The Three Kings

Chapter 15

"I'm getting bad again;
At night my hands shake,
And the words scraping the walls of my skull
Stick like rusted needles in my throat,
Half digested and yet fully whole."

________
Hanna
________

It had started.

Panic.

Fear.

Anxiety.

Highs.

Low.

It was starting. 

As I laid in bed, blankets pulled up to my chin, staring at the walls. Four blank, white walls. Reminding me that this wasn't a house, this wasn't my room, this was a prison.

The voices were slowly returning. Their words, for now, just mere whispers.

Worthless. 

It was an example of what such a small, and seemingly meaningless word could do to something. Especially if it was thought of by ones own self.

It flashed in my brain has the darkness filled my head.

As the sadness drowned me.

As my depression suffocated me.

There was no energy left in my body. No energy to roll over, or check my phone, or reach over and take hold of the pills that I so desperately relied on.

The exhaustion was the worst. I laid in bed and watched the sun set over the horizon and then rise again because I couldn't sleep. Because I knew the second I did, the nightmares, the terrors, the horrors...they would all come to haunt me. Traumatize me. Destroy me.

There would be nothing left of myself.

And everything was falling apart.

I could eat.

I couldn't drink.

I couldn't get up to use the bathroom.

I couldn't even raise a hand to scratch my face.

All those normal bodily functions became nothing important. Because nothing was important. Because it wasn't important. It didn't matter. Nothing ever mattered.

Somewhere, in the distance, a phone rang.

And I couldn't bring myself to get up and answer it.

I wanted to sleep. I needed sleep. If I couldn't sleep than I was going to lose my mind. But I couldn't sleep. Sleep wasn't an option. All because of him.

He always came for me in my sleep. Always showed up. Always there, patiently waiting for me to come to him. It was like I never left in the first place.

But he was gone. And I was gone, now too. And the entire ocean separated us. I was on a completely different continent. He couldn't reach me here. He couldn't touch me here. I was safe here.

I didn't feel safe.

But in my dreams, he was still here. He lived in my head. Years of him being the puppet master of me, he still controlled me. With every step I took, every meal I ate, he was here living in the shadows.

He was always here.

And I needed to do something. Laying in bed and wallowing in my own self-destruction was what he wanted. His whole goal was to break me, and in all the years with him, he failed. Now, in all the years without him, if he broke me now, he'd win.