Sturniolo triplets - Oh To Be Loud (Matt-centric story about mental health)

How It Continued

Trigger Warnings: Light Cursing, OC, Smoking, Weed, Self-Worth Issues

Matt explores the factory and meets a very interesting person

The Story:

Abandoned factory in the middle of the woods, Monday, 6:34 pm

With Matt

The thing about Matt was that everyone knew he didn't do well on his own. It started off as a joke, family, friends and eventually even their subscribers teasing him for needing at least one of his brothers in order to function. With time, the same people stopped finding it funny and instead said the same things when critiquing or (when it came to Nick and Chris) complaining about him. 

In these moments, Matt tended to force a small smile and nodded along to be polite, but more recently he just stopped humouring such comments and ignored them until they switched topics. He didn't say anything because there was nothing to be said, it was true, he knew too well he relied on his brothers too much. He used to be okay with it too, but one can only take in so many harshly spoken comments and eye-rolls before starting to question themselves. 

So while Matt used to accept this part of himself, meaning the fact he needed more help and support than the others, that changed and turned into yet another insecurity. Another point on the list of reasons he hated himself. Another thing he needed to try to work through. Another thing he needed to do alone.

Well I certainly am doing this on my own, Matt though as he walked through the abandoned factory. He couldn't help but be struck by the eerie silence that filled the building. The only sound he could hear was the echoing of his footsteps on the concrete floor. 

The factory was dark and gloomy, with broken windows letting in shafts of dim light. Cobwebs covered the corners of the room, and dust, mould and moss covered every surface. Normally he'd be anxious as fuck in this situation, but he kind of felt like he was a character in a video game, and this was the part where he wandered around and explored. It didn't feel as serious because he didn't feel like it was actually happening to him.

As he explored, he couldn't help but feel a sense of sadness at the thought of how much things can change in time; this factory used to be new at some point, it was up and running and a number of people came through here every day, only for it to be abandoned and forgotten. How ironic that it's me here right now. It reminded him a bit too much of his situation, of how he changed for the worse and went from a happy, funny teen full of life, to a depressed and empty young adult who only seemed to cause problems for others. 

He walked through the factory, taking it all in, and eventually found the stairs leading to the higher floors. Not giving it much additional thought, Matt slowly made his way up to the second floor and then the third. He was careful, watching where he stepped (he had to avoid some scattered nails, rocks, old furniture and random broken pieces of wood) and listening for any signs of potential danger. So far so good. 

He came as high as the stairs took him, but he wanted to see if he could make it to the roof, that would be the perfect place to have his main character moment and finally allow himself to sort through the mess in his head.

He remembered some buildings had a fire escape built from the roof and could be accessed via that. And after some searching it turned out he was right, there was a broken down window at the side of the building, with the fire escape stairs sticking to the side, going all the way from the top to the bottom of the factory. 

This is definitely one of my top three worst ideas, Matt thought, as he firmly gripped the windowsill with his arms and stuck one leg out, to test the stability of the fire escape. When nothing moved or creaked, he slowly started putting more pressure on it, until he was fully standing on it with one leg, followed closely by the other, and he was on! Phew, lucky. Fortunately there was not much to climb until he reached the top, then he was safely (relatively) on the roof and felt like he could breathe a little easier again.