Off Record [Ereri/Riren] ✓

47 ⚕︎Relapse ✍︎

Off Record
Chapter 47
⚕︎Relapse ✍︎
Levi

re·lapse

/ˈrēˌlaps/

noun

a deterioration in someone's state of health after a temporary improvement

Eight days till death day.

I scrub at my countertops for the sixty-fourth time today. Usually, I'd just do eight, but why not square it? Why not do every-fucking-thing sixty-four times today?

The light switches.

The washing of hands.

Making my bed.

Doing my hair.

Cleaning the present I still have waiting for Eren in our bedroom.

Everything.

Isabel's long asleep and I'm finally finished. I plop down on the couch and recline it, staring up at the ceiling, my mind reeling yet empty all the same. It's a cacophonous silence.

My head pounds, but I try and ignore it and persevere even though I don't see much of a point for it currently. Sleep has come to be a Liborio chore for my body and no matter how much my body hungrily, desperately craves it, it only gives me release when I'm with Eren and most of the time, I'm not truly asleep, I'm trying my best to tell myself that I'm sleeping as my mom always said, 'fake it till you make it.'

It doesn't work.

Sometimes I feel like Eren and the other patients forget that I'm human too and that I have lots of problems of my own, but it's fine. Sometimes I forget I'm human too. It's quite understandable, failing to understand Levi the Demon is actually Levi the Broken Man.

My insomnia has always been a problem since I was a young child, but it somehow merged with my PTSD, making it a fucking nightmare.

Though I'd rather be blessed with a nightmare than be this exhausted.

What started out as me getting about five hours of sleep at night shifted to about two, sometimes three when the PTSD kicked in, as you see, insomnia can also stem from the illness and I just had to have it before I witnessed my mother get raped before my eyes.

When I finally sleep, I have night terrors, watching and reliving my worst memories in violent flashbacks. My insomnia medicine made these even worse, extreme night terrors surfacing and sometimes even resulting in broken belongings around my house the next morning. I have stopped using it because I don't want to scare Isabel. I want her to feel safe, but it's just so fucking hard sometimes when sometimes all I want to do is fucking curl up and not move for long periods of time without end, not asleep, but not exactly awake either. This state of limbo is my favorite state, my safe place, and I wish that I can stay this way forever when I'm all alone, Isabel away and my Eren far away at the hospital.

I hear a knock at a window and I quickly scramble into the kitchen, grabbing as many knives as I can. Considering my mental state, I decided a long time ago that owning a gun probably wasn't the best course of action and although I'm thankful I don't have something that deadly around the house, I don't feel safe with these knives. In fact, I feel the opposite. I feel like that kid again with Grisha peering over me.

"Levi!"

"Levi, run!"

"Levi, where's Mommy?"

"Levi... is she okay?"

"Levi, please tell me you're playing hide and seek again and you just lost her, that she'll come back..."