Alone In Madness

𝙳𝙴𝚂𝙴𝚁𝚅𝙴𝙳

Dust and cobwebs fell in a thick blanket as he cleared them from the roof's support beam, hitting his shoulder on the corner on the edge as he did so. He winced in pain, immediately telling himself he deserved it, but still persevered until there was a section clean enough for the rope. 'Creak.' The floor of the abandoned house whined beneath his feet as he stepped down from the chair, taking the rope from the floor in his hands.

For a while, he stood there, a length of thick rope laying limp in his sweaty palms, his mind trying to psych himself into actually going through with it. It was more often than not that the boy felt useless, unable to do simple tasks properly. He was muscular, being sure to build up as much strength as he could since the incident so it couldn't happen again. As much as he wanted to forget, he could remember that day so vividly. He could remember being told how he should like it, how he couldn't fight, and how he didn't - how he couldn't - tell anyone about it. It was emasculating and it left him scared and alone, and only triggered worse events.

Having the inability to express his feelings caused everything to bottle up, and he blamed himself. It only took one wrong word from his younger brother before he lashed out. Nothing had been the same since.

He got kicked out, with nowhere to go. He couldn't trust anyone.

Anger. At himself. At his family. At him. It became uncontrollable, like a bottle of water that was always a drop from overflowing, except anything could be a drop. Someone looked at him oddly on the street and he assaulted them, blinded by anger. And he hated himself for it. So much.

His anger immediately made him a target for people, they always wanted a reaction from him. This caused him to become isolated. If there was nothing to provoke him then he couldn't get mad and no one could hurt him, right? So, homeless and alone, he found an abandoned house. The house, too, was isolated. A perfect fit in his opinion.

His fingers worked to tie the knot, the same knot that he had practiced so many times before in the darkness of his bedroom, using a shoelace or anything on-hand. He had to perfect it - he didn't trust that he would get it right first try. Stepping back up onto the decaying wooden chair, he felt tears prick his eyes, the hot flow soon falling down his cheeks. Why was his life the way it was? It was interesting how quickly something so great will turn to shit. How anger can turn into depression with the flick of a switch. How he could go from a king to nothing. Like sand falling through loose fingers, little things began to slip away at such a fast speed and there was nothing he could do.

There was nothing he could do.

A loop was limply in front of his face as he absent-mindedly constructed the noose, constructed what would soon be his death. The change was a weird thing. A boy so used to destruction brought to his final moment of construction.

Gently, he pushed the rope over his head, jumping slightly at how the rough material felt against his sensitive neck. He took a second to gaze at the mirror on the opposing wall, holding eye contact with one of the only people he could ever truly hate. Swiftly, he flipped himself off as a final 'fuck you' before kicking the chair from beneath his feet.

Slowly suffocating was painful, the air gradually coming to a halt as the rope tightened. Of course, it was another thing he couldn't do right.

But that's alright, JJ Olatunji was convinced that he deserved it.