meet me in the woods ☾grayson dolan au

e p i l o g u e

[ E P I L O G U E ]

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Peace.

It was what he wanted, and what he achieved. If only for a little while.

The truth is, Grayson Dolan never made it back home, and I don't mean after the woods. I mean after the mental hospital; the first time.

When he turned 18, he was sent straight to the state prison and put into a straight jacket for his explosive and dangerous behavior. Left in a clean white room, no sounds, no interactions for hours at a time, he only had his mind and struggling yet amazing imagination.

Stuck in permanent isolation, he had managed to think up an entire world revolved around fixing himself, yet he couldn't even muster the strength and ability to do it in an alternate reality. He had picked a person who had impacted his life- a woman who had taken care of him for three years- and molded her body into his own. He loved her because in his eyes she was perfect. He was his happiness. When his happiness was taken away or tested, he was vulnerable to his evil.

Now Ethan—Ethan was really dead. That was a given from the start. There were no lies there. And if that domino fell, so did the next.

The black silhouetted figure was also real; well, real to Grayson. In the corner of the clean white room the figure sat everyday of his life. He spoke to Grayson, and Grayson spoke back, and the people on the other side of the clean white walls listened and shook their heads at the seemingly one-way conversations. Some of the words were taunting, some angry, questioning and even tolerable on occasion. They never went away. The shadow was always there.

He had a lot of time to himself in that isolation room. There was a lot of thinking time and time to remember the past. He constantly found himself worrying. He worried about the blood that was constantly on his hands. The blood that wasn't his. He worried what his parents would think of him now as he sat so helplessly in the white room. He worried about his sister. He had no idea where she had gone throughout the years. The last time he had seen her was that day in her room years ago. The same day he had hit her. He worried about her. He worried if she was in trouble because of him; trouble in the same way she wasn't accepted to college because of him. Grayson asked the silhouetted shadow constantly if she was okay, but the shadow would never answer him to his liking. He always laughed at his worry or shrugged the questions off.

His sister wasn't in trouble. She didn't go far. She watched over her struggling brother from the other side of the one-way glass. She worried as much as he did. She wished that one day she would see progress on him and that he would be accepted back into society. Sure, Grayson had ruined his own life by killing his parents and abusing his sister, but she miraculously still loved him. And deep down somewhere in Grayson, he loved her, too. She loved him even if he had hurt her. She had lost her parents and a brother, she couldn't bear to lose the last family she had to her. She longed to speak to him but was told it was unsafe and better that they never speak again. She was told that even the sight of her face could trigger Grayson's ptsd and anxiety and throw him into a dangerous episode that could potentially end very badly. She was told he was too far gone.

But was he too far gone or only lost?

Every second of every day that went by he had tried so hard to distract himself from the four white walls and a door. He just longed so badly to be outside and feel the light on his skin and climb mountains with a special someone he loved. He wanted to go on nature walks and strolls to the farmers market. He wanted to so badly but he had messed up so early and so severely he couldn't take it back. It was his reality and it was all too intense to take in.

He had created everything and realized things in himself through the people he had shaped and altered. As if it was even possible he found safety and home in a figure that only represented the faltering side of his good. He betrayed her, when in reality he had really given up on bettering himself. He had given up on fixing his mistakes and trying to create a home to feel safe in. He had given up on life altogether until he would snap out of his insanity and realize everything was too real.

The white walls were too real.

The straightjacket he was so accustomed to was too real.

The silence that seemed to fill every second of his life was too real.

Everything was just too real.

"Meet me in the woods,
little brother."