Cutie ⇔ Muke ✓

[25] He fainted

(( Warning: discusses sensitive words/topics that can be triggering. ))

This chapter is 4,690 words. Prepare yourselves.

LUKE

There's some saying that I've read-- somewhere deep in the literature books I used to read for school. It spoke about how there are no real such things as emotions. That sadness is just the absence of happiness, like how darkness is just the absence of light. I've thought about that a lot, especially over the last few months. At the time, when I read it, I didn't think much of it. I just sort of accepted it, the way I accept how our lungs breathe in oxygen and breathe out carbon dioxide. I didn't care too much.

Now, looking back on it, I think that the philosopher had got it all wrong. How can there not be sadness, when it feels like the weight of the world has been placed into the very center of my chest? It weighs me down, forcing me to crumble to my knees at the mercy of the waves, driving me six feet down into the ground. How can there not be fear, when every nerve in my body is clawing at my skin, gathering my blood under its fingernails. How can there not be regret, when everything I have ever done sits in my brain like a cement block, crushing everything else to make room for its massive figure?

Sadness has to exist. My heavy heart and bagged eyes prove its existence. Sadness is the epitome of my mental stability, and I am living proof.

There has to be fear. Especially when the unknown possibility of if Michael is alive or not is sending horrible shivers down my spine, making me feel like a crushed skeleton walking on scraps of bones.

And there most definitely is regret. So much regret. It fills my mind the way water fills a manmade river, right before the dam breaks and annihilates the world.

There is also a feeling so indescribable, so torturous, so hellacious. It doesn't have a word to describe it, and perhaps that is a good thing. The terrible combination of sadness, fear, and regret is a feeling that no human being should have to be put through, but I am clearly suffering. It's like being trapped in an attic full of anxieties and insecurities as you rake your fingernails down the door, but with no way to open it.

This emotion, such horrible emotions, is exactly how I felt as I opened the door to that dark room in the facility. The one that smelled dank and musty. The one where I flicked on the lights and saw the worst sight I have ever seen in my entire life. The one where I found Michael.

Which is where I am right now, frozen in the doorframe with my eyes trained on the slumped figure in the corner, staring at the handcuffs restraining his pale wrists together as his head falls forward. He's crumpled and nearly disfigured against the wall, blood surrounding his wrists where the handcuffs bore into his skin. His red hair is faded, a tangled mess on his head. His ears droop where they sit upright on his head, and dried blood crusts the edges of their openings. My eyes trail down to his small legs, skinny and pale in the fluorescent lighting. His feet are little, tucked underneath him as he leans pathetically against the wall.

He isn't moving.

The sight makes me want to vomit, covering up my mouth with my hand as tears sting the corners of my eyes. I swiftly leave the doorframe and let the metal door slam closed behind me, rushing towards Michael's crushed body in the corner.

I drop to my knees in front of him, biting down on my lip as I take in how skinny and unhealthy he looks. His cheeks are sunken in, scars lining his arms and legs. I have to let out a choked sob when I realize that what I had earlier predicted was true-- they experiment on him. Clearly very roughly and unsympathetically, due to the scars and gashes all over his skin.

"Michael, baby?" I say, hardly above a whisper. My eyes catch on his closed ones, waiting for them to open, waiting for him to give any indication that he's aware of my presence. He doesn't.