delirium {part one}

You were made to make it hurt,
Disappear into the dirt,
Carry me to heaven's arms,
Light the way and let me go.

Silken sheets shelter him from the shadows, from what exists beyond the borders of his bed. The Games have finished and soon Katelyn, Harbinger, and himself would board a train of silence with a destination of sorrow. The sun is already well risen and the others have all left for the day with things to do or people to see. Meanwhile, Kirito just stays frozen, fixated to the mold in his bed that was made overnight. Exhaustion haunts the crevices beneath his eyes as only horrors have meddled in his dreams and kept him from the solace of slumber. An unease twists his stomach and a non-stop waterfall hovers on his skin. His medical mind runs with riddles and diagnostics, but any answers he can find only fuels further fears.

Rising finally from his bed, Kirito shudders with every slow step he takes towards the bathroom. The walls warp around him and the whirlpool within his stomach only surges in response. He stops for a moment, his hands holding a wall for support as his breaths rattle in his chest. He hasn't felt fear like this since Wyatt, since like a pin cushion his skin caught Wyatt's knives without hesitation. Since Key died, and Rhyme died, and everybody died, except for him. Did they all die just for him to... His stomach lurches and any resistance is futile.

Following the new mess, the vertigo seems to settle along with some of the fear. He will make his way down to the clinic later this afternoon. Taking a moment, Kirito resteadies himself before continuing into the bathroom, he can clean the floor once he's cleaned up himself. Warm water springs forth from the shower's head as his nightwear wilts onto the tile beneath his feet. He spends minutes just standing beneath the stream, lost like the same boy Katelyn had found curled into a ball next to a shattered clock only days after winning. It's like he's breaking again, slipping back into the shade he's fought so hard to find ways to lighten. From friends to family, he's grown up. Yet here he is, shattering again trapped underneath a simple stream of water. Kirito Miristioma, the pathetic victor from District Eleven who can't ever stay afloat.

The ones who have always been there, been a piece in the delirium of his life, seem to hear such thoughts. Rhyme Morales stands with her back against the outside of the shower, her stare looking off to some place he can never understand. Her body is unchanged from the years, the mirror image of the girl who died with her head in his lap. Even her demeanor is identical to that of the past.

"What is wrong with you?"

Her words bite with a sharp seriousness, but are littered with sincerity. His face turns out of the water, but towards his feet.

"I don't know..." 

She snaps, her fist slamming against the glass of the shower with a bang too real to be fake. It sends Kirito scurrying against the opposite wall with his heart pounding.

"Cut the bullshit, you're a doctor! What is wrong with you!"

Kirito's teeth grind tightly against each other as his eyes look towards his trembling hands, a state that has been persistent for about a year now. He remembers the moments of blurred vision that he has written off as lack of sleep. He notes that very insomnia and his diminishing hunger. He recalls his night of terror at Navya's doorstep. His eyes even lift slowly towards Rhyme as his mind goes to all of them. How each time they seem to be closer to real, Circe's touch and Key's warmth. It's not possible, except for one reason and it can't... it just can't be true... Tears begin to merge with steam.

"No... No. If it's... then I shouldn't have..." His voice wavers along with terrified breaths, "I shouldn't have been the one to live."

But she's gone, replaced by another wave of vertigo. Kirito's fingers jostle with the buttons to turn off the shower as new shadowed figured seem to spawn from the winding room. His breaths quicken as fear devours him and whispers grow into a devilish chant like those of his past. They keep repeating the same sentence over, and over, and over as the shadows slip closer and closer. Kirito's entire figure begins to break into shuddering as panic takes hold of him.

You shouldn't have won.

You shouldn't have won.

Screams begin to stem from Kirito's lips, but soon he is suffocating under shadowed palms. Within the scene of hell Kirito can hear the sound of racing footsteps down a nearby hall, but it's only a moment until complete darkness.

His eyes open and the world is different. Towels and blankets cover his skin as bodies move around him in a blur. The familiar face of Finter is all Kirito can recognize within the anarchy. Pain arches from the back of his head as he tries to raise a hand to it only for another set to stop him from moving. That's when he notices the feeling and the smell, it's like back then. Warm and metallic.

No.

Something happened, something bad.

He's hurt.

Hands move him onto a gurney. He hears the word seizure. Hears them talk about a minor head laceration. He can feel his heart racing. His family needs him, his kids. But even then the same terrible thoughts from before burn heavily in his head.

A sick boy shouldn't have won.

They died so he could live, not die.

Dear Agony,
Just let go of me,
Suffer slowly,
Is this the way its got to be?

Lyrics : Dear Agony by Breaking Benjamin