Anathema

epilogue - life has a hopeful undertone

Two weeks later.

Tyler couldn't remember what had happened when his parents had come home. Actually, he could hardly remember anything at all. The voices crowded out every waking thought.

Every day, he woke up terrified out of his mind because he couldn't remember where he was. He wasn't at home anymore. He was in the very place he knew he would end up eventually. An insane asylum.

That wasn't exactly true. He was actually in a mental hospital that wasn't considered an "insane asylum," but he felt like it was, especially since the voices wouldn't shut up. The only reason he could sleep at night was because the doctors made him take some pill to help him relax or something. He was convinced they were drugging him and was determined to get out of there as soon as possible.

Everything was bare and uncomfortable. The walls were bare, his room was bare, the halls were bare, even some of the people were bare. Empty. Like him. He was forced to wear special clothes that resembled scrubs, and they were itchy and uncomfortable. So was his bed. It was stiff and the sheets were clean but scratchy. His stomach always ached and tugged like he'd swallowed a bucket of worms. But the bandages on his wrists were the worst. They rubbed against his skin like sandpaper, and they made the other people stare at him. He wanted to tear them off and stuff his hands in his hoodie pockets, but he wasn't allowed to have his hoodie yet. Even if he got it back, they'd have to take the strings out and lecture him or something. He just wanted to go home and never see anyone ever again.

He'd already refused to see his parents. It had been two weeks and he still couldn't bring himself to see their faces again. They'd looked so disappointed when he'd woken up in the hospital. They were so sad. He didn't want to make them sad anymore. He wanted them to smile again, and they couldn't do that if they were looking at their oldest son and the horrible condition he was in. Especially since the voices were always screaming.

They called it sensory overload, but he felt it constantly, and it prevented him from interacting with other patients. He rarely left his room unless he had to, and refused to speak to anyone, even his new doctor. He missed Dr. Ann. He wanted to be back in her office with the plants and the green pillows and the rug with forty six rectangles.

But most of all, he wanted this all to be over. At this point, he didn't care what worked. He didn't care how it happened. He just wanted the voices to leave him alone.

Clancy and Nico had come back, but they were different now. Whenever he looked at them, they were covered in bruises and open wounds, their clothes shredded and stained with blood. They flickered in and out of his vision like ghosts, and they were violent and hysterical, fighting each other whenever the other spoke. Half of the time, they barely even noticed Tyler was there. The other half was spent screaming at him. Nico always got right up in his face so that the only way he could avoid looking at him was if he closed his eyes. Clancy often just stared at him, his eyes hollow and his head tilted to the side almost unnaturally. Sometimes he cried for Tyler to do something when Nico tormented him, but Tyler never responded. He couldn't even bring himself to look at them.

And there were others now, too, other people Nico called his brothers. They were just like him - covered in blood, screaming and whispering and crying as they roamed the room, rarely acknowledging he existed. They weren't there as often, but Tyler still saw them enough to learn their names.

Listo. Keons. Sacarver. Lisden. Reisdro. Andre. Nills. Vetomo.

They told him things he already knew. Sometimes, they muttered to themselves, especially the new ones, but their words were always the same.