Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
— JONATHAN COULDN'T KEEP HIS HEART FROM POUNDING LOUDLY AT THAT DISTURBING INFORMATION. How could he do that? Go searching for his friend's bodies? What kind of person does that?
"I can't." Johnny whispered, grasping at his bedsheets. "No- I can't." His voice shook.
"Please, Johnny? You have to help us." Ethan moved forward cautiously, which caused Jonathan to push himself farther away.
"No- you aren't- none of you are real, you're all in my head." He kept muttering, trying to convince himself. Johnny kept hoping Andie would walk back in, and they could drop the conversation.
Maybe if he yelled loud enough a nurse would come in to give him a sedative again. Anything to get away from his own mind.
His eyes caught Chris, who was still hugging himself and turning blue, "Johnny p-ple-ase. I'm get- I'm getting numb." The boy shivered. His eyes looking hauntingly pale against the white of his skin.
Jonathan's hands flew to his hair, pulling at it and beginning to sob. "I can't- I can't do this." He cried. "Please- just leave me alone." Johnny's head was beginning to hurt with the way he tugged at his now unruly brown hair.
"Johnny, please." Ethan tried, still trying to convince the boy, now noticing flecks of dark red along his own grey shirt and growing more worried by the minute.
"Get out of my head." Jonathan cried, pounding a fist against his temple as if he was trying to push them out of his imagination. "Get out of my head!"
"Johnny!" Ethan shouted, trying to stop his actions, but being unable to physically do anything.
"Get out of my head!"
DJ, who had been exceptionally quiet up until this moment, finally snapped, "We can't get out of your head, dipshit! Not until you help us."
"I can't help you! Why don't you understand that?" Johnny tensed, almost able to hear the final threads of his sanity snap under pressure.
"I'm not going on some cracked up scavenger hunt for your bodies- that's not happening." He stated, the tips of his fingers still prodding at his face to relieve some of- any of- the stress that he could- until he gave up and just allowed his palms to rest over his eyelids, occasionally digging the heels into his cheekbones.
"Johnny?" Andie asked, as her shoes made light squeaks along the floor. She shuffled forward, a floral printed glass of water in her hands.
"Johnny, are you alright?" She moved next to his bed, dragging a small wooden stool over to sit on, pulling his hands away from his face so she could examine him properly.
His eyes were bloodshot and sunken, with violent red and purple rings surrounding those normally bright chocolate irises. Now they looked cold and hard, distant. Like stone rather than some sweet substance.
Andie held one hand to the area where his neck and shoulder met, and gave him the glass of water in hopes of calming him down, or offering some sort of relief from whatever these wild feelings were.
Johnny took it as carefully as he could, but his shaking hands gave away how he was really feeling. How he was really feeling. What was he feeling?
Well, quite a few things really. He was feeling sorrowful, for the loss of these boys who deserved so much more from life. He was feeling fear at the idea of his own mind coming up with these horrible ideas.
Mostly, he was feeling guilt.
Guilt because he couldn't keep them alive. His own brother was dead because of him.
Guilt because he was too much of a coward to go back out into the world and help them.
Guilt because no matter what, he'll never be able to change what happened.
So much guilt.
"Johnny, please." Ethan asked softly, not moving an inch for fear of another intense breakdown on Johnny's end.
This jolted something in Johnny's subconscious, causing him to stand up and shakily set the glass of water on the bedside table as he moved to lean his forehead against one of the windows.
There was almost a complete silence over the room, even the hum of the air conditioning seemed like a distant white noise.
Jonathan's eyes caught the two ambulances outside, glinting in the light from the hospital, and whatever the streetlights offered. The lively green grass and fireflies that floated just above the world, their wings seeming too big for their little bodies.
Just observing the world in the simplest ways.
Johnny let his shoulders drop from his ears, where they'd seemed glued in his tense state, and he breathed easy for the first time since Sheriff Keller had left hours and hours before.
He understood if he found these boys and brought them home they'd finally be set free. They could move on, and be worryless and happy. Johnny himself would be free from his psychosis.
It all seemed... worth it. Which was wild in every sense.
This was the last thing Jonathan King had ever wanted.
When he was young he'd make wishes on stars and press kisses to dandelion fluff as it swirled into the summer air.
He was, undeniably, a dreamer.
How quickly those dreams had died- it scared him.
But for the longest time Johnny felt like he was falling, deeper and deeper into this chaos infested life. Until finally, with the news of his brother's and friend's death, he hit the ground.
He knew, there was no point in staying there. There was no point in hoping and waiting for something to change. There was no point in dreaming when life had already shown him how little his dreaming had mattered.
All he could do was climb. Climb out of this stupid pit that life had thrown him in.
And this.
This morbid and crazy idea was his first step.
"How am I supposed to find you?" He muttered tiredly, his gaze shifting to the floor.
author's note
are people actually enjoying this?
just out of curiosity,, because i kinda feel like im not giving it my all
