|| You Came To {Hating} Me Again || [South]

Words swirl inside the throbbing, cavernous hollow of my head, coming out as nothing more than a strangled string of half-moans and slurred curses that would never appear if I was in any other state of mind. My fingers tingle and starbursts appear pretty in the blackened landscape of consciousness, synapses back-firing into life with a palpable light that paints a chaotic picture behind my eyelids. While my breath is stuttering and shaky it is there and slowly drags me back into reality - though by the viscosity in which my thoughts flow, I'm not entirely sure I wish to surface.

"Get up, kid." The voice is rough and grates on my nubile senses, making me recoil from the cool breath of minty air. All traces of sleep leave me in the flowering of the notion that this is not okay and likewise I hear golden eyes opening wide in the unknown room. "Wh-haat?" It's as if my tongue is not connected to the rest of my frame and refuses to move as it should, tracing useless patterns on the roof of my mouth, forming a silent language that only I am able to understand. Large hands shake roughly at the lapels of my shirt and my head lolls back like a puppet that has lost its master; free of its strings but with no direction and no purpose.
I force myself to peel open oceanic blue, fingers gently skating the tiled surface in an attempt to regain bearing on an already fragile world. It smells of sterile hatred and faded death; it strikes me with crippling certainty that I've been here before. A whimper leaves my throat as I remember the off-white walls painted a spiralling crimson, splattered on the jutting parapet that shields the watcher from within. Screams that echo along the sound enclosure, trapping the agony and the fear and the hate and the rage and-- "I said wake up."

I attempt to form a sentence (though I'm too scared to have it make any sense) and mumble in slurred speech, arms bracing me up against the constant pounding in my head that mats blonde hair to my scalp in a mess of crimson curls. As the world focuses around me in a constant blur of monochrome, there is a flash of diluted brilliance that focuses my attention and makes another whimper slip from my teeth. The binds are there like last time, all rough and ready to rip and tear apart, but instead of a middle aged man with a gentle smile, Lyla is strung up to await her fate. My body lunges without thought but a foot is planted firmly in the center of my chest, causing my head to smash back into the floor and my consciousness to momentarily slip away. I'm not meant to deal with this sort of agony.

"Good afternoon, Mr. Rockshaw. Pleasure to see you again." Her voice betrays her fear but I don't think he can sense it - a whisper of doubt that breaks through the otherwise flawless facade. A crack resounds across the room and bruised flesh throbs a hazardous melody; his smirk burns into my neck even as the veiled auroras continue to entertain my field of view. "Don't speak unless spoken to. You will learn this soon enough."

There is a cheshire smile that gleams in my hazy field of vision, eclipsing all thoughts of heroism with undiluted terror tainted by budding swirls of rage. "You think you were safe, Julian?" My mouth opens but nothing comes out; cliches and pleading alike struggling for dominance in my throat until nothing but ravaged flesh incapable of speech remains. He is hot and heavy on my chest and I can't breathe, toes pressing into the hollow of my throat where the chain of amaranthine stories have faded into an uncomfortable collar that marks me forever his. "You think you and your little whore could come in and ruin everything? I've worked too hard to let this all go to waste." His silky prose floats through one ear and rebounds carefully off the smoothness of my skull, sinking into my veins and making me feel so dirtydirtydirty--

"Though," he muses quietly. "I suppose I should be pleased you've taken an interest in a girl. Maybe I can make you create a heir the way you are supposed to." The quiet contemplation in his tone makes me mewl pitifully, rolling onto my hands and knees to blink blind eyes free of the glassy constraints that bind them. I am not one to tempt his wrath; he will consider and carry out the threat if he deems it to his liking. A flashback to a lonely man sitting and watching the window - waiting for his beloved to return in a flurry of shinybright locks and a silent laugh that only he can understand, while she was there with him the whole time. "N-no!" Is all I manage to cough out before the foot impacts with my spindly ribs, sending me skidding into Lyla's feet with positively frightening force. I am no match for this brute of a man or my father who watches from the sidelines with calculating eyes, planning every piece and waiting for the inevitable checkmate. "Leave her alone! Take me back, just let her go!" The room is spinning and my head is making the world take on a strange, slick quality but I refuse to deny the burning warmth in the center of my chest, begging me to aid the bound blonde in any way possible.

His smile is devoid of warmth, but also estranged from hate; it is a peculiar and frightening lack of emotion - I believe I would rather swift redemption than the curious apathy he displays in the face of cruelty.

"You've been bad, Julian. And now you and your little friend have to pay for the hand you have both played in this... game." I always compare him to a chess player. He remains steadfastly in control of all his pieces - most are but a pawn used to protect the king: him. Mama is the queen; uniquelly powerful but still vulnerable in her own fashion and capable to be shatter; and I am nothing more than a sacrifical lamb in his game. When things are disturbed his mental chessboard teeters dangerously, and if it is tipped he will fragment so like his precious pieces.

But the boy with the heartbreak eyes one day whispered a fevered promise into my ears even as we moved in disconnected rhythm in the back of his stickyhot seat; I was bruised and angry and hurt but he swore that I would become the Queen of Hearts. A pawn is furthest to omnipotence but a part of me still wishes to try, to crave that all-knowing power that comes with knocking everything around you into dust.

I am yanked standing and stumbled forward until I collide with Lyla's prone form, hair caught tightly to pull the skin back into a mask of what it should be; no matter how hard I struggle I am unable to break from this hold. She smells of spring and dragonfruit and tainted innocence, the later so sickly sweet it clouds my vision momentarily - a unique but not entirely unpleasant merging with the remnants of chloroform. The man presses my face into her arm and against my flesh I can feel the raised ridges of scar tissue - rough and ragged under parted lips that struggle to remain shut. I can feel more than see a grin curling along the edges of pale lips, delighting in life's simple pleasures of seeing another suffer for the sins you have commited. His curls syllables along his tongue and drops them into the air where they linger with palpable tension, darkening the world and rendering me comatose to feeling save for her steady rise and fall and the cold sweat that prickles down nubile skin. "Perhaps these weren't your fault the first time, but they will be now."

You are terrified.

And suddenly your legs are open wide with your pants torn around the ankles and he is hovering with something too close to lust; you plead for it to stop but he won't listen and his fingers leave lonely imprints that stand alone together. He whispers something into the delicate cusp of your ear and through your baby brain (taunting prose with equal amounts remorse and excitement) that is too much so you close your eyes and wish for it to all go away back into the land of unlikely nightmares and tall tales. It proves to be a bad idea because suddenly there is pain and you shivershakeSCREAM as it stretches you apart and you are full to the hilt, blood seeping down onto the gravel ground where it falls in rough patterns like mechanical rain. You scream and scream until they turn into sobs and your throat refuses to work save for the broken stuttering repeat as the hiccup of a cry is swallowed to reappear at a later date. His chest vibrates with a pleased hum even as you feel him INSIDE you and you want to vomit from his hands roaming your body and the knife that presses gleaming sharp against the thickness of your neck but all you can do is clench and spread wider to stop the pain and not feel so pathetic when he calls you beautiful.

It hurts in a detached sort of way because you know that his hands are trailing searing streaks of sordid unwant that seeps into your skin and makes you feel filthyfilthyfilthy-- but you are incapable of actually FEELING because you have shut down all sensory motors so that you can play pretend and ignore the sweaty man above you and the way it makes a squelching noise whenever he comes in contact with your hips. Over this shoulder is a mirror and you can see another blonde with brightbrightbright eyes staring back, all far away and hurt and helpless. It is your reflection and you note that you are different than what you remember; you never wore such bright colors or your hair down long like that. Maybe it's a portrait of previous devastation because she is not pressed up against a wall with her arms pinned high above her head, but instead there is a man you should recognize but can't carving out nonsensical patterns and rhythms against her skin, matching the unnamed tune that hums from your assailant in a careful drone of washed out noise.

"It's okay, sweetie, it's okay, it'll all be fine." You're too scared to understand how you can talk without moving your lips but your reflection adresses it to you regardless with those moltenbright eyes and vibrant pink mouth. But it's not okay because you're here and not safe at home and it feels like you're going to rip in two and the heartbreak in her (your?) face is almost too much to bear.


Another man appears in the picture and you find this strange; where is he in your reality? but he has more hate behind his eyes that the other and roughly goes to palm the stomach of your reflection and you shudder as nails rake along your flesh - you glance down through teary eyes to see hands creating winding swounds along the smoothness of your abdomen. He goes to scar tongue patterns in the hollow of your throat and the reflectionman follows its lead; it's kind if like watching live television with a moment's delay because you understand what they are going to do but feel powerless to stop it. A violent thrust sends agony searing through your small frame and the mirror-image screams with you, a cacophony of anguished cries that sound so very loud to your ears. Together your features morph and twist and it pierces through glass, forming a singular howl of noise that cannot be human for this pain is surely more than something any being could endure. He is startled by the ferocity and jerks away, retreating to leave you alone with your bleeding self and the steady thumpthumpthump of will being eroded into nothingness.

---

You are pained.

It hurts and hurts and the pain just won't stop no matter how much you plead or beg, curling into yourself only removes a fraction of the agony but allows for thought besides the realms of ohgodpleasestopI'lldoanythingjuststopstopstop---

It is a shifting writhing moving mass of heavy affliction that settles in your abdomen and moves outwards, masticating flesh in its wake even as you reach hands downward to clasp at sticky thighs and draw them closer to your frail chest - the pain, you've found - is slightly less crippling when you've folded in on yourself. It thuds a rhythmic spasm in the centralized location of your stomach; a phantom blow that repeats and repeats until your hands are coating in slimy fluids from trying to hold in the inevitable flow. This is the part you hate most about being what you are - the girls can never know you suffer the same fate as them but the boys will never understand your sudden moodswings or why you cringe violently at joking jabs towards the very cycle that you're trying so desperately to hide.

You believe a shadow falls over you as the constant implosion becomes more intense but it has to be your imagination because there is nobody else around, your father is busy with his latest conquest to keep him sane and mama is gone shopping with her friends. Still it feels too much like there is a person grinding your insides around where they hold and your fingers scream a secondhand serenade of searing hurt - a sensory illusion that is brought forth by the pounding in your skull and furious riot in your abdomen - when something that feels disturbingly like the toes of a thick boot make an unusual crunching noise and the echo won't leave you alone. You whimper and cry and mutter monosyllabical protests against the muscles that revolt underneath your ricepaper flesh and ignore your desperate and incoherent pleas to quiet down (no no no no no) because you don't want a maid wandering in and witnessing the mess of blood and sweat that coats the slick, sticky sheets.

It is metallic and smells like sin and death but it's bad when there is a clanging noise and Papa rushes in with a gust of sterilized air, yelling non-commital words that ravage the insides of your brain and turn your eyes to mush. You try to sob an apology but the steady thump of pain has devolved into a constant stabbing ache that destroys all effort of intricate thought, allowing nothing more than quiet grunts and the acknowledging mewl of terror as he taps lightly over to where you lay and his feet barely make any sound upon the darkened wood when his fingers ghost over your shivering flesh; but you cry out because his nails manage to cut open your cheek and send blood spiralling down from your jaw. "You think you could just make everything better, you bitch?" He is talking at you but not to you and you're trapped too far in between pain and fear to care what he does as long as he leaves you alone content to wallow in visceral fluids for however long it will take for mama to find you and take you away.
"Now you've gone and gotten blood all over my best suit." Apologies materialize in the void between waking and sleep but none slip forth from numb lips and you sob and sob and sob because you feel his curious apathy that relishes your weakness and shame and hurt in the same way that you relish the odd flashes of love and life and light.

His fingers slip effortlessly into your stained tresses and hold you, rubbing your head into the dark red liquid and pressing the delicate bones of your face until they feel like coming undone. "I told you not to let this affect anything!" It is digusting and vile and when you sob some of it stains your lips and you have to spit to get it out but he doesn't like that, so he just presses harder and if you open your eyes you see the snarl that gleams violently in the half-dark.

"You're going to be a good boy now and clean this up, aren't you?" It is rhetorical so you don't even bother to nod, hitching your breath and trying not to let the salt of your tears mix in with the blood that is already ruined. He forces you up even though your abdomen wails in protest at this movement and the agony is free to claw its way through your chest and he pushpushpushes your face into the soiled sheets so that you will always remember the flaming heat in the tips of your ears though you should be too far gone to care. He tells you to lick it up and it is wrong because the sheets are far too warm and fleshy under your skin but your tongue peeks out and presses flat against the bedding; strange ridges dance under your touch and weep crimson liquid with startling force. It pours down your throat and makes you retch but it won't be forced back up because there is no room to breathe - you are held there until you can't think and your eyes roll back into your head where he drops you and everything turns to black.

---

You are weak.

His trusting skin is warm underneath your fingertips even as you pushheavepull in an effort to send him airborne like he so likes to do to you; but instead the disappointing reality is evident when his feet barely lift the ground. Veins are straining and teeth are clenching in an effort to deny your body's need for (rest relaxation) anything apart from this constant clumsy dance in which you attempt to do something you are not built to achieve. Breath comes in quick gasps even as his hands splay across your back to tell you to slow down with a silent language only you understand and while it touches you you are incapable of heeding the quiet call. This must be done in order to denounce all of the disappointment and disbelief that has been heaped upon your frail shoulders since you were young, because it hurts too much to not be able to do that one thing with the rest of the guys.

You are standing again and your gut hurts in the way it does when you've failed - a mix between a stabbing paroxysm and dull ache which creeps into your bones - but he gently wraps his arms around you and whispers that it's okay because you aren't supposed to do this. For a moment you sag into his warmth because all the lifting has made you weak, but this time you notice something is wrong. The stage is too bright and he smells strange, of spice and sweat and secrets that irritates your eyes so you attempt to back out. But his grip is stronger now and it is starting to scare you because everything is melting around your feet and you aren't sure of where you are anymore. You whimper for him to let go because he's hurting you but it doesn't work and you strugglestruggle in his hold. Your partner is too strong and he remains stoic in the face of the battle with (yourself?) him.

All of a sudden you feel very small because the boy positively towers over you - all bulky muscles and loose clothing and a hard gleam to the eyes that you have never seen before. Your stomach hurts again and you wonder if it's because you haven't eaten anything in a while or if it's from the forearm that's digging hard into your abdomen with rigid discipline; his sweat makes it all sticky and run down the insides of your thighs where it drips quietly onto the glossy floor below. He is urging you to keep trying and quietly curls your fingers over something cold - you don't like it because it feels wrong and evil, but something tells you that you will need it in order to achieve what your father wishes.

Papa is on the sidelines, growling quiet words of command into your ear despite the fact that he is several feet away. "Do it, Julian." Fingers blindly seek out and grasp at flesh but it is still strange because he is infinitely softer under your touch that what you remember and his chest is ridged, heaving violently from exersion and sticky with sweat that doesn't quite feel right. Your other hand hovers on peach skin but every muscles screams that no, you can't do this and it suddenly isn't about the lifting anymore. The instrument is gleaming and violent in your hand and it has nothing to do with dancing, so with a cry you throw it aside and gently curl your fingers into the exposed flesh in front that you can't quite lock on with your eyes but you know is there.

It is the first time you have actively denied your father something and it is these little battles that make the war worth fighting.

It is a slowly rising panic that grips my throat and renders me unable to speak, snapping my wavering consciousness into startling clarity as her scream shatters the hazy quiet that had previously descended onto my turbulent thoughts. I allow memory to bleed out of present day and render the two realities seperate, revealing a stark-white room and an unrelenting pain inside my abdomen that coils in wait as a serpentine being which writhes in mute agony. My mind is coasting on the realization that things are bad and there's blood everywhere and ohmygod her arm shouldn't bend like that, and it's just enough to override my confused and slightly delirious high to come crashing down in a spectacular array of crimson waterfalls and slippery tears. Metal stains my teeth and taints my insides, turning them black with a potent mixture of horror and disgust. Once, twice, before my stomach gives the final lurch and my mouth opens, spewing the meager remains of whatever breakfast I ingested onto the sullied floor that is now slippery with rage and regret.

Perhaps dementia would be a preferable fate to whatever I have stumbled upon; my mind doesn't remember the in between from the sudden attack where stars exploded in broad daylight to my current position, but my body is more than glad to fill in for me. The act of throwing up is nothing new to me which is why I barely move and take no hacking coughs, but the smell of antiseptic and death makes me gag in return. Lyla is battered and broken and I can't help but believe that I am too - it is the only reason where I can explain how my soul sings in time to her agony. Papa hovers with neutral contempt that paints his features in the cruelest light, blood that trickels from his languid fingers and creates intricate spirals on the whitewashed tile below. Streams of the liquid leaks from where the blows have cut my skin, clinging my shirt to myself and showcasing my ribs that press out from the constraints of fragile flesh. I limp over to her and take her streaked face in my hands, murmuring lucid lullabies in an attempt to lull her away from wherever we are. Her arm is painful to look at and grotesquely twisted, so I swallow the bile rising in my throat and run fingers through her white-blond hair.

"You've made your point." It is so quiet that it sounds as nothing more than a whisper, but in the silence it is a gunshot that echoes along the starkly painted walls. I am weak and guilty and tired and the image of delicate tragedy makes me want to collapse to my knees and weep for his forgiveness. "What do you want from us?" His lips curl into a smirk that I can feel burning on the back of my neck, and tears prick my eyes though they refuse to fall. I draw a lip between my teeth and run gentle fingers along her jaw before turning, hunched as I am to reduce the agony to a tolerable amount.

He is the picture of hidden monstrosity, hands clasped behind him with a bloodstained suit, still regal even through all this pain. I attempt to shuffle my way in front of her but I am nowhere near large enough for her to escape his wrath. "I'm not sure, Julian." He is the animal stalking his prey - feral in execution, but calculating in preparation. My limbs shake under the weight of his gaze and how his lips split to expose the smallest amount of thick, slick teeth. "Why don't you tell me?" I am at a loss and watch his helplessly, all too aware of the man that slowly walks behind my blonde sisterfriend and crosses his arms, expecting something that I don't wish to see. Shadows creep forth when a light flickers, casting crepescular stories onto the plains of his face. They tell of heroes and warriors and triumph, a far cry from the reality of what we are currently struggling through. "I-I don't know."

It prompts a certain self-loathing when even after all this bravado he still sparks fear in my stomach, fingers curling inwards into trembling fists in an effort to stop the continuous loop in my head ohgodrunIneedtorunrunrunrunrun that pays no regard to my new friend. The blood that drips like a leaky faucet threatens to snap the remains of my sanity and send me into a howling rage of thisisn'tfair and leaveusalone. I crave Ken and his fabricated smile that becomes more than real when he catches sight of Barbie; her hair glows muted radiance in the dying sunlight with eyes that spark genuine affection for her reserved prince. So tempting is the call to forget reality and disappear into the setting sun with them, but the whimpers from Lyla draw me back to current day before I really have a chance to fly. His eyes spark dangerously and footsteps shuffle from behind me, but breaking eye contact is deemed suicide.

"Then hurry up and learn." There is a moment of stuttering hesitation before his fingers flick, and upon command, our world is plunged into unrelenting darkness.

While there is a stuttering hesitation when the lights flicker back to life, all it takes is watching the glow slowly draining out of those molten orbs to spur my body into action with no thought from my mind. Life is like a choreography; if you think too much about the movements and less about the feelings, you screw up and fall along the way. All I allow myself to believe is that everything will be okay if I am able to nourish this budding hope in the center of my chest, feeding it with iron air and the one-two stutter of my feet slapping desperately against linonium flooring. I am tearing myself apart and mending myself again with each step, expecting somebody to come out of the non-existant shadows and put an end to my righteous crusade for some far-reaching goal. Each muscle shakes seperately and I skid against the tiling, throwing myself to the canvas bag and fumbling hard with the buttons that refuse to co-operate with my fingers. If there are people coming towards me I don't hear them - the screaming pulse in my ears erases all outside life to nothing but a quiet drone.

"One four three seven, one four three seven..."It is a mantra that keeps me going through the nerves that threaten to chuck the phone straight from my trembling fingers, hastily punching in the numbers and wincing at the sharp beeps they produce. There are footsteps behind me and I throw myself left just as hands swipe at empty air; I scramble to my feet and haul myself to the other side of the room, alternating between fearful glances behind me and punching numbers into the phone repeatedly because I'm trembling so badly I keep hitting the wrong ones. My heart hammers rapidfire (a machinegun battlecry that is audible to my ears alone) beats that are are chaotic as they are loud, feet stumbling over one another even as I press the wrong button with a trembling thumb. It gives out a whistling screech and the screen lights up with a kaledoscope of bioluminescent colors and I yelp, shaking out the hand that is burned on the suddenly scorching case.

It is frustrating but an escape and I allow the hope to bloom quietly, sneaking vines through my veins and anchoring deep within my soul - it is a starkly contrasting second pulse that throbs alternate to my heart and lets me ignore the burning pain in my fingers. I hazard a glance to Lyla (bruised and battered and broken but still so beautiful) and try to smile, though it is timid and tired and turbulent. I'm shaking so hard I can barely move, so it comes as no surprise that my legs nearly give way when large arms clasp me and hoist me high into the air. In a last act of desperation my fingers clench hard around the large green button and input the correct code, watching it light up vicariously before it spins out of my grasp and hits the corner of the room with an audible thud.

My feet windmill but find no purchase - his muscles suffocate me and render me nothing but a helpless, squirming mess. The room is spinning and I feel high of a mixture of horror and triumph, knowing that it is impossible for him to escape retribution this time, though it has come at much too high a cost. I feel fingers digging into my jaw and arms tensing hard; I realize what he is preparing to do but am much too scared to feel the pain beyond a generic, dull ache that creeps into my sockets and renders me blind. His palm covers my face and he shifts angles - tears spring to my eyes and terror sweeps through me in a wave begging to be anywhere but here because ohgod I don't want to die and my eyes connect with hers begging her to look away even as I want nothing more than her reassuring presence because all of a sudden he's moving and-- "Lyl--"

Crunch.

The sound hits before the pain - everything is quiet for a moment before I find myself falling - and it makes my being recoil in disgust even as my knees buckle and hit the floor with a feel like I'm swimming through sludge. A moment later it is there; it runs from the base of my neck to the tip of my toes, paralyzing my muscles in a singular wave of agony. I open my mouth to scream but find nothing comes out even as my body slumps forward with none of the grace I was so born with, head nudging her prone foot with a featherlight touch. While everything is crying my spine is screaming with a constant roar of pure anguish, nothing ever taken in my life comparing. So this is what it feels like to die? Funny, I thought it would be scarier than this.
Everything is muted like I am underwater, my fingers won't react to my urging and my legs will not find the will to get up. I am but a husk waiting to be released from the waking world, eyes wide open but only somewhat seeing. It's strange, I'm having trouble focusing even as all the slight details of the room are crystal clear through the tears that refuse to fall.

Again I attempt to open my mouth, trying so hard to tell Lyla I'm sorry that this happened to her and that I hope you will forgive me eventually, because I won't be able to forgive myself but my jaw has gone limp and slack - it is responding to the rapidly fading pain that runs up the center of my back. Synapses misfire and render my body into overdrive, desperately trying to repair the damage done that is much too great to be fixed. I am broken and unable to become whole again-- wait, why is it so cold?

Sometimes I wondered what it would be like to slowly fade out of being, becoming nothing more than a statistic and a cautionary tale for those less fortunate. Fingers numb and curled carefully on the floor, it is certainly not what I would be expecting from a dramatized and often romanticised act. I am not filled with sorrow or hatred or terror at the slowly encroaching shadows that I try half heartedly to warn away, but numb. There is a gaping chasm in the center of my chest that drains all thought and reasoning into nothing but a drone of white noise that lulls me into a sense of childish security that is both a blessing and a curse all at once. Feet appear in my line of vision but I can't be brought to care; the bloodstained soles of my father's shoes no longer bring fear into my heart. This comfortable apathy is only ruined by the knowledge that Lyla will be here after I'm not and I'm unable to protect her when my flame has finally been extinguished. A part in the back of my brain murmurs that it has been a long time coming, but the rest of me can't be bothered by anything other than the vague remorse at failing to shield her and the comfortable numbness that has crept up to my knees and resides in the crook of my elbows.

A void between consciousness and thought; I struggle to keep my eyes open in an effort to fend off the writing darkness that eclipses light in the brightbright room but once I realize that my eyes are indeed open it's time to stop trying. People are talking but it doesn't make any sense - the liquid agony sloshing in my skull bleeds out through my eyes in the form of a singular quiet tear - I can only watch in fascination as my hand stretches out and covers Lyla's foot (a subconscious need to feel warmth for one last time) gently before I allow the emptiness to take over.

Nothingness.

Pain. 

you are seven and there is wind in your hair and touching your dancer thin legs as your feet furiously pedal along the ground for the first time. It is wobbly and rough and scary but the grin you sport with all small white teeth is enough to erase any form of apprehension with shrieking laughter and the instead feeling of freedom that your little child mind is only beginning to possess. It makes you proud to see Mama urging you onwards from the sidelines but what really makes your heart sing is that for once Papa is watching you with pride in his eyes as you bike without training wheels before all the other kids. You don't understand why he doesn't do that more often but it makes you sad so you try hard to make him happy in any way you can. This will probably stop him from fiddling nervously with his belt buckle for a few days by instead weaving grandiose tales and this is good because his belt is scary and it hurts hurts hurts.

Muscles burn but you're laughing laughing laughing and wobbling your way down the street all white knuckles and blond hair, hunched over the handlebars with a bright blue helmet that matches your eyes. Other kids watch you with envy from the sidelines and kick at the training wheels while their parents mutter it's okay darling really it's okay but you see they're jealous. It's not your fault it's really hard to please Papa. This section of the road here is unfinished and rough and suddenly you are vaulted head over heels, tumbling over and over and over on yourself until you stop in a heap.

Kids snicker at the tears in your eyes but refuse to fall; boys don't cry no matter how much it hurts though you will prove to shatter this stigma many times over when you age and become more jaded to the world, though only slightly. Papa has retreated into the house but you managed to see the flash of disappointment in his eyes and it is that instead of the skinned knees that hurts. Why does your chest feel funny instead of your skin?

It smells of antiseptic and death; thought my eyes aren't open I can sense the innate aura of sickness that permeates the veil of broken consciousness which serenades my form in a vibrant array of misfired memories. Things fly back with startling clarity - the first time I broke my arm, age six; the first time I broke during dancing, age eight; the first time father hit me too hard, age nine. I dislike the constant cloak of despair that masks the rare ray of hope that pierces these whitewashed walls, too close to the correct hue of our recent prison from which we have just recently been freed. My mind is not meant to handle so much suffering in the same place, and until now has been a staunch believer that I would never again grace these halls upon free will or no; it seems that fate has other plans. It would be later learned that my hands sought Lyla out even as we were separated to different operating rooms, but now all I can focus on is the numbness that is slowly giving way to a different kind of torment that shatters all boundaries and allows me to lose myself in an endless void of indistinguishable time.

A low moan begins in the center of my chest and expands outwards, but my throat swallows the feeble cry and allows it to vibrate quietly inside the fleshy confines of my neck, irritating my bones that hum alongside. From the base of my skull to the beginning of my slim shoulders throbs a haphazard beat that would make me scream if I was not paralyzed; liquid agony sloshes in my cranial cavity each time they jostle me. All I want is for everything to just stop and allow me a moment of peace and quiet - but it doesn't come and the yelling just grows louder the closer I come to clawing through the curtain that cleaves me from the waking world. There is something sharp against the curve of my neck and my face is pressed gently into a glossy covering; it pricks for a moment but all of a sudden I can smell rubber and everything falls away in a sudden display of intense apathy when all thoughts of pain and blondes are erased in a wave of darkness.

Every time I attempt to surface from the sea of roiling blackness, the agony in my neck blocks out the soft, insistent pressure on my hand and the irritating phantom tubes I can feel along the lining of my throat. I thrash and kick but that familiar numbness snakes along through my veins and renders me helpless to my mind's wishes, going against the intense urge to open aquatic eyes and fall upon whiteblonde hair a a stunning smile. Though my thoughts are in line with my body it is a struggle to remember to do simple things like breathing; often it seems I forget how for minutes on end until I feel the caress of invisible hands along my slim chest and they spur me into action once more. Thinking comes secondary to rudimentary functions, and I find myself lost quietly in this ocean of slurred recognition and ignorance of the pain that lurks just underneath the painted surface. Everything that has led to this place is blurred and not entirely known to my mind; something bad has led me here and now refuses to let go.

There is a newly added voice to the chorus of soft murmurs that are always present - it is familiar and wanted and it makes me smile though it is not shown on my physical avatar. In my heart I know I am not quite ready to breathe just quite yet; the insulating black will cradle my body for a while longer and allow me to heal. Still, it is as if they have perched a bird within my chest and allowed it to sing - those simple syllables from the unknown source fills me with such a hope I didn't know I could possess. When I am finally ready to return to reality, I understand that the creator of the dulcet tones will welcome me with open arms.

It is a week before fate allows me to open my eyes.

Things blend into the other and each breath is mechanical - brought upon by the tubes that wind through my passages - but I am finally allowed to gaze upon the world, taking in the devastation and healing that is presented to me with a single glance. Any attempt to move my vertebrae is met by both silent distress and a solid barrier so I confine myself to flicking orbs around the brightbright room, soaking in a mess of raven locks slumped by my hip. My hand is clammy but she brings comfort so primal that it doesn't bother me; though I'm unable to squeeze in return as of yet my fingers twitch in her hold. When she glances up the relief in her eyes almost makes me cry, but instead my lips curve up slightly through all the fictile tubing. For a second I feel like Ken in his plastic dream - fragile and malleable to the whims of others which so desire to move me. I cannot yet form words but the meaning is clear on my face, as she peppers my uncovered skin with butterfly kisses. "Oh, my beautiful boy. I can't believe you finally woke up." Though I don't admit it, that sentence runs forefront through my thoughts.
Honestly, neither can I.

A sensation I can never quite get used to is a foreign object breathing for you; my chest rises and falls in conjunction with the steady beep which is presented. All the tubes feel choking but my body doesn't have it in it to retch - all attention is drawn to the flash of white outside of my vision. Fingers twitch from the effort of turning my head to face it, cells screaming in an unknown need to touchseefeel the familiar peach skin that has been bereft from my fingertips for so long. It is mangled but the first sentence I have spoken in a week - I am proud that it is coherent as well as heartfelt. "L-ly-lah?"

I know I was never ready to die - I want too many things in life to let this smite me down in a spectacular array of court dates and statistics. The picket fence and two point five children will never be for me but I want some form of home and stability in my line to erase the doubts and bring me sunshine. Through all my disjointed thoughts, the single word to that requirement is LylaLylaLyla and alerts me to the fact that we are bound through more than just friendship. Hardships and triumph have forged a bond that is hesitant to be cleaved and refuses to let go without a fight - so long as she remains on this world, so will I.

A voice sounds distant, caught between a barrier of sound but still audible to my ears alone. Be good to her. She doesn't deserve another tragedy. Deep in my heart, I an inclined to agree.

[OOC: Note that he wakes up a week after Lyla does. ]