(Emotional/metaphorical rather than literal)

I guard this child. My duty, as her imaginary guardian, is to annihilate all negative thoughts that attack the young one’s mind. So far, her first nine years have been easy to deal with.

However, today, I encountered a wild beast.

Wilder than a lion.

Harsher than a storm.

Stronger than a sword.

Self-hate.

She cried. Her tears splattered to her carpet floor. She sat against her room door, muffling her cries with her shaking hand.

She was grasping at emotions she could barely understand.

“Everyone is perfect.”

That was her assumption.

“So why not me?”

She cried, and in her mind, a childlike part of her had shattered.

The judgemental stares of others were amplified sirens in her mind.

To her, she was treated as a villain.

“When everyone looks at me like so…” she thought bitterly. “… It is simply all too easy to take that role.”

That role of a villain.

She couldn’t even hate anyone sufficiently.

After all, a part of her guilt knew that it was only herself to blame.

She could only hate herself.

“And that,” she smiled weakly. “Seems to be my solution.”

Her words hurt me.

What had instilled this attitude in her?

She was no villain.

She was a child.

She did not know, yet what was this?

She deserved happiness.

She deserved her childlike innocence.

Yet she lies empty-handed.

A lack of compassion. A lack of care. Neglect.

She was only a child.

(Part of an antagonist backstory supposedly)