At first, I thought I was going insane. Hell, I probably am going insane. And who wouldn’t? In a place like this…

I’ve been here eight days, and eventually I’ll lose count. How can I not when every day is identical?

Wake up. Get your happiness sucked out of you. Get some bread. Lose some more happiness. Take a nap. Scream some. Be treated to a nice serving of moldy bread. Give some more happiness to the Dementors.

Catch my drift?

Azkaban has destroyed stronger people than me.

Now, you’re probably thinking, “Eight days, Sirius? That’s what you’re complaining about?”

And you see, it’s not just the eight days. It’s that I’ll be here until the end of my days. Thanks to that bloody rat, I’ll be here until I deteriorate into nothing. Do you understand what that feeling is like?

It’s the feeling of being doomed. Knowing your death is coming soon, yet it’s going to be dragged out for decades upon decades. Knowing eventually everyone will even forget you exist.

And I didn’t even get to kill him. No, if I did, I’d deteriorate in peace. I would have let them take me peacefully. I would have gone without a fuss. When they asked me, “Did you kill Peter Pettigrew?” I would have replied, somewhat boastfully, “Yes. Yes I did.” He killed my best mate. He killed innocent people. He leaked information to the Death Eaters. No, I wouldn’t have denied it.

But, by Merlin, I didn’t kill him. He’s not stupid. He lured me to a real public place, set off an explosion, and transformed into a rat. Even cut off his toe. Left me standing there like a Muggle at Hogwarts.

I’m not a horrible person. I know that is what you’re thinking. “Sirius, how could you do that? How can you still want to do that?”

You don’t understand. I lost everything. Harry survived, you know. James’s son. I promised him I would take care of Harry, but I even lost that. Dumbledore wanted him to stay with the Dursleys. Who just happen to be some of the worst people in Britain. When Hagrid took him away into the cold night, I had nothing left.

I even lost Remus. With the whole ordeal over who the spy in the Order of the Phoenix was on everyone’s minds, we had stopped talking. I was fully convinced he was passing information, and he was fully convinced I was passing information. But we never confronted one another about it. What was the point? He would have just denied it, and I would have too. But we were both wrong, not that he’ll ever know that. Not that anyone will ever know that.

That was the last thing I talked to James about. We had gotten in an argument.

“We’re the Marauders, Sirius. We’re best mates! Remus wouldn’t just betray us like that.”

I don’t even remember my exact rebuttal. It was something along the lines of, “You’ll regret being so naïve when you’re dead.”

That had been the last time I’d see him before my death, and I had been angry with him. The last thing I said to him, I was screaming.

Do you know what it’s like to have nothing? To have lost everything? I quite literally have nothing to my name. Hell, I don’t even have a name anymore. I’m number 79864999.

Well, except I have a charming little cell with a nice ocean view. And some of the best service anyone could ask for. Yes, those nice Dementors come wandering around quite frequently, sucking out all the happy, leaving us with only the sad.

At least I have my memories. Until I become like my neighbors, I’ll have that.

Eight days in this place and I saw it. Eight days in dwelling of that one fateful night, and it appeared. I watched it all morning, focusing on it. I barely dared to blink. My wonderful serving of salty water and stale bread came (a real improvement from yesterday’s dry bread) and when I returned to my window it was gone.

When it disappeared, it left me feeling even emptier. When even your delusions disappear when you will them with all your might to stay…that’s how you know you’re losing it.

Remus, the brilliant man that he was, told me once that only the sane think they’re going insane, and the insane think they’re only becoming saner. He quoted some Muggle guy on it. If I could see him right now, I’d tell him that he was wrong, that he was horribly mistaken.

You see, outside of my little window this morning, in the foaming ocean swam a small pink flower. It was solid pink and it looked like if I could reach it my fingers would be graced with the smoothest thing I’ve ever had the pleasure of touching. My eyes hungrily devoured it. Yet it continued to float there, above the violent sea. While the waves beneath it moved in a circular motion, consuming themselves, the little flower remained afloat.

“Sirius, if you’re that astonished by a flower, then you really are losing it.” Don’t deny it. I know you’re thinking it.

But you don’t understand. That flower, after my vision was deprived of something so colorful for eight days, was a gift. It was a gift from my insanity to me.

That pink little flower represented every good thing that I ever had. It represented all of my losses, every dream that was ever smashed, everything I would never have again. It taunted me all morning, and I revelled in it.

I revelled in the pink, the brightest of all colours. The colour that represents love. The colour that represents friendship. The colour that represents my loss.

It’s really not that absurd when you think about it. It’s sort of like the Muggles that believe in the yin and yang. Without one, there’s not the other.

Yeah, Azkaban has really made me think, okay? What else do I have to do?

But really, when you think about it, it only makes sense that for something so tragic, something so dark, that something especially bright has to represent it.

And this morning, I got to see it. My little pink flower, floating in a swirling abyss.

And then that flower was destroyed too.