Zero Zero

6: all dreams lost at sea

that night, I tossed and turned for what felt like forever. a proper forever, too. not just a lifespan. especially not a lifespan of someone down here. the night really did feel endless. for better or for worse.

I finished the entirety of trainspotting. it left me up with a lot of questions, wondering what exactly what the outer world really was. it didn't sound all that pretty, in fact it sounded pretty fucking gritty, but it sounded glamorous next to the institution. 

it sounded fucking interesting. and in the institution, a lack of boredom was heaven. 

if you weren't already placated and rendered mindless by their drugs. 

but it seemed, the outer world had a different sort of drugs. they didn't sound pretty, but they sounded different. different than here, different than boredom and complacency.

it made me toss and turn and think all night about running away. I wanted to. 

I wanted to. 

didn't mean I could, though. and I knew that well enough to keep me tied up here.

the crisp sheets, where frank and I had, well, I don't quite know. they crinkled with every disruption, the brash noises scratching against my eardrums. killing my head.

they usually didn't, but the more I thought about leaving, the more intrusive the noise got.

my eyes, my limbs, my everything was so fucking tired. but my mind couldn't shut the fuck up. it couldn't stop listening and it couldn't stop thinking.

it seemed, the more tired I got, the louder my head got.

it felt like forever, an endless tunnel of growing more an more tired. of driving myself further and further into insanity, under the chase after sanity. until I just couldn't take it. 

that night, I broke my own code. probably one of my only rules I had created for myself other than die before nineteen. 

that night, I hoisted myself off the creaky mattress with its noisy sheets. walked over to the drawer. unpacked the layer of books, papers, pens, pencils, until the small orange bottle. where I kept the only pills they'd entrusted us with, in small intervals. seven per week, really nothing you could do much with.

but I never, never took them. except that night.

for the first time since the age of thirteen, since the age I'd arrived here with 001, I took one of their pills. 

it tasted just as I remembered. bitter, metallic. like blood mixed with baking soda. but I swallowed it down whole, not giving it the chance to sit too long in my mouth and dissolve, and leave an even worse taste.

I hoped it would rid itself from my veins by morning time, but I knew that there were no promises.

no promises other than no escape in this place. 

but I was sick and I was tired of my head getting the better of me. I just wanted to fucking sleep.

so I lay down back under the covers. they felt quieter now. even the water I'd taken just after, sloshing around in my stomach, bothered me little.

I closed my eyes and faded away into a dreamless, starless slumber.

I woke to a dulled world. it drilled its monotonous blare into my ears. 

it must've been morning, the morning bell. or whatever the hell it was called. 

I just knew this place felt duller that I could ever remember it being.