Alone In Madness

𝙳𝚁𝙸𝙿

Eyes watched him, two empty pools of judgment picking apart his every movement. They noticed when his shoulders began to shake, bouncing up and down despite his desperate attempt to physically hold himself together. Nails dug red crescents into his arms, deeper and deeper until they were stained with a delicate red which trickled down, dripping onto the tile beneath him.

Drip. Drip. Drip. Dripdripdripdripdripdrip.

He knew he was in pain - the rivulet that seemed to never stop dripping from his arms wouldn't let him forget that - but why was it so hard to feel? Tears glistened in the eyes of this stranger, but yet he wasn't sure he was sad. They were washed down with the scalding hot shower water, the path they rolled now engraved due to the burning red that flushed over his face.

Scream. Maybe that would make it better - getting everything out by screaming until his throat bled and his lungs gave up. Oh, how he wanted to yell and scream, disturb the whole world if they heard. Tell them how he didn't care anymore, how he couldn't be fixed.

"Show some emotion, you're broken."

"What's wrong with you?"

"Try these, they will help."

No one could handle the fact that the smart, good-natured boy broke. That they broke him. Plasters of therapy and hugs, 'I'm here for you', were ripped off just moments later. What was the point in trying to let them cling to his skin long enough for the wounds to heal when they would fall off eventually? Anxiety was such a terrible thing, and he got sick of it. Sick of the fact that death could be right around the corner, of the fact that he had no control. Above all, he was sick of feeling.

So he stopped. Stop. Stopstopstopstopstopstop.

Weed helped at first, allowing him to run away from his world with the musky scent and the disappointment of teachers on his shoulders. But he didn't realize that he was on a treadmill, he was running but not making ground, and the moment he wore himself out everything would catch up once again. Perhaps this is why he moved on to stronger drugs, which gave him more energy to keep going and going and going and going and-

The addiction quickly threw its rusty chains over his skin, weighing him down to allow his problems to take over his life once more, suffocating and restricting the air of normality he once had.

Orange capsules of pills seemed to glow in the foggy bathroom, the small prescription medicine calling to him from inside. Sometimes they helped, too. Helped him be free, to block out any thought, feeling or emotion that tried to hold him down.

But they only masked the chains, making the rust look like fairy dust.

Unscrew them. Unscrewunscrewunscrew.

A chorus chanted through his head, blurring his vision. Hands working quickly, he removed the lid.

One, two... maybe three? No, more. More. More. Moremoremoremoremoremore pills.

The eyes watched as he forced countless pills down his throat, almost immediately gagging. They watched him slump to the ground and hold his head. They heard him scream.

Loud and gut wrenching.

The eyes watched Joshua Bradley smile as he began to black out, finally he was feeling something.