"Josh..."
No.
No no no no no no no. They're waking up. They're waking up. You woke them up. You betrayed me. I knew it. You made me more vulnerable to them. I shouldn't have trusted you. You fed them and made them even stronger. I never should have told you anything.
"Stop talking to them, Josh."
They're leaving from the corners of The Lair. They're leaving from my peripheral vision and into the focus of my sight, and now they're walking towards me. You did this. You did this!
"No, no, get away."
"Josh?"
"No no no no no! Get away from me! Don't step any closer!"
Why did I sit down by the face of the cliff? Now, it's easier to trap me. No, no, I can't have another episode.
They're standing over me again, and God, I'm such a wuss. Here I am curled down at the corner of a cold rocky surface of a mountain like a typical brain-addled victim of a horror movie.
Because this is a horror movie.
My sisters can never be as rotten and ugly as these apparitions in front of me. No. That's why I know all of this is not real. My sisters are beautiful. These ones are terrifying.
"You can't be friends with anyone again."
My hands fly up to my ears before I could stop them. "Shut up!" I tell them for the nth time.
"You'll just cause more damage than anything."
"Shut. Up!"
I lash my arms out so something could happen. I never learn, though, do I? They just take a step back, already knowing what I'm gonna do before I do. Of course, they're in my head—my subconscious.
They're still staring at me, as if they're starving wolves coming across a deer—staring at me like that monster with Hannah's tattoo, before I yelled Hannah's name and spared my life last night. Like all of them, I know what they want, too.
"You can't hurt us, Josh."
"You're not doing this to me again!"
They're trying to manipulate me again. They're trying to control me again—planting thoughts in my head.
"You don't need anyone else. With us, you'll be okay. You'll be okay, Josh. You don't want to be hurt anymore, do you?"
"NO!"
They're trying to turn me into their puppet again—yell out their orders until I comply. They can't. I don't want this. I don't want this. I don't want this.
"Josh, are you okay?"
Manipulative. They're all so manipulative.
"Josh—"
"Just leave me alone!"
They're just in my head. They're not real. They're not here. They're not in front of me. They're not with me. They're all dead. They are DEAD. They're dead. They're dead. They're dead.
"Why do you keep pushing us away? You don't even want to be alone."
Why can't they just go back to the corners again? Why can't they just go back to lingering somewhere in the corners of my eyes? Why do they have to come out of the shadows? Why do they want to taunt me?
"All alone."
I need my space. I don't want to deal with this right now.
"Isolation. Your deepest fear."
Why? Why are they back here again? Why so soon after last night?
"STOP PUSHING US AWAY! YOU are the one hurting people, Josh. This is all on YOU! It's always about YOU!"
This is all your fault! You're the one who brought them back here! You made them want to come back! You did this! You brought them back!
"So, now you'll always be alone. no one but us is here for you, Josh."
There's only one thing left to do.
"Leave—"
Whack
"—me—"
Whack
"—alone."
Whack
Whack
Whack
I fall on my knees after standing up to hit my head on the rocky face of the cliff—the same cliff which I'm starting to feel was the place where my sisters died. They probably fell to their deaths because I couldn't lift a goddamn finger to help anyone.
God, my head hurts. Is... Is that blood? Or sweat? I don't know. Do I even have some fluid on my fingertips that came from my head, or am I just seeing and feeling things again? Probably. Well, that sucks, but that doesn't matter now.
They're gone.
I close my eyes to revel in the momentary silence. Doing this drowns them out. This trick is so much more painful here than the many times I did it on the desk in my bedroom in California—for obvious reasons.
They leave me alone whenever I hit my own head like that. Well, not completely, but they back off. I probably scare the hell out of them. Even the dead people in my head wouldn't want to deal with a crazy guy like me.
"Josh, you're scaring me."
Shit.
YOU ARE READING
Something to Bond Over || Until Dawn Jossam
Fanfiction"I swear they just need, like, something to bond over, y'know? Some sort of traumatic event to send them into each other's arms." Joshua Washington was not alone in the Lair the night after the anniversary of his sister's disappearance. JOSSAM | JES...
