Skeletons-Jahren

. 06

*CW: intense anxiety, angry fits, blood*

"Yeah man, I'll be right over," Ahren nodded as he talked into his phone to his best friend, Realbad. "All right, cool. See ya. Later."

"Joel!" Ahren yelled up the long staircase after hanging up the phone with Realbad. His voice echoed through the expensive halls and boomed into Joel's room.

Joel sprang up out of his slumped position in a chair at the sound of Ahren's voice and marched down the stairs to see what Ahren needed. "Yeah, what's up?"

"D'you mind if I step out for a little bit? My friend just called me up asking if I wanted to meet up with him."

Joel smirked, "Sure, I don't care. Why would I care where you went? It's not even my house."

"Oh, I know, but I still want to make sure you're moving in all right, and I want to make sure your stay here is comfortable for you, y'know?"

"Yeah, thank you."

"Oh, and by the way, how was your sleep last night? Your first night in this huge house." Ahren wondered.

"I slept well, just first night jitters, am I right?" Joel laughed, his laugh trailing off when he realized that Ahren wasn't laughing along with him.

"Yeah, man, I understand. It's a pretty big house, took me some getting used to also." Ahren said, "All right, I'm gonna start getting ready now. There's food and drinks in the fridge, just take whatever you want. I'll be out pretty late so you'll be here alone, is that okay?"

"Yeah of course, I'm used to being alone, it's okay." Joel nodded.

"Nice. See you later, I guess."

After Ahren left the room, Joel sprinted back up to his room to continue reading the book he put down when he'd been called down for Ahren to explain the situation to him. It was a book about hope, anxiety, and alcoholism.

Joel always liked to learn new concepts and learning about something he was experienced with was even more of a joyous time for him. His parents being alcoholics helped him grasp the learning experience of the book and really made him understand the mind of a deeply lost and troubled alcohol addict.

Every page he turned seemed to have buried his nose further into the book and his surroundings faded away as his eyes watched word after word dance across the pages and stick into his brain like superglue.

Despite being a book about anxiety, it felt to Joel like his anxieties fell away when someone else described it. The way the author described it made it sound way prettier and flowier, simpler than it really was. It marveled Joel at how spot on the author's description was about the anxiety attacks, almost to a point of being scared at how perfectly it was written.

He could feel every symptom as it was interpreted into his ever-racing mind effect his body. His palms began to sweat as he eagerly turned the pages until the book was finished, and he sighed.

His patience subsided, but the anxiety he'd built up had not. Despite being in one of the most enormous houses he'd ever been in, he still managed to feel a bit claustrophobic. Dondi lay loyally by his side as per usual to give Joel that calming feeling of security.

But with every good moment in his life came more bad moments, those moments being accompanied by several symptoms of panic, ranging in levels from moderate to "this is never going away, is it?"

Today, the level of panic was merciless, as Joel liked to call it. Merciless was the level of intensity in which his head would spin like a corkscrew, his hands would shake like a house of cards during an earthquake, his breathing was heavier than a boulder, and his heart raced like bullets from a rifle.