Revenge? (RP)

Trigger warning: SA and self-harm

With a frightened look on her face, Persephone asks, "Circ! What is happening? Why am I...this?" She tugs at her wrist cuffs and also discovers she is wearing ankle cuffs as well.

Circe looks exhausted, both physically and emotionally. She stands, slowly, and makes her way to Persephone's side, taking one of her restrained hands. With a deep sadness, she says, "Pers, I told them you were suffering from, like, major delusions. And when they examined you, they..." She choked back tears and struggles to continue. She closes her eyes and breathes, composing herself enough to continue. She says, "They saw the scars. They're...all over your body. I ... I didn't know!"

Circe looks down at Persephone's body. Her eyes trace the nearly invisible lines that criss-cross Persephone's whole body -- lines that Persephone herself had not yet noticed. She'd had literally zero time alone with herself since 'coming back,' and had focused on the wound she remembered -- the knife. Apparently, the hell hound had torn her body apart afterwards, so now she has a fine web of scarring across her entire body. A medical professional could easily interpret them as years of careful razor cuts, long healed.

Circe shakes her head in disbelief and then back at Persephone's face. Deeply hurt, she says, "The doctor said based on how well they'd healed, that you have a long history of cutting, going back years. And because you have that kind of history, and you've had a break from reality with major delusions, they said you are a danger to yourself. So..." She trails off, clearly at a loss. She is devastated that her older sister might have had such a long history of self-harm. She knew Persephone had some mental health struggles in the past, but Circe never had any clue of anything of this degree of seriousness.

Circe gets a very serious look on her face and looks Persephone in the eyes. She says, "After they sedated you, you ...said things. You said you were a demon again, that you had already died. You said you were afraid you'd hurt that girl you're dating, Viv. Persephone, I'm... I'm worried and I don't know what to do. I haven't call mom and dad yet, because you know how well they'd handle this, but... I don't know what else to do..."

Still recovering from the sedative they administered, Persephone tries to understand everything that is happening and formulate a reply to her little sister, but the words don't come. Her eyes begins to well with tears again, and they sting when they do so--she'd already cried too much today. Or was it tomorrow? She wasn't even sure. She looks away from Circe in abject shame.

Persephone looks away, eyes closed, and weeps quietly.

Circe had cried until crying ran out already, so she just turns and walks back to her chair and collapses into it. She shakes her head and sighs and picks up her phone. An idea occurs to her and she opens it and looks at her sent messages and outbound calls from the past few days. She realizes that she had let Persephone use her phone when she first saw her--when Pers claimed that she had lost hers. There are several calls and messages to Emma, as well as to another number she doesn't recognize.

"I don't care if they are 'taking a break.' This is too important," Circe mutters to herself, and sends a text to Emma.

Emma, this is Circe, Persephone's sister. Persephone is in the hospital after a mental breakdown. She has been self-harming, for years apparently. She is delusional. They had to restrain her. Emma, she needs help. I need help. Please, I don't know who else to turn to.

She wants to throw the phone, but she sighs and looks at the other number. Almost angrily, she sends a message to it as well, saying, Who is this, and how do you know Persephone? She's in the hospital.

Circe sits in a small upholstered chair across the room from Persephone's bed, drinking a styrofoam cup of disgusting hospital coffee, hoping to stave off the exhaustion the weighs on her. She looks across the room at her sister strapped down to the bed and now asleep again, having been drugged yet again. She flew into a fit when she awoke and Circe wouldn't free her, and it got bad enough that the nurses came in and administered a sedative. Apparently they have to wait until the hospital psychiatric nurse can come by on her rounds later that night before possibly getting Persephone committed to ...

Circe doesn't even want to finish the thought. How did it come to this? Oh Persephone...

Her phone buzzing interrupts her pitiful reverie. She picks it up and sees that an unknown number is calling, but it is one she recognizes, because she called it earlier today. She doesn't know who it is, but it is someone that Persephone called several times when she borrowed Circe's phone.

She answers and, in a voice that sounds equal parts exhausted and panicked, she says, "Hello? Who is this?" Even through the emotions dn fatigue, however, the voice is clear that of an American young woman, and Benji might even detect a similar intonation and accent to Persephone's.