「 GHOSTS 」

It was dark and the only sensation he felt was the gentle drifting of his body. Lewis had his eyes closed tightly, not a single thought went through his barely functioning brain. The darkness cradled him for what felt like hours. It made him feel like he was drifting on the gentle waves of an ocean. It provided comfort to him. But... he didn't feel like he actually had a proper body at first. And then the drifting finally stopped. Lewis still had his eyes shut however the darkness he became accustomed to turned into a bright light that pierced through his tightly shut eyelids. Suddenly, Lewis became aware of a solid surface under him, under his body. He was laying on his side, curled up. Then memories came back to him. Memories such as his childhood, his family, his friends, his pets, his work life, his likes, his dislikes, his favorite things, his hobbies, his talents, and his skills; it all returned to him, every single thing that made Lewis himself. It was quite nice to remember again after losing the ability to retain such important memories so quickly.

Unfortunately, not all of those memories within his restored mind would be nice ones.

All of the good memories of his life came alongside every bad memory from the past month or so such as; the extreme paranoia of even being in his own home. Being paranoid around everyone that stepped foot near him. All the seizures caused by the parasite living in his brain, completely terrorizing his regressing mentality. Every single hallucination he was forced to witness. The inability to sleep without being tortured within his nightmares. The inability to eat or drink anything without violently throwing up the sustenance moments later. Feeling constantly exhausted and being brutally punished when trying to make himself feel better. Being unable to speak out about what was going on within his mind and having to mask every hint of negativity in fear of being harmed. And then eventually what was behind closed walls got out and it led to him holding some of his best friends hostage on what was supposed to be a fun and relaxing vacation. It led to him killing one of his best friends in a brutal, horrific way. Things simply got worse with Lewis being in the hospital and getting tortured by "doctors" that he thought would help him. Getting betrayed by his best friends that he thought would help him in that very hospital. Being put into accurate, horrifying simulations of a game franchise he once loved but could no longer remember while being tortured by hallucinations of monsters that he once called his friends. Having his body get completely mutilated within one of the animatronic suits all the while he failed to understand what was even happening to him. And then, finally, after being able to rest in a warm and dark void for so long he would quickly be torn from his safe place of comfort and thrown back into what could possibly be described as a fate worse than death.

The list could simply go on and on. The young man started to cry as he remembered each and every thing that monster forced him to do. Every second and every minute of agony that parasite had put him through. It seemed as though moments of rest were something that he wasn't deserving of, they would only rarely come when he did what he was told.

And lastly, of course, another reason Lewis cried was because he knew he was dead. Overall, Lewis didn't want to die, of course. But he knew it was far better than continuing to live through literal Hell as he was tortured every single second of what little life he had left. Now that he was gone, there was no more physical pain that he needed to constantly endure and no more twisted hallucinations that tortured him with little mercy nor hesitation.

Opening his teary eyes, Lewis was met with a bright white atmosphere but it wasn't bright enough to hurt his eyes. His eyes looked around at the... ceiling and the walls...? They were never-ending, causing him to feel extremely small within this massive, empty white void. The next thing he did was sit up and look at his body. He wasn't wearing the clothes he died in but instead was wearing a simple black and white t-shirt along with dark jeans and white socks. Examining his arms, he expected there to be a multitude of open wounds with bloodied, rusted strips of metal embedded in them as blood and other substances covered his hands, but to his relief his arms were clean, there was not a single wound or bruise and he had all of the fingers on his hand after losing a few when he was alive. His legs were covered by the jeans but just from feeling them he knew there weren't any metal parts embedded within the skin anymore, so he trusted that they were okay.