hiding, lurking » pentagon

08

❝ E I G H T ❞

━ you are not your own

Yanan woke up on the floor, which was strange. It was strange because one side of the bed was against the wall, and the other had a screen specifically meant to keep him from falling out of bed attached to it.

He was also sore. His legs specifically. As he pushed himself into a sitting position, he realized that his fingers were sore, too, almost like he'd been gripping something tightly. His eyes darted around the room, shoulders winging forward, making him look like some kind of hunching bird. The early morning shadows seemed to be reaching for him.

The TV was on, volume soft.

The air felt cold on the nape of his neck. He shivered. Goosebumps rose on his arms, the hairs standing up. The silence grated in his ears like metal on concrete.

The woman on the TV spoke of a monstrosity that had happened in his own hometown –

"—jumped sometime last night or early this morning—"

He flinched. Shivers overtook him and he huddled on the floor of the unfamiliar room in the place that was supposed to make him better.

"The victim was severely beaten—"

Dark shapes, adrenaline rush. Crashing through - something. Holding, clutching. What was he holding?

He blinked at the onslaught of random images. He must've had a strange dream. But everything lately had felt like a strange dream. It was bad enough that the people here thought he was cracking up because of grief. They didn't know. They couldn't know. They'd pump him full of so many meds. He already had too many as it was.

"—unsure of the perpetrator, as the victim's skull had been almost 'crushed with an inhuman force'. It is clear, however, that a weapon was used."

Yanan stood, intending to turn off the horrible TV, but the room swayed. He felt lightheaded, even more so when his eyes landed on the window.

It was open.

It was not open gracefully, the way all other windows seemed to be – embracing the breeze, a tranquil resting place between outside and in.

It was violent, like a photograph of a crime scene. Which, Yanan thought with a sick, hysterical jolt, it could very well have been. The window was locked from the inside, and secured on the outside with thick metal rods. The doctors had explained that it was for the safety of the more unstable patients.

The glass was shattered in the center and the rods were bent. One was missing, leaving a horrible gap like a broken smile. On the jagged edges of the glass was a substance like dried ink.

He shuffled closer, already knowing - wishing he didn't know - what it really was.

Blood.

He reached through the window and closed his hands around the mangled metal, wincing as his fingers spasmed when he tightened his grip. He gave a quick yank. The rod did not budge even a little bit.

A commercial for a soft drink played on the TV.

He pulled his arms back inside and sank to the floor. He didn't feel safe anymore. Not even when he was alone, because he was never alone.

But if it meant staying here and keeping his friends safe, he would put himself on the line.

(He didn't think about keeping anyone else safe.)

Later, the nurse came in to check on him and give him food. He had been dreading this moment since he woke up. When the door opened and the nurse gave him a soft, friendly smile, a feeling like writhing worms erupted in his belly. Her eyes lit upon the window almost immediately and he could see her make a mental note of it. He wanted to tell her to go away; felt his lips beginning to form the words. Then -

Rend her flesh, snap her bones, hissed a voice deep within Yanan's mind. He flinched and looked down, trying to hide it, trying to ignore the awful things that he was thinking. But it wasn't him thinking those things - and he couldn't take comfort in that fact. Maybe his mind subconsciously sought out the familiarity of the backs of his hands, and that was why he looked down. Maybe he wanted to avoid looking at the nurse, for fear of what would happen.

Either way, he saw that his fingers were turning to emaciated, crooked claws, something out of a nightmare. He shuddered a little, upper lip trembling. He knew better than to scream. It would only make it worse. The nurse bustled around him, asking him questions, trying to set the tray on his bedside table. Being friendly, helpful, nice. Good.

So why did he feel the urge to take her head between his hands and twist it with one sharp jerk? He wanted her to leave. He wanted this thing to get out of his head. He wanted to cry.

When she left the room, he did. He put his head in his hands and screwed his eyes shut, but tears still escaped, shaken from beneath his lashes like fruit from a tree because of his shuddering shoulders. He thought his ribs were going to crack. He wanted them to.

He thought about Yuto.

He thought about how Yuto must've felt; he wondered how long the other boy was hiding this, and how much it was tearing him up inside. Did he hear the voice? Did he have the urges? Did he feel so alone and so scared all the time? He missed Yuto. He began to understand why Yuto did it. Remembered how his friends had taken the news; wondered how they were doing. If they were still hurting as much.

He just wanted Yuto back. He wanted his best friend to come back from the dead and his life to return to normal.

He didn't understand why a demon had chosen his friends to torment. He didn't understand why it had to pick Yuto. He didn't understand why Yuto had to be gone.

Every day marked a new horror. He frequently woke up to the walls bleeding and the TV blaring stories that matched his crimson-drenched skin. Sometimes, holes ripped open in the walls. They were black, dark holes that made Yanan think terrible things, holes that summoned and spoke of velvet maladies and sucked all the warmth from the room and his skin and his mind. Sometimes twisted, emaciated, skeletal hands emerged from them, clawing the walls, searching for handholds. They liked the dark, though; they always disappeared into the dark. At night, things skittered into his room from these holes and he could hear them under his bed. He would lay awake in abject terror, praying that they would stay away, that if he did not move at all, they wouldn't notice him.

One day, he blacked out completely. All he knew was that he ended up back home, with a whole bag of rattling meds and doctors' notes and overjoyed parents. He did not know where the time had gone or why he was home. Or how he had gotten home; how he had proved to the doctors to be healthy enough to come home. His friends wanted to visit him, but he forced them to stay away. He was too afraid of what he would do.

His parents doted on him and his phone was flooded with notifications, but it was all separate. Like he was one step behind everything that was happening.

All he knew was that terrible things were going to happen.

Two days later, he woke up with a stinging wrist. When he inspected it, he saw two words carved into his skin, scabbing over with dried blood:

Judgement Day.

ohoho its getting spicy :)
i forgot that i had a whole chapter written lmao buT

so its p obvious that yanan is yknow, possessed...yuto was the first victim, now yanan. who do yall think the next target will be? (the next target is mostly random so u could honestly just draw from a hat, but tell me ur guesses and why you think that!)