cutting her beautiful long hair. Bits of pieces of balls of hair floated into the sink which she had filled with water, like memories drowning in a black pool, sinking down to the deepest, darkest well, its bottom never to be seen.

When she was finished she looked again at the scissors, stroking and patting them softly, like a pet that had done well. She bent down and took a piece of the mirror, looking at somebody completely new, smiling at the face she saw. Her eyes still unchanged, with madness and blackness to be lost in, stared at the new woman, not stopping.

Finally opening her mouth and said aloud like a machine, “Ophelia”.