Is This What Hell Feels Like?

Painful Past

Jack was gone for the day and Toby was still not allowed to leave the complex, due to not having a chance to meet his new boss. That left him alone and bored out of his mind. He was basically stuck to the room he was in, seeing as how he didn’t want to face the infamous Jeff the Killer. A fight was the last thing Toby wanted to be caught in. 

Thoughts of leaving resided in his mind, but he didn’t know how far he would get with that. The Slenderman would definitely kill him or send his goons out to retrieve him. He knew he would die, and he was terrified of that. He didn’t want everything to end that way, but ironically he really wanted to die. Granted, Toby had always been this way. He was terrified of death, but he also wanted it to take him away. 

The teen gently shook his head, trying to rid it of his death-filled thoughts. He really needed something to do, just some kind of distraction. 

His need for a distraction caused him to go back to his sketchbook. Considering how he had nothing better do, the only thing he could think to do was draw. Of course, he could always write, but he wasn’t fond of the idea that someone could potentially find his work. Last time someone found his writing he was sent to the school counselor, which at first glance isn’t so bad, until he got called a ‘Poison Boy.” The woman was lucky Toby didn’t shove his fist down her throat after that little comment. But he decided not to focus on the hag, who was most likely dead by that point, and began drawing. 

Minutes passed before he had a decent sketch whipped out. It was nothing special, just a person he made up as he went. The man on the page even got a name, Thomas. Despite just being a name, it still held a lot of meaning. It was the name of someone who tolerated him. 

Memories of trotting through the woods or hanging out at parks in the middle of the night brought a small light to his dark mind. Maybe loneliness wasn’t 100% amazing. Maybe being with someone else was okay. Maybe things would’ve been different if Toby would have tried to make friends instead of avidly avoiding everyone on the planet. 

A sad sigh passed Toby’s chapped lips as he looked at the drawing. Small parts of him missed it, when he was at least a little happy and normal. Before he was a wanted criminal with an insane cash-prize over his head. Before he lost the little bit of normality he ever had. Looking back, he regretted a lot of things he had done. If it weren’t for him and his fucked up mind, things would have been so different. 

But life couldn’t be nice to him, it had to make everything so hard. From the beginning it was hard, his dad beat him every day and night. Then it got worse when he went to school, he was relentlessly bullied and had almost no friends. The final straw was when his sister, Lyra, was killed in a car ‘accident.’ Toby didn’t think it was an accident, but he couldn’t do much about that. 

“I wonder how she’s doing,” He softly muttered as he began digging in the pockets of his sweatpants. 

When he pulled out his hand he had a small photo, it was his family. Lyra, his mom, and the man he hated most. Guilt built up within him as he studied every single aspect of the picture. He left his poor mother all alone. Worse, he left her alone with the image of him hacking away at his father. He wondered how she was doing, but did his best to avoid thoughts on her, shifting them to his sister, Lyra. She was the reason tears began stinging his eyes. 

His older sister was always by his side and was always there for him. She was a life saver. Lyra always reminded him of the bright side, something he had a hard time finding on his own. She made him feel like there was some purpose to his life, even if it was just helping her to do small tasks. Toby was more than willing to put his life on the line for her. Not a single day went by where he didn’t wish it was him in the car and not her.