This Is War

Chapter Thirty Two: Blink Of An Eye

Serious Trigger Warning. I'm so sorry this is so vivid and confronting, but there's no other way I can write it. Please don't read this chapter if you have a trigger for self harm or suicide, I don't want anything happening to any of you.

[ C O R E Y ]

I needed help.

It was like swimming in circles. Being swallowed by sadness day after day and putting on a brave face for everybody else. Because I was the leader. Because I was the natural born fighter. Because everybody seemed to rely on me. Because everybody thought I was strong.

When in reality, I was weaker than all of them.

I felt as if I wasn't allowed to be sad. Like I had to bear the weight to keep everyone else afloat. I knew couldn't do everything, but if it got out that I was crumbling under the pressure, not only would I fall, but everybody would. I had no choice but to lift my head, smile and train my pounding heart out, searching for a way out of the swirling depths of hell I was consumed in.

But it didn't matter because I knew avoiding hell would only do so much, because if hell really wants you, it'll find a way to suck you to the underworld no matter what.

And as blood coated my pale arms, I knew hell had found me.

It stung. I forgot how bad it hurt. I forgot how much it bled. I forgot how it felt to loose a clean streak and have to start all over, hating yourself more and more everything day because of it. I forgot where I kept the blades. I forgot where I was walking to end up where I was. And worst of all, I forgot what it really felt like to want to die so fucking bad it's all you can think about.

I promised Charlotte and Natalia I'd stay alive for them, but I was certain they didn't need me anymore. They'd live, survive, thrive. But me, I'm a fuck up, a mistake, everything the world doesn't need. And I wanted to stop living.

But I was still alive. I wasn't giving in yet.

But I'd be lucky to last a few more days.

There was so much blood. I'd cut too deep, hit a blood vessel, done something. There was so much the red it merged with my tears until I was blind, left sobbing with my head against a tree, both hoping somebody would find me and praying they never would.

I had a clean streak of more than twelve months and in a few shorts weeks I'd let everything become too much and I'd lost that. It was all over. All the progress for nothing.

I reached for my phone in my pocket, eyeing the slivers of silver on the cobble beside me, the shimmer gone dark. I fumbled, trembling, coating everything in blood and hissing as I tried to tug it out of my pocket, my mind racing so fast I couldn't focus for a moment.

I couldn't call Charlotte, this would only make her worse. I couldn't call Natalia, she'd never seen me like this. And other than them, I had nobody else to call. No siblings, no best friends, no parents. No nothing. I was left bleeding, crying, alone at the entrance of a cave, unsure of if I'd make it through another night of mental torment and sorrowful thoughts.

But I was bleeding bad and if I didn't get help soon, I'd fuck myself up more. And Charlotte would hate herself for not being there and Nat would blame herself for my depression if I didn't work this out. Yet with every fibre of my being I wanted to take the blade between my fingers and keep going until I bled out into the floor, or better, make it quick and slice my throat, so I could die here and never respawn, and the world would be better off without me. But I knew I couldn't. I had to wait. I couldn't leave them broken because of me.

I hovered over the numbers. Charlotte was probably at the Hollow busy working, unsuspecting of me. Natalia would've been training, fighting through her own pain. Neither of them needed this. Neither of them needed me coming along to fuck them up more. But whether I liked it or not I needed someone.