"Tyler," Josh's voice says from a long, long way ago.
There might be a light somewhere, but he can't tell.
It's hard to tell anything.
"Josh?" Tyler asks uncertainly.
Or at least, he tries to. But nothing comes out.
"Tyler?" Josh calls again. "Tyler!"
His voice is growing more frantic.
I'm here! Tyler wants to yell.
But he can't and he's afraid and alone all at once and-
And then his eyes open.
He's breathing heavily. And at first, he doesn't know where he is.
Then he does.
His hand goes instinctively to the black mark on his neck. It feels like it's suffocating him and for several moments, he's so focused on trying to control the panic he feels rising and trying to breathe, he is unaware of anything else.
He rubs at the mark, but it doesn't come off. He didn't expect it to, but the frustration still stings.
And the walls...they still feel like they're trapping him.
But he's alone.
Despite everything, that comes as a relief.
Tyler takes in his surroundings-really does, this time.
And despite the fact that he remembers waking up, knows for a fact that he is no longer sleeping, that he can't be, something about this whole thing seems unreal.
How can he be sitting on the same cold ground like he has done hundreds, maybe thousands of times before?
How is he still in Dema? How long has it been?
He shuts his eyes.
He knows it won't change anything, and when he opens his eyes he knows it with a dreadful certainty.
He's still here.
And everything he hoped and wished and wanted was a a dream...he's sure it happened.
Tyler buries his face in his hands and tries to block out those memories.
It doesn't work.
Try as he might, the image of the man in yellow, Clancy, falling to the ground, the light leaving his eyes as blood flowed from the wound the bishops had inflicted, the same red-cloaked figures that stood by and watched-reveled in, even, the pain of others...it's etched in his mind.
And it's then that he begins to wonder what will happen next.
What will happen to him?
Will the bishops simply leave him to struggle through the routine of each day as if nothing had happened?
Or will they continue to single him out and scar his mind even further?
His hands are shaking, so much so that he can't even hold his pen and try to record his thought in the few remaining pages of his yellow notebook, try to use words to calm himself.
So he sets the notebook down, feeling a crushing sense of failure.
And he waits for his world to fall apart even more while he can only watch, unable to stop it.
YOU ARE READING
Øverturning the lies (a twenty one pilots fanfiction)
FanfictionTyler is alone in the city of Dema. He can't remember who he was before then. All he knows now is trying to survive in this world. He sees others around him who are struggling too, and he wants to help them. But he can't. He can't even seem to help...
