Healing Stones {Kurt Cobain}

• prologue •

He sat in the corner of the room, back against the wall, arms wrapped around his knees. His spine was pressed hard against the wood, but he paid no mind to the pain. He was used to it by now. All too used to it. 

He continued to stare straight ahead, listening yet not listening to the sounds of the house around him. Water rushing through the pipes, soft chatter coming from the other apartments, wood floors creaking under heavy footsteps. Nobody knew where he was, nobody would come for him. And, at the moment, he wanted it that way.

Despite being used to the pain, he desperately wanted it to end. To go away for good. No matter how many times people told him he would be okay, it would be okay, he knew they were wrong. It was all getting monotonous, a broken record with no more meaning. 

He wanted it to be done. That was all he wanted. He wanted it to stop.

Time. Give it time, they all said. With help, it would eventually go away and things would be exactly the way they used to.

But time was never on his side. Things only got worse over time, in his mind. 

Help wouldn't help. Arms wrapped around him, holding him close...soft, reassuring whispers...they meant nothing to him anymore. In the long run, they made absolutely no difference. 

And it wasn't anybody's fault. It was anyone's fault but his own. For staying alive this long.

It wouldn't stop.

It wouldn't go away.

And it never would.

He laid his head down, squeezing his eyes as tightly closed as they could go, trying to shut the world out. He pressed his hands over his ears, trying as hard as he could not to think about anything. But it didn't work. It never did.

"Stop," he whispered quietly to himself. To his mind. "Stop it," he said louder. But, of course, his mind didn't listen. "Stop!" he yelled at the top of his lungs, leaping up from his position and grabbing a glass off of the desk. He flung it at the wall, feeling no better when it smashed into a million glimmering pieces. He picked up one of the glass shards and ran the sharp edge over his finger, drawing bright red blood. Tears began to run down his face, and he couldn't tell if they were from the pain or the...fear.

He was afraid of what he would do to people, to himself, as much as he still wanted to. He had no idea how else to deal with it.

Hurting himself...killing himself...it was the only way.

The only way to finally reach nirvana.