A/N: Glee characters belong to R.M., not me.

This story is almost completely AU and takes place approximately 7 years after graduation from McKinley. Santana's POV. Most of the major Glee characters will make an appearance at some point.

The main focus of this chapter is to introduce Santana's thoughts and feelings so there is very little dialogue. However, in the chapters to follow, there will be more of an emphasis on the actions taking place, rather than the thoughts being processed.

CHAPTER 1

The inevitable loss had arrived. Terrifying things are always punctual. I had a typical reaction to this rather overwhelming situation. To any unknowing spectator, it would have surely appeared rather boring.

My thoughts generated in slow motion. Time had a stutter. It went back and forth and shifted through tenses. Like the gradual assent of a roller-coaster car, right before it reaches its destined height, you hear that hollow crack signaling the inevitable release. The downward force is so powerful, your organs surge straight up your body until they reach your throat and gag you.

After the toxic mindfuck that was my brief dalliance with Quinn Fabray, (feelings-be- damned style) along came Brittany. Happiness I swore I was incapable of feeling, or even deserving of, began to burst from within me. The HBIC facade was diminishing a little more everyday. She made my world brighter and I wanted to be a nicer person because I genuinely felt like one. And then it happened. We broke up, rather, she broke up with me and karmic balance was again restored.

My world had just been hijacked by the person I loved most. Betrayal is the deadliest incentive. My immediate, fresh-wound emotions were so predictably human. Eruptions of sadness, anger and powerlessness, each summoning the next, soon blended into an unstoppable force, usurping any and every practical thought.

I smoked weed like a fiend. Morning- wake and bake, Noon- pack a bowl, thoughts of Brittany- roll a blunt, rinse and repeat. This cycle continued until there wasn't a second of the day when my brain wasn't doused with a generous coating of THC. Being high didn't actually feel like being high anymore. And who says you can't develop a tolerance for weed?

I brought in the next best thing, booze. It started with gin and tonics but that nagging voice of Sue Sylvester kept breaking through my haze, telling me to drop the tonic.

"Sandbags, if you're gonna act like the chunks of albino stripper vomit I pull from my hair every Tuesday, the least you could do is give up those calories." So straight gin it was.

Until this moment, I had yet to encounter this new kind of stranger, posing as my own reflection; some shell of a creature with soulless, vacant eyes, wearing a Santana mask. We would toast each other many times each night, the creature and its reflection. I poured shot after shot of straight gin into a small glass. I held each out at arms-length, towards the mirror and said, "to us" before I brought the glass to my lips and knocked it back like a pro. It was better than drinking alone.

There were nights when the creature caught a glimpse of Santana somewhere in the mirror. It would cry out, overcome with the sudden intrusion of emotions. It would ruthlessly rub at its bloodshot eyes until Santana was gone and everything was right again.

The entirety of my world consisted of a single girl, with whom I cultivated a tragic entanglement of love and madness for a period of four years. Lacking insight, we were innocent in our pursuit of a peaceful coexistence. In our final moment as a consenting duo, a unilateral decision was made and a bond was severed. Feelings for someone else? Just like that- is that even allowed? When things appear too good to be true, it's because they are.

The first time I saw her with Sam they were holding hands and giggling as if the world hadn't stopped spinning. Even I couldn't have predicted my next move. Everyday for one month, I held out a metaphorical gun, cocked, with the tip of the barrel kissing her temple. Her raw vulnerability in these moments threatened to draw me back to the beginning; to our initial encounters when the sun would break through and spill all over my "bitch cloud."

When she was sad, I transformed into some mother fucking Rachel Berry impersonator (taller, prettier, more talented, sexier...the list goes on), singing any song that would pull her from her doldrums and make her smile.

Ripped from the trenches of my brief respite, reality strikes and the pain is back in my chest, announcing its return in short, staccato bursts. What the fuck marijuana, I thought we were friends?

When I finally got her alone (after I stalked her and Trouty Mouth all around town) I was actually rough with her. It felt strange denying every instinct I had to only treat her with the utmost respect and gentleness she deserved. As she waved goodbye to Sam with that familiar, happy glint in her eyes, I got out of my candy apple red Audi and grabbed her before she could even register my presence. I pulled her towards my car, pushed her in the passenger side and quickly took a seat on the driver's side.

"Santana, what's going on?" She demanded.

But I could see the fear all over her face. She was trembling. I looked straight through those baby blues and said, "if you keep seeing that Avatar reject, I'm going to make him disappear."

She withdrew further from me in the seat she was forced into, met my eyes briefly and said,"You smell like Lord Tubbington after he comes home from that biker bar."

Tears filled her eyes, threatening a chain reaction. I struggled to maintain the hard expression on my face as I pressed the unlock button as fast as the stoner neurons in my brain would allow.

It was easy enough to elicit the desired response from the most vulnerable of victims. Though, her daily compliance failed to provide me with even a semblance of satisfaction. Instead, I felt repulsion in the wake of my actions, and the longer I continued on this malevolent path, the more I felt the gun twisting in my sweaty palm, toward my own direction.

It was a Thursday afternoon when I initiated my next sneak attack. Only this time there were no desperate or empty threats. I simply told her, "forget it, I'm done," releasing that burden with a deafening thud. This concluded our final correspondence.

Even with the last tie severed, I still felt drawn to her, as if by some imagined tether connecting me to all that was left- longing. I stood impatiently stagnant, stymied to this wretched moment in time. My thoughts were swirling with the darkest blues that had ever brushed my canvas. Only Kurt should have these kind of gay-ass thoughts. Thank god they're only in my head.

For a moment, I allowed my mind to suffer in sobriety as I reflected on the irreversible damage I had caused. Through my actions, I annihilated any chance of a reconciliation, any hope of a future-anything.

It was time to mourn the deceased. Even with all of my toxic survivor tools, I could no longer play the part of some guiltless villain. I now accepted every feeling of relentless rage and absolute emptiness as my own to fester in. It finally felt like I was home.

Brittany Susan Pierce was gone. Life as I knew it- gone. And amidst the maddening period of accepting this dreary, new reality, I had become an addict and an alcoholic and was desperate for help.