The Redamancy of Shade and Art (BOOK 2)

Chapter 8

trigger warning: verbal assault, drunken insults, mentions of physical assault, suicidal thoughts and attempts

THE DAYS SPENT IN SHADE'S BEDROOM

After an indescribable amount of time, spent drowning in his tears, Shade staggered his way to his bed.

And then he lied down.

And slept.

But the problem with that was—

Shade did not find the strength to leave. To clean up the shattered glass. To pin the medals back onto the walls. There were many of them, and in the haze of his thoughts, he dimly thought: there are eighty gold medals. I could strangle myself with them. You know what, I should.

It's been two days.

It started with a small nap. And when he woke up from his small nap in the middle of the night, he realized he was still exhausted. So, he took another nap.

And another.

And another.

Sometimes, when he wasn't napping, he was staring up at the wall. (He wasn't sure when those times were—when he was lost in the ripples of dreams or washed onto the shores of reality.) He could see Mom's words in the darkness of his room. They were penetrating the gloom with an urgency of a killer.

He stared at them. They were white-hot and bloody red. If Shade squinted, the words were sharpened at the edges, their Os spiked with menace and their Es the points of a blade.

Shade let them stab him in the chest. Again and again, he bled into his sheets, his blood infected by Art's tears. Poisoned by the tips of Mom's venomous words.

It was worthless to put up a fight.

"Putangina, 'wag kang mag-inarte."

A harsh blow to his ribcage, the resounding crack of his heart.

"Nanghihina ka na ba?" Shade touched his face. The tears were so hot they felt like blood. Sometimes, he thought they were. If God could cry blood, why couldn't Shade?

The knife twisted deeper into his chest, tearing through the skin and bone.

"There's no reason for you to be sad." Shade's hands began to tremble. He hid underneath his covers like a child. But the words tore through cloth and pulled away his eyelids, his little defense, his little protection again bloody red words and dark nights—

"You're so ungrateful."

The words kept trying to kill him.

Again. Again.

They always tried to kill him.

So, Shade has been here for three days... or four... laying quiet and still and exhausted. The words and the punches were a replay in his mind. They were a constant kick, a constant reminder that he was a burden, another added weight to the world on his shoulders.

He was not fed. He wasn't really sure if he drank water.

He was so hungry. And so tired. But the thought of putting his feet on the floor and pushing himself up was... unthinkable. He could do nothing but scroll on his phone and sometimes cry. When he did cry—more often than he liked, a stream of acid rain and scattered blood—he fell asleep right after.

And then he woke up pained.

And then his tears fell.

Or sometimes he slept.