~Please, Say You Won't Let Go~ Clouis

Chapter Eight: Not Enough for them (Louis' POV)

⚠️⚠️TW FOR CUTTING⚠️⚠️

"Today's an AJ day, we'll hang out later tonight after he goes to bed, I promise." she winked, quickly kissing my cheek before running to catch up to AJ.

I smiled weakly as I watched her walk away, remembering the time we had kicked them out for killing Marlon, and thinking about when I saw Clementine after that, struggling to carry AJ back into the school after being hit by shrapnel. 

After they were out of view, I went to the library and sat down with my piano, thinking of how unsafe it was for them to go alone.

But then again, they did survive on the road for multiple years.

As my mind raced faster and faster, images of disgusting, rotten walkers and their bloody-covered mouths chewed up my Clementine and AJ.

I stood up, knocking over the piano stool as tears welled in my eyes and panic began to ensue; I couldn't stop seeing them get torn apart by those monsters.

I am helpless. I can't go out to help them, they won't let me leave here. I'm trapped. I feel trapped. I'm suffocating. I can't- I can't breathe.

I walked to the middle of the room as I felt it closing in on me, my lungs feeling as though they were completely trapped as the air was squeezed out of them faster with every shallow breath I took.

My heart rate quickened, and my eyes felt like they were throbbing. A migraine quickly set in and mixed with the quick shallow breaths; the experience became even more terrifying than my clueless self already was.

My knees were immediately pulled to the floor due to their sudden weakness and tears had now overflowed my eyes and spilled onto my shirt. My face felt like pins and needles were attacking it while it simultaneously became numb very fast.

I have to get to my room. I don't want anyone seeing this.

I mustered up all the energy I had left and pushed myself through the library doors, up the steps, and into my cold, dark, lonely dorm, locking the door behind me.

My body gave out just as I got to the bed and I fell on the stiff mattress, my breathing still shallow and hard to maintain at a normal pace. My throat felt like it was closing in on itself and the room itself was small enough to induce claustrophobia. My eyes welled with tears as my face still felt pins and needles poke at it.

I rolled to my back, feeling my chest rising and falling become a little steadier. My tears had stained either sides of my face which had now gotten extremely cold and sweaty.

I pulled up my sleeves and revealed some scars on my upper wrists.

A symbol of my weakness and pain.

If I let anybody know, they'd probably throw me out to the overgrown roads.

Seeing as the group already marketed me as useless, I knew I was a lost cause.

I originally fought the urge to continue my dangerous, old ways of coping, but, at the end, I wasn't strong enough to fight it forever.

The visions continued only this time; they morphed into Aasim saying such horrid things. Lilly back on the boat who'd been the first ever to cut me. Violet telling me I wasn't allowed outside of the walls anymore. And Clementine. Being eaten and torn to shreds by those monstrous beings out in the dying world.

So, with that, my hand reached for the sharp object I usually used to mark myself and I began to cut into my own arm.

Allowing the blade to cut deep into me, drawing blood from only one line across my arm. If I did too many lines, I knew Clementine would notice. So anytime I felt like hurting, I'd convince myself to only hurt through one single line.