𝑭𝒂𝒄𝒆𝒍𝒆𝒔𝒔 𝑭𝒊𝒙𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏 {𝘚𝘢𝘭 𝘍𝘪𝘴𝘩𝘦𝘳}

Through Our Minds That We Ravage [19.2]

Sal's Lore (Part Two)

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TW/// mentions of SA, self harm, and su!c!dal thoughts. If these are triggering topics to you, please skip this chapter! it does not pertain to the main storyline.

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Life is a storybook. The book makes the rules. Your plot is decided before you can think for yourself. The pages turn to the next chapter of your story before you're ready. Before you've embraced change. Before you've even decided to move on. Sometimes, characters may never be ready for their plot alterations.

Included in this storybook is a fairytale. A fable for all those who crave deeper meaning and search for elation in the little, hidden aspects of their tale.

Sal Fisher dreamt of things he would never achieve. He hoped for options and happenstance that would never come to him in this life or the next. He was but a hopeless soul floating in his own oblivion. He was a side character in everyone's novel and he knew it. Sal was the backup person in a fantasy story that was so insignificant, he didn't even have a name. In fact, he was akin to the opening kill.

This felt too true for him. He had his alias, Sally Face, but never was he Sal.

His bed was too rough. He tossed and turned throughout the night, restless. His chance at a decent life thwarted.

A loose thread from his comforter was wrapped around his index finger, pulled tight to cut off circulation as he yanked on it. A dull snap alerted him that he'd managed to pull the string from the fabric. If only he could separate himself from this miserable world like he'd done for the worn piece of twine.

He counted invisible numbers in his head, mentally repeating passcodes and combinations as if he were a machine. It was a pathetic mantra that ceased to end. Nockfell High's locker combination, shed code, safe's passcode. He was running laps in his own mind and he didn't know how to stop. He didn't know what to do to calm the anguished storm in his head. He was lost, hopeless, beyond rectification.

Sal's body was in a state of rest, his dissociated plight forced all his limbs to be completely immobile, frozen like a statue. Caught in perpetual stillness while his mind was in full motion. No amount of physics could possibly explain or debunk the haunt in his brain. These ghosts stalked him in the night, waited until the sun went down to sneak up on him.

The nooks and crevices of his darkened thoughts came to life, melding together in the form of a horrible creature like frost in the dawn. Shadows crawled inward, creating the shape of a monstrous, inhuman being. Wisps of sheer terror dripped off its back, an image similar to the draining of blood after a most horrendous, psychotic act. A kind of act he had intrusive thoughts of daily.

This shadow man reached for Sal, urged him to allow the entity to wrap its clawed, stringy hands around his throat. To peel the flesh away from his bones. To gnaw on his innards and feast on every organ populating his body. The being wanted control over Sal's life so badly, wanted to end him. Yearned for Sal's death to transcend this mortal plane. It needed the essence of Sal's life to be freed from humanity.

Sal was this shadow man. He was the monster that tortured his every waking moment.

Gizmo was nestled at the end of the bed, his paws wrapped around Sal's legs in a snug, soothing hug. Even in his sleep, that little old man felt Sal's agony.

Tree branches scraped at Sal's window, an ominous invitation in the dead of his lonesome night. Spirits of his zombified mind begged to be let in; reminded him of Edgar Allan Poe's, The Raven.