Oneshots! (Mostly Hermitcraft)

A Hell Within My Head [Cub]

Summary:
Sometimes, a side-effect of anxiety is a bunch of tiny voices in your head, clamouring for attention. They want to make your decisions as you spin around in circles, trying to choose a direction.
That's what's been happening to Cub lately. They've been building on each other for weeks now. However, one morning, everything was silent. He quickly finds that it isn't a good silence. Something else lurks in his consciousness now, something that isn't his own.

TWs in comments

One bonus feature of anxiety was the 'voices'. The voices of worry about the future, about the past, and about the present.

They were loud. They were always so loud. There had to be at least twenty of the little voices, screaming, chiming in, making their opinions known. Sometimes, they were tolerable. Sometimes, they weren't as loud. Sometimes, they agreed with his decisions. Sometimes, they allowed him to have more than three hours of rest at night.

Most of the time, however, they were insufferable. Thinking was impossible. Making decisions was impossible. Sleeping was impossible. Phantoms were impossible. Dealing with anything outside of his own head was out of the question.

Maybe that's why he lost himself in the dungeon. Cub played Decked Out 2 religiously, picking up his frozen shards and doing run after run, trying to find his artefacts, flying through the levels, and dying to escape the unbearable cacophony of rioting voices in his head. It doesn't seem like they're from outside his body; they aren't hallucinations. All he knows is that running, dodging, and escaping from the dungeon are the only things keeping him sane.

"Heyyyy Cubby!" Tango greets him as he flies into the dungeon, hair tousled from the flight over. "What are we running today?"

"I'm thinking about starting with some deadly runs, then going Deep Frost for the last few," he told him, walking over to the dojo and collecting his deck and a frozen shard.

A surge in the voices caught him off guard and he stumbled, catching himself on one of the lighting rods around the perimeter of his space. Tango gave him a concerned look, but Cub shrugged him off, taking several breaths and beating the voices down until they were quieter. It worked to some extent, giving him enough time to enter the dungeon and put his items in the chest.

They came back as he set his spawn, causing him to collapse onto the bed. Every cell in his body ached for the comfort of rest and the bed, but it was impossible. He tried. Honestly, he tried. Every night, he lay down in his bed, closed his eyes, and tried to sleep, only to snap them open when one of them shrieked.

He braced himself against the wall and pushed himself up, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. Usually, if he was lucky, being exhausted to his bones was a good way to pass out. However, Cub knew his limits, and his limits (unfortunately) said he wasn't quite there yet. If Providence shined her face on him today, maybe – just maybe – he might be able to collapse.

Then again, luck was usually not on his side. Healing from the vexes in Season 5 was clearly not happening for him, although Scar seemed to have recovered. He had a giant replica of the vex mask in his storage at Scarland and had even worn a vex head a few times. An evoker lived in his base, performing dangerous, fascinating magic for those who stopped by.

Maybe that's what Cub was trying to do when he ran out of the dungeon on max. clank. He was trying to desensitise himself to the screeching cries and swooping wings of the vexes. That's what his voices resembled sometimes. They reminded him of what it was like to be under their influence, performing the most grindy pranks known to player-kind.

Cub pressed the button for 'Deadly' a little bit harder than necessary, placing his box against the redstone lamp and watching the piston break it numbly. The minecart appeared soon after and he hopped in, reaching up to hit the button that would start the run. A minute later, the doors slid open before him as he picked up his level three compass and map.