She wakes up to wet sheets and crimson fingers and thinks that maybe she miscalculated her period, but if she'd been more aware of herself she'd know that she only finished her cycle three days ago.

Instead it takes her a full forty minutes to battle her way through the soaked covers of her bed, and then she spends another ten trying to track the blood up the insides of her thighs, as if she can some how prove that that's where it all came from.

Then she realises -- epiphanies are short-coming these days -- that the blood is smeared upwards, leading her to believe that the blood has come from the general vicinity of her feet. She requires some modicum of energy to get up and look, though, and like most days she just can't seem to summon enough to move her limbs before late afternoon.

She tells herself it's the last time. No more. It's not as good as it used to be. What's the point, when you spend half your days wondering what you did during the other half, not fully comprehending that the amnesia was what you were seeking out in the first place.

And then there's the fucking philosophy on top of it. Jee-sus. Talk about full turn-around. You blitz your brains out every night in an attempt to stop fucking thinking so much, and then you're left with moments like these, finding it all some how appropriate and ironic that it's come to this, waking up to bloody sheets without the sense of mind to try and figure out why there's so much blood and where it's coming from, but still perfectly capable of deeming life to be one big meaningless search for the fucking truth. Blah.

"Blah," she says, and her voice cracks. Her tongue lolls out, thick and heavy and sticky against her dry lips.

Her feet hurt. Too much dancing. They ache and they pulsate and the idea that she can feel her heartbeat in the soles of her feet is vaguely nauseating. She bends down to rub the ache away and finds them wet. She makes the connection even before she lifts her hand back up to see.

She crawls to half-sitting position and crosses her legs in front of her like a child. She grabs one of her feet as if to bite her toe nails and then looks at the bottom of it, perplexed.

Did she stand on glass last night? Had to have done. She's going with the most plausible explanation she can dredge up right now.

She slides back down under the covers -- she doesn't care that they're wet -- and casts a glance towards the window. Not even dusk yet. She has a few hours.

---

They call it Naturalé and she calls it ironic.

Nothing natural going on here, darlin', she thinks, and giggles. She's funny.

She dances until they make her leave and then she blunders her way home. Her feet hurt and she can feel her heartbeat in her soles and the sensation turns her stomach.

She scrambles on her knees to the kitchen when she gets home. She doesn't know what she's looking for but when her hand curls around a dirty bread knife she realises it all makes sense.

She yanks her shoes and socks off and then crosses her legs. She grabs one of her feet as if to bite her toe nails and then looks at the bottom of it, perplexed.

The knife hovers over the ball of her foot, but she doesn't cut deep like she wants to. Someone else has already done it. Someone else has bled the ache from the soles of her feet.

She lifts her chin and grins at the ceiling in blessed relief. The knife clatters on to the kitchen floor and she giggles. She grabs her crossed feet with her hands -- left to right, right to left -- and falls on to her back, all the while grinning in maniacal glory.

Her feet don't pulsate anymore.