#howthemightyfall

“I can’t tell you how bad I want to give up,” Patrick laughed, absolutely no humor in his voice. His expression resembled more of a grimace than anything. “Having this...” He mage vague gestures to his bloodied face “...thing in my head. When it possess me, or whatever. It...” for a moment, tears threaten to fall. Patrick does his best to hold them back.

What would you do, knowing you are a hostage inside your own head? When you know that at any moment, the dormant, malicious hitchhiker could take over your mind and your body, making you little more than a puppet. You’re not welcome in your own skin, feeling something else taking control and having it’s way. How horrific it is to feel like you’re slowly being evicted from your own body. Looking out your own eyes, seeing your own hands like some horrid dream, while drowning in lingering, aching, sharp pain.

There is a monster inside you, crawling around in your gut, over the ridges of your brain. It hides in plain sight before covering you like a shadow. There is no resistance, only pain and submission to the power of a blood thrirsty beast. You can’t see it, only feel it’s poisonous presence and it’s will, far stronger than your own. Through it’s eyes you see a horrible, changed world of death and monsters. When it leaves, it’s never gone. No, it leaves a wake of bleeding flesh, hollow death, and deep, echoing pain, the kind that never fades.

Do you know how it feels to be properly mind-fucked? Brain turned into delirious vision, making reality dissolve in a tidal wave, losing control of your own body, only to snap back in a moment and see the horror your own hands have made? People can try to understand, but they can’t quite imagine the pain. Going in and out, it feels like some kind of drug trip with a high that doesn’t do anything but throw all your senses into a blender. Coming back is so much worse, though. It hurts, when that thing leaves his mind. It’s like just after getting stabbed or burned. Maybe the knife’s out, maybe your arms not in the fire, but the wound aches. And when the wound is all of you... it’s not pretty.

He’s still not sure what possessed him. It’s easy to say demon--too easy. Whatever they conditioned him for and shoved into his mind... it wasn’t easy. It was some skittering thing that would sink its claws into him when it heard the music. It was something much smaller and made specifically for him, he’s sure. There were moments where he could feel it; moments where he was so close to giving it a name, being able to understand it. But he never really did in the end.

Patrick has never been a hard man. After everything, he still not, surprisingly. But what he is is scared, and deeply so. He’s paranoid of people, terrified to go out most days. It took him a long time to be okay with playing a radio, after what their music did to him. He still has nightmares--moments where his wrist throbs with the ache of having his hand cut off, only to look down and see it’s still there.

The exhausted short man huffed dry laughter. Was he in trouble? His wrist was still throbbing from where his hand used to be only days before, now replaced with a sharp hook. He was covered in dirt and blood and smelled like rotten smoke after having been attacked, maimed, and beaten. And... Some....thing was inside him. A thing he couldn’t control. It clawed at his insides, begging to come out... that horrific song played in his head before he shoved it down hard and deep.

“Y-yeah,” he sighed, leaning heavily against the wall. “I... I couldn’t tell you who, but...” That bitter laughter fell from him, his hand shaking as he rubbed at his sore leg. “...Someone after me and... my friends.”