Complications(Adopted by Brendon Urie)

3. "What's happening?"(Self harm)

There is triggering self harm stuff in this chapter so you might want to skip it if you dont like this material, but this is so you get an idea of Annie's mental state in this part of the story

During my first week or so staying with Brendon and Sarah I was quite distracted, meeting all of their friends and family and bonding occupied my mind enough that I wasn't thinking of what had happened. But then one day, when Brendon and Sarah reluctantly left me alone to go out and run some errands my brain was left blank, with nothing engaging enough to do or think of to distract myself from my memories. Sure, I had some small flashbacks when meeting other people or just phasing out of a conversation but it was never that bad, I only thought about the good times and nothing related to the car crash necessarily crossed my mind after the funeral of my family.

I was laying on the couch with Penny and June - who were trying to be friends, though it was difficult for the cat because the last dog she lived with was when she was a kitten - watching Netflix, Brendon and Sarah had gratefully gifted me a private profile to put on their account so I was watching 'Stranger Things'. Eventually, I grew bored of watching the program and turned the T.V off, staring at the black screen and my blurry reflection, not thinking about much.

June shifted on my lap, making a small noise as she repositioned herself in a half-asleep daze. I gave her a pat, reassuring her that she was okay to sit on me. "Don't pout Penny, it's not attractive." I mumbled at the dog sitting on the opposite end of the couch, who was staring at the two of us. At the mention of her name her ears pricked up and she tilted her head, opening her mouth to let out a couple soft pants. June's ears pricked up too, sensing the movement and hearing the sound she whipped her head around to look at the dog, who was now staring at her. "Penny, no. She's sleepy, don't you even try to do what I think you're going to." I scolded her, using a serious tone as I started patting June to calm her down. Almost immediately after telling her off she retreated, laying her head on her front paws while looking very guilty.

The drama had finished and I was left to think about nothing in particular once again, trying to avoid thinking about what had happened that caused me to be where I was. As a solution, I turned the tv back on and switched inputs to the PS4 so I grabbed the controlled from the end table just behind my head. I wasn't sure what I wanted to play, so I went into the games library of what was downloaded onto the console. I flicked through from A-Z, no game catching my eye as appealing for me to play, but suddenly, as I passed the 'M' section a certain game caught my eye and once I saw it I just couldn't ignore it.

Minecraft.

That game was the source of both one of my best and worst memories. Best because it was the last game I ever played with Michael, and worst, because it was the last game I ever played with Michael. My thoughts flickered to the world on my phone, which I had made sure there was hundreds of backups of on my phone, my iPad, the cloud, USB's, hard drives - basically wherever I could think of. After that I couldn't take my thoughts off of my sweet little angel of a brother, I just wished that I could've sacrificed myself for him, or tried to reinforce that we shouldn't have driven on that night. Sure, my life back in Australia was shit, but it was my life. But then, what my life was, was basically Brendon, Sarah and a few others trying to repair a broken - no shattered, mirror.

A tear fell down my cheek as I continuously thought about Michael, almost re-living every memory I had of him, the good and the bad, when I would help him get to school on public transport before I went to school, when I played with him, when I was soothing him to sleep as our parents fought relentlessly and most importantly when I was comforting him in his final minutes. The pain was too much and by then I was balling my eyes out to the point June jumped off of me and Penny followed her, leaving me alone. I just needed to get rid of the pain and forget about the memories for just a moment, but the only thing I could think of was something I'd never thought I'd even consider.