You awoke to a sunny room. There was a single window to your right, and it was blinding you. You covered your eyes with your arm and rolled over.
"You're awake?" you heard a familiar voice ask.
The crook in your neck was killing you, but it was worth it when you saw a figure standing on the opposite end of the room. He was moving around some of the luggage, making a considerable amount of excess noise. Each suitcase had squealing wheels that chimed whenever they spun around their axis more than once, and every handle would stretch the fabric when picked up. It really was unnecessary for him to be displaying them so early.
"Jeff?" you asked, rubbing your eyes.
"What's up?" He smiled casually and moved some hair away from his face. "Want anything for breakfast? I was waiting for you to get up so I could make it."
No matter what he did to you, you couldn't get over the fact that he went to such an extent to make you like him. Ironically forced situations never rang the bell anyways, so it was unclear why he tried so hard. It was creepy. Even then, he was standing by the luggage staring at you while waiting for an answer. The smile never disappeared from his face, regardless of how long you kept him yearning. And here you were, waking up in a hotel room far from home in order to test the one and only person that ever stood up for you.
"I'm not hungry," you mumbled, trying to get his attention off of you. Every misdirect could work in your favor, and you just had to get a glimpse of those suitcases by the wall. He would never shuffle them for no reason. He wasn't the type to do anything for no reason. And that's why you had to figure out the reasoning behind his every move before it was too late for you to do so. God blessed you with some new courage and information that would help you in your drawn-out battle.
"That's fine then! We can just have an early lunch."
"Why are you still waiting there?" you asked.
The look on his face was putrid, and his voice had a neutralized monogram to match. "I'm waiting for you to leave the room so I can finish this. I wouldn't want to trouble you with it."
But you were too curious. And his formal speech made you all the more curiouser. He practically told you that what he was doing was the story of the century, and that any news reporter would kill to know what it was. Why wouldn't you? Could it be possible that he wanted you to question him? What if he was trying to break the barrier once and for all and give up on his plans after an incident? Would he really change his mind that quickly? No. He was testing your strength. So you stood out of bed and started marching towards the pile of luggage trapped behind the body of a man you wish you'd never met.
He blocked you with his arm and questioned, "Why do you have to be like this?"
"Let me see what-"
"No," he chuckled. "Why the hell would I do that?"
You pierced your gaze through his eyes as you confronted his strength and gathered the courage you had bottled up for days. You were getting ready to strike like a snake that's been in captivity longer than it would like, and the mole didn't stand a chance. The serpent believed that its fangs were sharp enough now to kill anything it came across, but it didn't know that the pest didn't have the same outlook. The mole was in a predicament where anything it did wouldn't work in its favor. It believed that it was better off dead than alive. However, it wanted to clear its name before it passed into the afterlife and was born to cause havoc again.
The mole had done so many terrible things during its life that it thought the world was working against it. So when it saw the serpent getting ready to strike, it let it happen, accepting the death it deserved. But the world was also working towards torturing the mole. Because of this, the mole could never really die. The only way to go against fate was to kill it. But fate's puppet strings hung from its fingers so delicately, and the mole was forced to fight back against the serpent, fighting for the survival it didn't deserve.
The mole was stuck in this wonderful tragedy with no signs of escape. So with every fighting chance it didn't have, it made a pact with itself stating that it would never be happy about letting down the snake. It would never ever be grateful for demolishing its predator. And it would never shove victory in the snake's face when the snake was laying on the ground in agony.
"You put false memories in me," you muttered.
Jeff's facial expression changed from passion to guilt in a matter of moments. He stared back at you as his eyes narrowed in a grimace. After a couple of the longest seconds you had ever felt, he shook his head slightly and read the scarlet text that had formed in the back of your soul. The blacks of your eyes held the most horrid scenes and ideas that had sprouted from nightmares of the two of you together, all ending with death and fear. If Jeff didn't understand you at that very moment, reading your soul like the grim reaper he was born to be, he would never get to know you the way fate did. Because fate liked to read you like a book. He would never understand that the connections you held in your head were surreal.
"How do I know what's real anymore, Jeff?" you asked. Your feelings started to show through your nose as a tear fell down your face. "I don't even know why I'm almost afraid of you because all I remember is the two of us together. I don't know of a single day we were apart, but it feels like I've had the wrong idea about you the whole time."
He looked up at you and shook his head in silence. "None of that is fake."
You looked away, embarrassed by your expression. How was any of it real? Your memories told you one thing while your feelings told you another. If anything you remembered was real, why did you still feel like you couldn't trust the guy within them? He began to speak again, but you didn't know if what he was about to say was credible or not.
"It's kind of hard to act like I'm dating someone that hates me," he said. His words cut through the air like a knife.
The mole had broke the pact.
Everything you thought you knew about him became invalid, and to recoil, you said something you regret: "Well, it's kind of hard to love someone that's going to kill me." You noticed that Jeff didn't seem to care, his face not showing any traces of remorse. He probably got pretty good at hiding them, especially after all the lying he'd been doing the past week. You were pretty upset that he didn't have a reaction, so you added more gasoline to the flames and hoped that burning down your world wasn't as deadly as the movies would make it seem.
"What now, Jeff?! Are you just gonna kill me here instead?! God, I hate you!" you yelled at him, quickly realizing that he was burying his head in regret.
"Everyone else hates me too," he muttered. "Congratulations."
Instantaneously, he stormed his way over towards the exit and kicked the chair out of his way before slamming the door behind him. You couldn't believe that he left you standing there to think whatever you wanted to think. The last thing an upset person needed was to be alone, even if they made it seem like the presence of people would annoy them. And it wasn't like you had told him to leave. You were asking him questions, implying that you were in need of explanations and answers. He had no right to take the easy way out and remove himself from the argument. But if that's how he was going to be, you were going to remove yourself too. You were going to remove yourself from the entire situation.
"Bullshit," you said to yourself under your breath. "Liar... Murderer." You felt like waves of blue deceit were crashing down on top of your body, which was frozen and helpless in the sand like those little shells that only expose themselves when the tide is shallow. If the mole was supposed to be in ties with the evil, why was everything it said not legitimate? You just couldn't be in a happy relationship, could you? You could never get anything to go your way.
But you couldn't define your decision until you had enough reasons to make it. That's why you decided to run after him and question him further before making your leave.
The door handle was cold and lined with the ebony you wished wasn't so dark in the first place. But it wasn't as chilling as the words Jeff spoke through the wall.
"...Your promise?!" he yelled. "I'm sick of this!"
You pressed your head against the door, attempting to hear what he was saying. Noticing that the walls were only as thick as a lie, you wondered why you never listened to any of his other conversations. But had he listened to yours? The ones you had while you slept? That would be embarrassing. Your deepest, darkest secrets came out while you were sleeping, and some of them could make another soul go insane.
"I can't do that," Jeff said. There was a long pause before you heard a beep and then a bang.
Not wanting a repeat of the night where you lost your memories, you backed away from the door and counted to seventeen before you burst out of the room and into the area he was lurking in. Before he was able to say anything, you walked in the opposite direction and ignored his standing figure. But when you saw the traces of helplessness and suffering in the darkness of his eyes, you stopped moving and began to analyze the way he wouldn't look at you directly. He was becoming insecure.
"Hey," he said longingly.
Ignoring him once again, you started to pull some of your things off the table and carry them back into the bedroom. When you returned, he was blocking the doorway with lost pride. You tried to move under his arm, but it was apparent that he wouldn't let you pass until he either explained himself or explained how he would never explain himself.
"I really do love you," he muttered after a while. He wasn't dazed by the fact that you didn't look at him. He tried to place his hand on your arm, but you moved it away and took a few steps backwards for safety. Each step elongated the silence by a decade.
"Don't touch me," you said. You glanced up at him in anger and mentally shook the red veins from his skull before throwing him by the head off a cliff. It would be nice to throw him off a cliff.
"Stop it," he said. "Stop being an idiot. Can't you see I'm not lying this time?" He moved closer to you and tried to see your face with the curve of his neck. But he knew you would stand your ground in some way. He just didn't know that you could stand your ground for that long. The mole thought it was the only living thing that could ever navigate its way underground, and it didn't understand that the evil had left it to fend for itself with no backup and no information.
"Shut up," you said. "I don't care." You crossed your arms and twisted your body so that your back was facing him. You moved one hand up to your eye and rubbed it before itched.
Jeff grabbed your arm and forcefully turned you back around. You were shocked that he would do such a thing, so to fight back, you tried to push him with all your strength. But before you could slip away and run somewhere safe, he grabbed your wrist and yanked you back, wrapping his arms around you so tight that you could feel the weight of your bones collapsing in. You struggled to breathe and escape at the same time.
"Stop it!" you screamed, trying to shove him away.
"Shut up!" he yelled. "You need to listen to me!"
Your eyes were already on the verge of shouting, and his remark opened your pores for remediation. The sides of your cheeks were crusting with tears, and there was nothing you could do except hope that they dried before he was able to see his wrongdoing. All of this took place in the doorway of the hotel room's hall, and you had no idea (and no intent to know) what could have happened if this had taken place anywhere else.
"I fucking love you, okay?" he mumbled in a depressing way. He was on the edge.
You slammed your eyes shut, trying to tune out the horrible world around you. You didn't want to be there anymore, battling against everyone's weaknesses. You wanted to be home with your parents again. Why did they always have to be erased from your mind in ways that didn't even make sense? You never saw them, and when you needed them most, they weren't there. Now that you thought about it, your whole life had royally screwed ever since they left you to take care of yourself two years ago, intending to kill the family name. They abandoned you the same way you absconded Jeff. By ignoring your needs.
You were ripped out of your trance when you were pushed to the ground by a force driven by resentment. Your arm was the first to hit, and it hurt like hell. To make things worse, you just laid on the floor and didn't even bother trying to get back up. You'd be shot down again.
He saw your puffy eyes before the clock chimed and was taken aback by your appearance. And almost as if he was previously infested by a ghost, he strained his view trying to understand what had just occurred. Even though he didn't know what it was, he still regretted it. He plopped down on his knees and tried to help you up gently. And he stared at your arm, shaking his head at the swelling redness by your elbow. He had no clue why you were so upset.
"What happened to you?" he asked. And when he finally realized what was going on, eyes chirping with anticipation, he added, "You're just hallucinating-!"
"I don't care," you said. "Leave me alone now."
You had stopped having hallucinations. But reality started to become just as frightening as they used to be. Especially since reality was telling you that he was a monster reaching for a pistol on the counter. Was that always there? Was the bullet going to hurt? The metal wasn't as shiny as it was on the guns shown in movies. It was utterly grey and lacking self-motivation.
He aimed. You were scared.
After all, he wanted you to be scared.
Bang.