Identity [Gerard Way] *Completed*

Chapter Thirty One

They threw me in a cell.

A cold, empty cell, with gray walls and hardly any light. The light that does fall through the barred window is like heaven staring down at me. It's so close, but I can't get there. I can't move. I'm just sitting in this spot. And there's something in the air. The presence of someone who was here before me. They sat in the same corner I'm sitting in. They had all the same fears, all the same thoughts.

It's funny.

The ones who are different are all similar.

Does that make sense? Maybe. Maybe it does. Or maybe it has something to do with this cell, how it feels like the walls are closing in. The walls are crushing my head, my mind hurts. Nothing makes sense when the walls are braking my mind. I can't tell you how long I've been here. The only thing I know is that the time is slipping through my fingers. I feel like I'm sleep walking.

It's the isolation. The way the walls stare at you, as if they have eyes of their own. It reminds you that you're comparing inanimate things to animate ones, that you're lonely. I can't withstand the loneliness. The window is the only one I can talk to. The ragged light shining through the bars is the only thing I have to look at. And the cold- the bitter, mind-numbing, painful cold, is the only thing that I can feel. Other than the feeling that something's missing. Wrong. Something's always wrong.

There was something... something I had to take care of. What was it? I'm trying to remember. The cold is pulling at my bare skin, hard to think. Bare. My skin shouldn't be bare. I bring an icy hand to my right arm, the red marks sending terrible chills through me. I don't want to look at the name. The name. I only want my jacket.

Not mine. Gerard's. The one he lent to me.

Gerard.

The name gusts in my mind like an awful wind, circulating until he's the only thing I can think about. It hurts my head to try and remember him. It hurts to try to remember the weird visions I had, the dream. I want to throw up thinking about it, how safe I felt in the dream. I wish I was there. I wish that had happened instead. The happy ending. Nobody wants the sad ending. Nobody wants this.

I hit my head against the gray wall, trying to knock him loose. Hair dangles over my face, irritating my eyes, as I scratch at the wall. Trying.

Trying to remember.

I don't understand why everything seems so blurry. It feels like I was just being thrown into that police car a second ago, but, now... time seems to have skipped a couple years. Like I missed an episode, or something. Where was I between then, and now?

I came here for a reason. Remembering that reason is a whole different story. I've probably been sleepwalking like this for too long. That's why it's hard to think. A roadblock.

But the thoughts and memories are drifting back. They're shifting their way into place, just like before. The first thing I remember is a needle, like a mosquito bite to the neck. And then there's the harsh throbbing in my head, a concrete floor closing in, a slam, and the darkness. Remembering.