Draft One

The Demons Within

By

Victoria Tullett

Victoria Tullett

vickyt1998@hotmail.com

+44 7714 280876

West Sussex, BN14 0AQ

©2016 V.TULLETT Productions

Scene 1

JULIA

I suck in a breath, cold and harsh, feeling nothing; this is normal, while my head reels and spirals out of control. I’m cold, frozen. The coldness of the world has destroyed me. It drains the light from the soul and the warmth from the now shell of the body. I feel numb, the nothingness taking control. Icy shards piercing the brink of my corrupt brain, paralysing the nerves; the emotions, the feelings, any feeling, cemented by the frost running through the empty case I know as my body. I feel the pain - pain that is so strong it penetrates through the ice cold to the fragile surface. It burns. What a contrast from my frozen corpse. Pain is a feeling, the only one I can experience. Pain is better than the numbness of reality. I can control Pain; I already have, and I carry its leash with me, Pain’s silver sharp leash that I wield in the face of the numbness, the frost. The blood that’s placed throughout my frozen vessel still flows, another element of the body the frost cannot control. I see it flow, trickling along my frigid flesh as I dominate Pain, a sharp sting crawling over my skin. I restrain the shriek biting at the back of my throat; my features remain indifferent, despite being isolated from the world the mask still remains. The mask that makes people believe that I am as happy as ever, the mask that makes them say, “Oh Julia, you are such a content person”, the mask that stops people raising concern because I am just the ‘same old Julia!’ The ‘I’m Fine’ mask. They see ‘happy little Julia’; besides, seeing is believing, right?

Scene 2

LUCY

I’ve been told that mirrors lie to the person in front of it, but why would something so treasured and pure lie to the innocent. No, a mirror never lies. The voices in my head never lie. The results of my actions never lie, yet the scars they leave are permanent. The feather-like lines along my knuckles, the drastic drop in my health and mental wellbeing, but the results are proving that these permanent scars are worth their while. I don’t believe that the scars are permanent, but my doctor insists, he has even given me a food chart and a weekly meal diary. He thinks that I am starving myself, pushing all my food away. But the reality is that I do eat, I binge eat everything I can, but it doesn’t stay there for long. My friends always say that they will come to the toilet with me, so they can go on and on about how Jake was staring at them during maths or whatever, and they always question me when I refuse. They are all naturally skinny, they won’t understand. No-one understands. I’ve got used to it now, the clenching of my stomach, trying desperately to cling on to whatever it can so that my body won’t starve another day; the strain in my fingers being forced lower, and my forearms bracing the toilet seat while my knees shatter on the stain-covered floor of the girls toilets. My eyes never lie to me; besides, seeing is believing, right?

Scene 3

DIANE

Fingers tingling, body numbing, breath quickening. Heart racing, skipping beats, count them, one, two three, four, five … Racing too fast, can’t keep up. Lungs collapsing under the weight. Lips quivering, tears threatening to spill; stomach churning, choking, Fear is lodged in my throat. I can never escape Fear, he always finds me. He greets me as a friend, kind compassionate; then the obsession starts, the yearning to control, manipulate, takeover, corrupt. He squeezes my limbs causing them the tingle, a sharp tingle. Sucks the oxygen from my lungs and the air surrounding me; caresses my throat with his monstrous hands and crushes it like a piece of rubbish and discards me like I’m shit. Yet, I regain composure, and return to my indifferent mask. The mask that hides the pain, the concerns, the Fear. I am no different to the way I was yesterday, so they think. I seem like the same old person I was many years ago; besides, seeing is believing, right?