Proof of Life

She stood there staring into the open wound, shocked. It had been so long since she had felt anything, so it brought her happiness to feel something even if it was pain. She smiled as the warmth of her blood dripped down her leg and hit the floor. Thump, thump, thump. The thick drops of blood brought tears to her eyes. The tears she shed weren't because she had harmed herself. She shed them because she was excited to see that should could, in fact, bleed. She was real. Life was coursing through her veins and the nothingness she felt, the meaningless vapor that seemed to be her life, disappeared ever so briefly.