Sometimes the appropriate response to reality is to go insane
Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
You're 15, and you wake one morning feeling odd. Your head hurts. Your skin feels like it's being rubbed with sandpaper, from the inside out.
You try to sit up, only to realize that the pajamas you'd worn to bed are
sliding away, rotting, turning to dust.
You try to yank yourself out of what you think must be a dream. It doesn't work, of course.
The blankets and pillows disintegrate next. You just stare, and you're freaking out by now. What's next? What if it's you?
The odd sensations fade as you get out of bed. You trip and almost fall.
Stuff's breaking down as you try to walk on it, or around it. There's a crash
when you stumble and knock your bookcase over.
Your dad hears it, hears you yell, panicking, and hurries upstairs.
He puts an arm around your shoulders, tries to tell you to calm down, he won't let anything happen to you, let's just get out of here, call someone--
Too bad no one was there to promise him that.
Humans, of course, feel pain. Furniture can't scream when it starts to decay,
pieces sloughing off, skin turning transparent and then gone, arm bones underneath and you can see it
He moves away from you, not deliberately, he still doesn't understand and it's the one thing, looking back, that you can say "thank God" for, that he didn't know what was killing him.
It's the last time you ever say it.
You finally figure it out when he falls over, you try to catch him, and you see what happens to his arms when your fingers dig into his skin.
You let go.
It's too late.
Then, you're alone.
Weeks go by. You don't leave the house. You figure out that if you keep your hands covered, you can eat and drink. You don't know why you should, but you're not ready to die.
Someone finds you. You agree to try to fix things. You don't give up, though a little voice in your head whispers that just once, just once maybe you should.
It happens again. You apologize. You break off before you kill somebody, this time, at least. You don't let yourself do what you want, which is to hide somewhere without anyone to tempt you, where you can scream or throw things or
laugh at God or fantasize about any number of things you could do or can't do now.
You make yourself keep going. You don't give up, and you listen to people who tell you that it's a gift, not a mistake, not a curse.
You find someone who is, without fancy words, the most beautiful girl you've ever met, a dream instead of a nightmare, and you love her just because she reminds you to laugh, and doesn't shy away from being near you, and you know if you could kiss her even once, you'd be willing to give up everything you
had...
It
happens
again.
You keep going, keep walking. The names change. The places do. You haven't.
You don't give up.
Neither does the hunger. It's always there for you, when everyone else leaves.
It's always waiting. No judgment, no fear, no hatred.
Just waiting for you to finally look it in the eye.
You have nothing ahead of you but more pain, more fighting with yourself, more hopelessness. Is it sanity or lunacy to decide, no more? To admit that
being a weapon, as opposed to wielding one, may be all that's left, and you're sick of being denied, of running in place? It's been two and a half years.
What else can you do?
You don't yet know.
But you finally decide to look, and find out.
Muse: Kevin Ford
Fandom: Misc Comics
Word count: 623