Based on: Control~ Halsey
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He felt the walls closing in on him. He couldn’t breathe. Not that anyone cared, passing him by, oblivious to the voices that haunted him. He was tired. Tired of the sleepless nights and the nightmares. Sick of the voices invading his life and taking over his castle. He was helpless to the hell he lived in, breathless and weak as he fought a pointless battle dawn to dusk.
Maybe they were right. Maybe he wasn’t supposed to fight. Maybe he wasn’t meant to be the hero.
He was angry. Angry at the way they treated him. Like a toy, something expendable. They acted as if they knew everything about him. As if he hadn’t cloaked his mind in layers and layers of shields, protecting each corner of his mind from them.
Maybe. Maybe, he wasn’t meant to fight the voices. Maybe he was to succumb to the seductive whispers that controlled his life.
They say that he wasn’t supposed to give in. he was to hold out and soon he will be free. Free of those sinister clutches.
He was a fool. To think the voices in his head were his enemies. All they’ve done is protect him. Protected him from the people around him who said they would be with him. The ones who said it would be worth it in the end. The same people who left at the first sight of his eyes as the fire consumed him. The ones who promised to help him and tagged along with him but ran when he needed them. They had left him dangling on the edge after they had sworn up and down that they wouldn’t let him fall.
They said that it was the voices that pushed him over the edge. They knew. Deep down, they all knew, that it was the very voices they had warned him against that had kept him there, dangling by a thread. It was those voices that they were so sure would destroy his soul, were the ones that had salvaged what had left him.
They had their chance and they blew it. If only. If only they had noticed him and his feelings instead of acting haughty and arrogant. Instead of getting high on their ego, they wouldn’t be where they were right now. At his mercy. At the mercy of the very voices they hated and despised.
They had their chance and they lost it. Now, he saw them for what they truly were. Pathetic humans who needed validation. Selfish pricks who couldn’t go a day without thinking about themselves. They had tried to fix him, not out of love or concern, but out of their pride. Lost in daydreams of how it would look in the eyes of another.
‘He was lost, in a maze of thorns. In a maze of nightmares and despair. They helped him. They silenced the voices he could hear and ripped the shadows that shrouded him. They made him into the man he is today. They turned him into a symbol of hope.’
Oh! What a lovely picture that would paint. They played him like a puppeteer would a puppet. He was at their feet and they made sure he wouldn’t rise. They made sure he wouldn’t realize the truth.
The truth. Oh, how he laughed. The truth? The truth was that he was a lone rose in his castle of thorns. The truth was that the people who claimed to be allies were the ones who cut through the thicket that was his castle, inside out. They tore through his defenses and took a delicate flower with illusions of care only to turn it into a weapon. The voices weren’t the one who wanted to harm him. It was the advisors, the friends, the family.
Oh, how ironic. The very thing they said would destroy him was the one that saved him. They thought they could get away with deceiving him into believing he was someone he was not. If he acted out, he was called a brat. If he listened to the voices, he was crazy.
Well then. If they insisted that he was a psychopath, he would show them exactly how chaotic his mind could be.
He let go, toppling over the edge as he fell into the fire. The insanity filled his body to the brim and stitched his soul back together. He was invincible, for in the chaos, he found order.
All his life he listened to everyone else, letting them dictate his life when they never had even the faintest idea of his personality. It didn’t matter if he knew them or not, they all thought they were so great that they could barge into a person’s life and decide what to do with them.
They watched as he fell, regret bubbling under the surface of their skin, their skin crawling with foreboding. They had done it now. They let their ego get to them. They believed they were all that, and that they were on equal ground with god. Now they were face to face with devil himself.
He let out a laugh dripping in malice as their minds recoiled with the heavy air of evil draping over them. They, who were nothing but mere scum, were never on an equal footing with him.
He regretted never listening to the voices. Had he done so, he would have broken out of his prison eons ago and now, he was about to show just what happened when you messed with fire. He watched as they fell to their knees, groveling for mercy.
Crazy, psychopath. Those words meant nothing to him, for in the face of his insanity, nothing could compare. A person drove to madness would look like a perfect human in front of the voices.
They said the voices would change him. Would turn him into something worse. They failed to realize that it was always him. It was never the voices that turned him into the demon he was now. With or without the voices, he was going to turn out the way he did. Sooner or later, he’d have the world in his palm just like he did now. It was the voices hat brought out the best of him.
They didn’t understand. No one ever did. Except the voices. They knew the depths of his mind and heart. Now, he was going to show everyone crazy.
They were helpless and could do nothing as they watched him into the monster they created. Funny how they turned him into what he was only to try and destroy him when he showed signs of rebellion.
They watched, hands tied, unable to do anything but look upon what they built, cherished and loved, if they were capable of love that is, as it crumbled to ashes under the waves of fire his rage had brought upon.
He laughed freely for the first time in years as he gazed at his new empire build itself from ash and blood. He had run away from the shadows for way too long only to realize that they would always be a part of him. If he were a rose, and the voices and shadows were thorns, he would build an empire where everyone similar would flourish. No one would be looked down upon ever again.
For every coin has two sides. Besides, who said that a rose wasn’t red because it had been bathed in blood?
