Spiral

Aftermath

He was sick of being as sick as he was, but he couldn't get better. He didn't have the energy to anymore, and he didn't even know what was happening to him, yet he knew he couldn't stop the culmination of this insanity that had started in his brain, as if every rational thought was being replaced by the dreams and the vivid nightmares that haunted every waking thought that he had. Every single waking thought was taken up by the nightmares. The hooded creature was haunting his waken mind as well as his dreams, and slowly everything started to become so much for him, yet telling someone would scare him more.

He found a comfort in the demons that haunted his mind, no matter how sick it was. He found a comfort in the shadows.

Syler sat up in his bed and sighed, his body felt heavy, and he didn't want to go back to school, but the school cracked down heavily in attendance on the last few days of school, so he knew he had to go, whether he liked it or not. He ignored the burning from his wrists and attempted to get up, which failed the first time around, but he tried once again and succeeded, which made him proud, just to know he succeeded at that simple task made that day seem just a little more bearable and conquerable, even though he knew he wouldn't be able to bear it in a few hours, like every other day so far. He would crash and burn in third period, he knew it, it happened all the time, and he didn't keep enough coffee around to keep him awake. He was lucky he was done with all of his finals and all of his exams. He wouldn't have survived another day if he would've had more exams that he would have to do. He didn't know how Zane would be able to pull through the day, but then he remembered that most of the human race gets more sleep than he does throughout the night, and they don't constantly dream of bloodletting, murderous demons and hooded figures roaming the woods.

He got dressed in the same pair of shorts he wore the day prior and a different shirt, then he wandered downstairs before his appetite would be lost again to the images of maggots that he saw crawl under his skin the night prior, before he purged them. Irrational thoughts were starting to intrude his mind.

What if the energy from food went to them instead, and they got bigger, stronger, and would take over his body.

He didn't know where these thoughts came from, but he tried to wash the thought from his brain, before it made him lose the appetite he fought so hard to have again. He walked downstairs and made himself a bowl of cereal and some coffee before even greeting his mom, who when she saw him smiled.

"You've given up haven't you? On your clothing." She observed and Syler turned red. He looked over at her with slight embarrassment clearly seen across his face.

"School's almost out, I don't really care anymore, and this is the result of that. Please ignore my choices." He said, trying to defend his choices. His mom laughed.

"I was planning to." She said and Syler continued making his cereal. He placed the bowl on the table along with his coffee. He pulled out his phone and to distract his thoughts from the dreams and the maggots, he checked all of his social media compulsively while eating the cereal. He drank the coffee in between to make sure he didn't end up falling asleep in the bowl, because his body finally started to catch up with the lack of sleep from the night before, like it did every night, but this time it was a lot earlier than the other nights in the past. He sighed and fought his way through the drowsiness. The sun was already up, which rarely happened, but as the days got longer, the sun was a more welcome thing in his mind. It meant less time of moonlight, which meant the dreams seemed less daunting to him, in many ways that made him feel more at ease, until the sun would go down. Which is when his dreams started to feel as if they were more a reality to him.

Syler ended up having to choke down the last few bites of cereal and then he drank the milk. He fought himself while trying to swallow it, choking it down, along with the rest of his coffee. He put the bowl in the sink and then went into the living room, grabbed his favorite black hoodie and put on his shoes. He then walked out to the bus stop and patiently awaited the bus, which came five minutes later and he got on and sat in the back. He hoped Zane wouldn't notice the bandages, underneath his hoodie, so he wouldn't have to explain why he had deep cuts all the way down his wrists.