I wrote this a while back. It's... inspired by a lot of things. It originally was going to be a part of a larger writing project-- one that i'm currently working on for Camp NaNoWriMo-- but I've decided it literally has no place in the plot and just would make no sense with everything else i've got planned with it. Who knows though? I do re-use characters in projects-- i might bring back this character just for this specific project once i'm done with the one i'm doing now....
Trigger Warning for discussions of disease, paranoid thought processes described, death, dissociation, eyes imagery, pyschological and emotional manipulation, possession, self destructive tendencies and thought processes, and a lot of general horror and terror elements. My main character is not ok in any way, and there is an eldritch being with malicious intent very much taking advantage of that. if any of the topics i listed are triggering for you, please don't read this or at the very least practice extreme caution if you're not going to listen to me for whatever reason.
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It was almost easier to fight the voice when it came for him. To try and block out the staticky noise that twisted itself into words that invaded his brain like ants carrying whispers and nails. It was almost easier to resist it, to try and force it out of his head. This was a disease, after all, and if he wanted to survive it, he would have to fight it.
He wasn’t sure why he hadn’t asked for help when the eyes had first appeared. His father had been a healer before the war and preached the importance and holiness of medical intervention. With a disease like this with so many unknowns to the infected boy, a healer should have been the first person he turned to. Healers, after all, were something familiar. Something he was supposed to trust, and did, to some extent. They were a piece of his childhood, barely corrupted from the fog of his memory loss and the sorrows of the war. He should have sought out a healer the second he knew something was wrong.
Yet when the eyes came, he told no one.
Perhaps the fact that the infection was inside of him was the reason why he didn’t ask for help. No one else could see the eyes but him, after all, so why tell tales of something that didn’t really exist, no matter how distressing the non-existent phantoms were? He should have known though, should have realized that the eyes were only the first symptom. As a Healers child, he knew better than most that all diseases have stages and beginning symptoms. These eyes were a disease, or at least part of one. And as horrific as the glowing red eyes watching his every move were, they only seemed to be stage one.
The boy sank to his knees on the floor of his home, clutching his head in his hands. God, he should have seen a healer. He shouldn’t have waited, should have known something was wrong instead of trying to just live with those awful, unsettling eyes for weeks on end like he had. It was too late now though.
The boy struggled to breathe as the noise continued to try and crawl into his skull, panic constricting his airways the same way the noise blocked out the rest of the world. Terror wrapped around his chest with an iron fist, screaming at him to fight back against the noise and keep it out. It was just too distressing to have it keep trying to wiggle it’s way into his head like a parasite, constantly laying siege to the entrance to his mind. He wanted the voice gone and the noise gone, and for once in the boy’s life it almost felt easier to keep fighting back against it.
The key word there being “almost”.
Diseases had stages for a reason, and the boy knew this better than most. What he hadn’t known was just how fatal each stage of this one would be— how much each stage seemed almost as though it were designed to feel too much to handle until the next one came along to make it look almost easy in comparison. He should have asked for help-- should have gone to get a healer. Why hadn’t he asked for help? Why had he let this happen to him? Why had he allowed his fear of trusting others bring him to this point, where he felt like he was going to die alone?
The boy trembled on the floor, shaking from both fear and the effort to keep pushing back against the noise trying to worm its way into his head, it’s whispering sounds starting to sound eerily like a voice. If it was a voice, the boy didn’t want to hear it. Didn’t want to know what it had to say to him with a voice like television static. He just wanted it gone.
But he was also tired. Exhausted. Fighting back against the noise that strangled his mind and the eyes that never ever stopped watching him…. It had taken a toll. The boy was exhausted. He wanted to sleep, to rest. To not feel the pain of whatever this infection was constantly invading every part of his soul every second of the day. To not feel anything, really. Because if he was being honest with himself, even before the infection, life had been pretty painful.
I can help with that, you know.
The boy startled at the voice, fear and adrenaline coursing through his veins as he backed into a corner of his room. No. He hadn’t fought hard enough-- he hadn’t been good enough-- The noise was a voice now in his head, and he couldn’t get it out.
“Leave me alone,” he whispered, “Please. Just go away.”
But I’m here to help you, little one.
“Go away.”
The words rolled off his tongue before he had time to think about them-- coming more from a place of instinct than any true meaning.
You don’t trust anyone, do you? You’re so lonely. So alone. Everyone you thought you could rely on left you. Left you to die, all on your own. You’re all alone, you poor little boy.
“I’m not a child. And I don’t care. Who needs people anyway? All people do is just turn their backs on the people they’re supposed to care about. You’re always better off alone. You won’t get hurt that way.”
But you are hurt, little one. So very deeply. I’m here to help you, make it all go away.
The boy said nothing. Tried to pretend the voice, with its silver tongue and saccharine words, wasn’t there-- that he couldn’t understand it. That there wasn’t a part of him deep down that oh so desperately wanted to know more about what the voice could do to help him.
You’re still scared. Even now, when someone with pure intention comes to help you and you have nothing to lose, you’re still scared. Still scared to accept my help. I just want what’s best for you. I just want to keep you safe, little one.
“How do I know that? People have said that before and lied. I don’t even know what you are.”
I told you, little one. I’m here to help.
“You have a funny way of showing it. You’ve put me through hell, and now you want me to let you help me?”
That’s not me, little one. I would never hurt you. You’re sick. Hurt. I’m trying to heal you, make the pain go away. You want that, right?
He did. He did want that. He wanted that more than he’d wanted anything else in his life-- it was a want so bad it was almost a need. It carved through his chest like a knife, making worse the imaginary wounds the eyes cut into him every day. He was tired of fighting. Tired of feeling. Tired of being so terrified of the world that he put on masks for each person so no one soul could get too close to knowing the truth about his. He knew why he fought, and why each layer of deception was there and why it kept him safe, but all the same: he was exhausted. And the infection-- the eyes-- the noise-- and now the voice-- There’s only so much a person can fight off, a limit to how much energy they can exert before they collapse. Perhaps the boy had finally reached his.
I don’t ask for much in return for helping you. Just one thing, and it’s hardly equal to what I can give you. The peace I can grant you.
The boy almost laughed. He knew this drill. This oh so familiar phrase. He knew what it meant, what the voice wanted, and what it was truly worth. “You want me.”
You’re very clever, little one! Very astute. I would never do anything to hurt you though. You can rest assured that I’ll take good care of you. You won’t ever get hurt again.
The boy closed his eyes. He was tired of fighting. And it was much, much easier to just give in at this point. Besides…. It wasn’t like he was exactly coming out of this with nothing.
“If it stops me from feeling all of this-- if I don’t have to feel any of this anymore….” The boy’s voice shook as his tongue measured the weight of his next words, “Then it’s ok. I agree. You can have me.”
Perfect. You made the right choice, little one. Sleep now. Rest. When you wake up, you won’t be in any more pain.
The boy’s dark eyes drifted closed as he followed the numbing trail of peace the voice had made to the back of his mind. It was quiet there. Peaceful. There were no eyes constantly watching him, no strings of deception and protection choking him with things he needed to remember. There was no noise here, fighting to get in. No memories of his past life or the feelings that plagued him daily. There was simply…. Nothing.
When the boy’s body awoke, it was no longer his own. Strangely though, he didn’t seem to mind. After all…. He was finally, at long last, at peace. And he was willing to pay any price to keep that.
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