I rubbed my feet repeatedly against the mass of sand, which much more felt like millions of busy ants on my skin, in an attempt to ascertain my existence. Waking up from a bad dream when I was younger, I would pinch myself to make sure that the pitch darkness of my room was a reality, and that it wasn’t a daunting sequel to nightmares where ghouls would come out of the abyss and continue to choke the air out of me as my bi-nightly visitors usual did.

I am alone on this secluded beach, where I can see the waves and the gold of the sand, but I cannot hear a thing! No. That would be lying. I am alone, aside from the girl in the frame, and all I hear are my thoughts, which circle me stroking my hair as a mother would. My mother is dead. When she died, I pinched myself, and I felt tremendous pain. So, I knew that it was real, and that she was gone, and that I was stuck, stuck with his penis inside me every other night. See, he alternated with the ghouls; the nights when they would give me a break, he would come and do the haunting in their place. Sometimes, he would fall asleep inside me, and I would feel his spilt milk filling me up as if I were a bowl of Fruit Loops. No, actually it felt more like glue. You know the kind you get when you’re in primary school? Also equipped with a pair of safety-scissors, you craft something beautiful out of colorful paper so your parents could ouh and ah over it. Yeah, that kind of glue. I was glazed by my father’s glue, and he would call me by my mother’s name.

The girl in the frame is gorgeous. Red hair that flows down to her back, ocean blue eyes reminiscent of flying saucers; her lips are a natural red, plump like a berry ready to be plucked. She looks so much like me, down to the scar on her left collarbone. But, how can she be me? She looks so sure. I’m not sure about anything anymore. I can’t even hear the ocean, but it’s moving; I can’t even feel the air on my naked breasts.

The glass frame is in pieces! I took the picture out and threw it in the ocean; they’re both part of the same unreality. Jagged edges across my wrists, I see blood, but feel no pain. I feel no pain!