TRIGGER WARNING: This chapter contains depictions of psychosis, self-harm, self-mutilation, dismemberment, and violence; proceed at your own risk.
The bands.
He'd been unlocking and shutting the box again and again recently, sneaking looks at them.
He couldn't take it.
The voices were deafening. He didn't know why his mind was so loud all of a sudden, why the world felt blurry and muffled. Why he could only hear
the call
of those
wretched
bands.
"Wear us," they'd beckoned, "wear us, and we'll grant your every wish."
"We'll be all you desire."
It was driving him mad; it was all he could make out. He couldn't even focus on commissions lately.
It was the middle of the night, his amber eyes stared down intensely at the jewelry before him.
Surely it wouldn't hurt to try them on again just a little, right? He'd take them off right after, no one would know.
No one would know.
It felt as though he was a zombified ant at the mercy of cordyceps, acting against his own will.
If "Delta" was still present.
"What's with your eye?" Four pointed out the odd change in color.
"It's contacts," His excuse was weak, but it would do for now.
"Why only one eye, though?" They pushed, not with suspicious intent, but it surely came off that way.
"It's style." Again, could be easily disproven. It's fine, he could just buy contacts that were the colors of his actual eyes.
He couldn't deny how glaringly obvious it was, however. Did it really have to be bright mint?
The bands were hidden below his pants; the reason why he specifically wore baggy ones today. It wasn't even his style... nevertheless, he'd have to bear with it.
He told Aster he already sold them to curse handlers, a lie, of course.
That's all he knew how to do anyway.
Lie, lie, lie, lie, and lie.
Nothing real ever exited that foul, deceptive, sweet-talking mouth of his, serving only to be a charmingly misleading trick.
Who knew what his "truth" really was; should it still exist in the first place, with the amounding fallacies he buried himself in.
Day after day, night after night, he would put them on, take them off. Put them on, take them off. Put it on, take it off.
It was the same thing every day.
The same lie.
Again, and again, and again, and again.
Even if they did find out, who cares? Who were they to get in the way of his business?
He thought those thoughts, those voices had quieted down already. No,
they only grew louder.
Should he have been concerned? Probably, but he's too far gone by now to fret over his condition.
Green eyes could be hidden with contacts. Gold hairs? Get a new wig, no biggie.
It was all normal.
It would be fine.
YOU ARE READING
Turrim in Astris_
Fantasy"The world's been flipped upside down, history torn to shreds, washed away by the waves of time. The dawn of the new age has begun. In a world overrun by savage, animalistic machines, what's a sentient android to do to find their long-forgotten orig...
