((This is not a diary in any shape or form. If Esmeralda writes something down IC, I’ll mention it but this is just simple, plain writing on my part. I have not been IC for the past few weeks while RL hit and Esme recovered so this is my way of diving back into it and writing about what happened to her while she recovered. I will probably keep using this to write down what Esme is up to when on her own.
She is a destructive, chaotic character, be warned some of the things written might make you uneasy if you do not enjoy this kind of reading.))

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It was hot. Too hot. A groan pushed past dried and crackled lips, a sound of discomfort and pain. Lids were not open yet and already sensations were filtering through the haze of consciousness. The heat. It licked at her side, engulfed her in a cocoon too tightly woven, beads of perspiration formed upon her brow, down her back, at her sides, adding further scents to unkempt frame.
The heat was dual. The sun beat down on the metallic roof of the shack, piercing through vines and beams of decrepit house, bringing damp, elevated temperature to the ruins that were called home. The fever that burned in body and mind offered another source for the inferno that reigned within the shack. The hospital had taken good care of the canvas of wounds that riddled her frame but recovery required a clean, neutral environment. One swipe of a gaze around the land of decay and detritus showed it was anything but.

Now and again, a breeze passed through the cracks in the planks that closed the windows, but it was putrid and burning, only serving to further ascent the mercury inside the shack. Lids would finally flutter open, revealing the dual colors beneath. Pupils of dark clouds were dilated, almost covering all of emerald and gold hues, an aftereffect of the drugs pumped into frame and the shades inside the cramped room. To one looking into those orbits, a wait for them to grow more focused, more aware of surrounding would be a long one. Descent into insanity, paired with agony, layered with chemicals left with a vacant gaze. Empty.

In those first few days only basic instincts pierced through the haze of the drugs. Not even the usual muddle of thought that usually haunted her mind could push through. Eat, shit, drugs, sleep. Wash, rinse, repeat. Hours lasted days, days lasted minutes. Just a fog around her consciousness with barely visibly shapes dancing on its edge.

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It started like every other day. Lids slowly opening, bleary eyes revealed as the first sensation of pain filtered through. Instinctively, non-injured limb shot to the side, grabbing for the bottle of pills that had been so revered for the past days. The slam of the palm over the plastic container only echoed hollowly. The first hint of realization came, digits slipping over the surface, clinging as it lifted the bottle, shaking it over features. Empty.

A snarl accompanies the sudden jerk of arm, the bottle sent flying and ricocheting on the furthest wall, the plastic container rolling into a corner, forgotten forever. The first spark of any sort of emotion since recovery had her trapped into the burning cocoon. It came with a price however, pain lancing from broken bone and shooting up her spine to explode on a grunt, frame falling back on the threadbare mattress.

The world was spinning. Without the drugs, assaults came both physically and mentally. The agony might have dulled with the days that had passed and semblance of recovery that had started but it did not feel that way. Stitches coursed over soiled and muddy flesh, body seeming rooted in the sludge of the swamp inhabited. Infection nourished wounds, fanned the fever, released its rotten sweet scent inside the closed confines. In a pile next to the bed, used bandages attracted flies, the insects buzzing about in a constant drumming to ears. They found preys on her frame as well, the odors offered by her flesh strong. Around mattress, littered food putrefying, half eaten.
All came to focus in clarity lifting drugs finally gave.

It took minutes but her frame would have gingerly gotten to its feet. Limbs shook underneath her, weak, no chemical boost to keep the malnourished and wounded frame upright. The walls served as a crutch, at least to arm that stood not limp at her side, to a stumbling, whizzing frame. The door was so close and yet so far and… Finally, there was light. Outside, feet would stumble a few steps before falling to knees. Dressed in all but a shirt, naked flesh sunk deep into mud, head lolling forward as she inhaled purer air. It smelled of leaves left to rot in the bayou water, of dead fishes and burnt wood and it was oh so sweet in this very moment. This was the scent of her home, not the aroma of her torment that resided in the shack.

The sun was flirting through the leaves and vines, caressing her wild, messy mane as the hours ticked by. Suffering was present but in dulled state, as slowly senses were regained. She needed food, she needed strength. So much she could assess.

The mud under her legs and feet was warm, dried and peppered with the remains of soot here and there. Slowly nature was regaining strength on the land. Esmeralda might have burned all memories from it but a year passed and life grew anew. Even animal life. More often than not, they floated by, decayed and bloated, streaming towards the sea but now and again movements caught fickle attention. In search of nutrition, frame ready to stumble all the way into town, one such movement halts her.
Unsteady feet carried her forward. Caught in metal teeth of trap set usually for bears even if none inhabited those lands. It was fading. Half skewered body rested in pool of crimson as last, dying twitches traveled over the spine of the muskrat form. It took minutes more before the animal finally stilled.

The emerald haired had strength of only one limb to pry the teeth open but it mattered not. In state so ravenous, the mangled animal would be torn from the metal with grunts and growls as animalistic as other predators it could have encountered. The blood that coated sole moving hand is slick and warm and for seconds, hesitation is strong, needs burning to life. She wanted to eat the animal. Raw. Salivating, a hard swallow only calms the needs but for moments. It was with stumbling hurry that knees and feet dug and ran to embers, head dizzy from rapid actions. Fire was brought back to life and the animal skewered on knife barely cooked before it was brought to gob.

It burned. The juices of flesh and the hair still clinging to it soothed some but it burned. She was ravenous, pulling and tearing with yellowed dentition as she fed. Fed herself. Her strength. Her demon. Hunched and lighted by the flames, muddy and covered in slick perspiration, she nourished herself, truly, for the first time in days.

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She was smoking again. Still in same state of undress even if days had passed, she laid on the half burnt table near the water’s edge. Lids were closed as she allowed for the effect of the rolled leaves to wash over her. Drugs had rarely been taken since the brutal and forced withdrawal in Crane. Since her encounter with the Queens of Snakes. The memory trails fire over her tongue, the joint pulled away as lids lifted open.

Above, the sky was red. It was a simple distort of her reality, no voices, no demon, and it offered surprise no more. The limit of what was real and what was not was receding further every day. Could the sky not be such a shade of crimson? It reflected the violent emotions that was in her mind so it only seemed logical to her that such a hue would exist. It was of the same color than the one of fiery mane.

Tabitha.

It was her name, was it not? Those days everything seemed uncertain. The name might be forever forgotten and remembered but the features remained clearly etched in mind. Just like the maroon shades that transcended the sky, the face starts to draw itself upon it.

Lips grew taunt, curling upwards, and polluted dentition peeked underneath.

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Time was such a fickle thing. Left with the haze of old drug mistress and her thoughts, Esmeralda was not certain how long had gone by. In her isolated land, she could live forever. Cut off on all sides from the rest of the world, she could be the last living thing for all she knew.

She knew little, in truth. Uneducated mind only mastered a few skills before Life had taken her away. A path that never halted to wound itself deeper. It found her here, today, lids blinking as consciousness regained and she stood on a side of her land. The ragged and soiled shirt was still sole garment as naked flesh was taunt over muscles and bones. Nourishment was hunted and fished for but with wounds it was a rare catch. It only served to keep mind as easier prey to itself, having her stir in locations she knew not how she reached.

Looking down, toes sunk into earth and mud as she recognized the spot. Mesch’s body decayed slowly underneath her. The ghost. Her demon. It had been quiet. Its whispers only low, in the leaves, in the distance. It needed its strength back too.

Body would descend, curling itself on the ground, letting the warmth of the earth seep through her frame as she inhaled slowly. In many ways the corpse rotting underneath the earth was more of a family to her than many that had claimed to be. Its ghost that her mind conjured, a source of strength. Slowly, she let herself fall asleep in the embrace of mud and soil. The whispers growing stronger as darkness took over.

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Time kept its course. Wounds started to heal. Fever remained. It had burned from infection but kept from the fires in her mind. The needs were growing more insistent every day. They had laid dormant, just like her demon but they could not be ignored for long. No matter how many rolled leaves were lit, the jitters were returning, demanding, commanding.

Only one thing served to calm them, a repeated pattern mind fell into. Today, a new one had been found. A new victim to her distraction.

At first, the amphibian had been only a curiosity. Its grotesque allure had captured attention. The back and forth of its bloating throat holding like a trance. Slowly however, a thought had crept into mind.
In distant land, swamp was closer to a junkyard, many a things had come to die upon its shores. One of them held something that had rarely been seen in Esmeralda’s life: books. The luggage they had come in had kept most of the water at bay but the pages clung with dampness and mold. It still captured attention with the few that could be read. One specific one had drawings. Intriguing and captivating.

Those very drawings where in mind as emerald and gold gaze stared at the yellowed one from the toad. In mud, palm cradled handle of blade so often used. Rapid and direct, the swipe caught the animal as it started to turn and prepared to leap. Metal pierced and plunged through and through, diving into the soil underneath.

Unlike the usual crimson, an azure tint was mixed with the colors that came coursing through. It was not normal. Another illusion demented mind had conjured for her. Suddenly the frog was the focus of her anger for the trick being played. Blade plunged so deep would be retrieved and stabbed forward again. Over and over and over again. The mind pattern fallen into as blood and pieces flew about and coated limbs close by.

Funny how a difference of anatomy easily explained by biology would have mind snap anew in belief of further insanity. Capture itself in repetitive pattern of destruction. A pattern coming with lullabies of squished form and spurting of abnormal blood.

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The demon was howling.

It needed to feed. It needed more.
It was healed, better than her own frame, and it demanded to be released.

Preparations would be made.