Hijacking Reality

Chapter 15

Keith's eyes fluttered in their dark yet thin cocoons of skin, also known as eyelids. He stirred but it was only his imagination. His skin was tight, like there was a cover preventing him from breaking free of a shell that fastened him into his place on his bed. His hands gripped on the red comforter below him. His ears twitched, hearing each individual strand of rope, or what he assumed was rope, creak as they frayed from one another. Just a measly bundle of fibers constrained him with ease. This wasn't the only daunting fact that consumed him with fear, being constrained. It was the fact that one of his senses were stripped away from him. The most important one of all, his sight. This invited crude beginnings of terrorized goose bumps that laid a thick blanket across his stiff skin. Not seeing what he was up against made him liable for imminent injury.

He could sense the headboards of the bunk like cave that blocked him off from the hallway just outside. So close, yet he couldn't reach his own sliding door. Being paralyzed in place was never a good feeling. Just like listening to a noise in the night as you want to find the courage to move from under your covers but it is utterly hopeless. Your actions can not be processed as you accept the fate of whoever or whatever hovers next to you.

A clicking scrape clawed at the walls. Keith wanted to scream, yell out to ask who was there and what was going on but his words were captured in his throat like a bird in a cage not able to fly away. What did he do to deserve all of this terror?

"What did I do to deserve this terror," a hushed voice mimicked Keith's thoughts, "What did I do? No. I did nothing."

Keith swallowed a strangled noise that was dying to explode from his otherwise sealed lips. Too scared to even scream.

The same voice followed suit, "Too scared. Of what? I know what."

Keith opened his mouth to retort once again but a quivering breath only insued.

"Rejection. What else? Love. Happiness. Everything cancels out with something horrible. I need him," Keith sweat as he listened carefully for only a burning realization sent a ripple through his blood.

His eyes shot open in his false sense of safety to see a pile jet black hair and a ball of red leaning against the barren walls glinting a look of insanity to lurk his pupils. His very own identical pupils. An image of himself right in front of his very eyes. Something simply unthinkable, the shock cut his vocal cords off completely.

"Who am I? Concious, subconcious, or maybe unconscious? I hate Lance, I love Lance, or maybe I know I need Lance.

"N-No," Keith choked out heartily.

Acknowledgment was void from the replicated Keith, the real Keith only felt like the invisible shadow, "Who could ever come to care for me? It's a joke. All a joke that Lance could laugh at later. I love his laugh. Who cares if I can't have him? I'm content enough just looking at him. Watching him enjoy his life without me to ruin it."

"No," Keith insisted louder this time. He disagreed with himself of those very words of lost faith.

"I couldn't save Lance no matter how many times I promise. He is always the one to save useless old me. When did I become such a burden? He doesn't need me. He'll get tired of me soon enough and care for someone else."

It was like an old horror film with black grain that was in the process of being displayed by his door. Lance standing all in his beautiful blue glory in his paladin suit, his helmet held at his side strongly. His hair was caressing the sides of his face and the back of his neck like some shampoo commercial. He noticed that it had definitely gotten longer since Keith first met him. He could almost say it took on a similar version to his own locks. He also noted the structure that Lance's face barred. He looked older and manlier like he had aged to his mid-twenties, growing into himself extremely well. His sapphire blue orbs behind his thick eyelashes, glistened with a sense of joy and a sense of deep admiration. Maybe that together was just a love, a love that Keith wanted to be directed at him but knew it was not. It was eerie to have a face that he was so use to look like that at someone else but him.