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It hurt. It hurt so much. His head wouldn’t stop ringing. The room was already so very cold, yet he left the window to his apartment open. Where was she? She came every night, every time he asked. Two weeks—not a text, not a call, and not even a glimpse of her face around town. He swore, though, he swore he heard her. Those familiar three knocks at the door that would tell him it was her and not anybody else. That oh so gentle voice that comforted him after particularly bad episodes. There was something wrong. She wasn’t comforting him like she always had, quite the opposite if he was honest with himself. “She” told him not to eat, to scratch at his skin till he bled, to curl up against the cold drywall of his kitchen like the little boy who had hid from his father when something happened.

He didn’t listen. He didn’t want to. He couldn’t listen. He knew better, he really did. The bathroom was so close, yet so out of reach. He fought his exhaustion and carried himself out of that creaky old bed frame who could only handle one person at a time. He knew he looked filthy, and the reflection in the mirror did nothing to prove him wrong. What happened to Alex who always took care of himself? Who smiled at everyone? Where did he go, and why did he leave this soulless husk as his legacy? He told himself it didn’t matter anyways, he had nobody he wanted to impress. As he scrubbed the toothbrush against his teeth, he tasted something almost metallic on his tongue. He stared at the item in his hand, and only then did he realize what he was holding. That was no brush. That was a razor stained with his own blood. He was losing it, wasn’t he? He was so, so far gone. Paranoia did him no good, especially not for a man with a chronic illness like his.

His head was still hurting. So much. Her voice rang through his ears, and no matter what he did, he couldn’t get it out. “Alex, why do you not listen? Why do you NEVER listen?” she would ask. He didn’t always focus on just her, though. There were other voices in his head too. Some told him to give in,  the others pleading with him to hold on to the last shred of sanity he had left. He was rotten before he was ripe, and if they cracked him open like a walnut, all they would find is a black pit of festering desire, where all of the good stuff was supposed to be. He was just about to scream, before he heard something. One knock. Two knocks. Three. “Open it, please.” a voice begged. “Don’t listen to her. She’s lying to you. Whoever is behind that door isn’t who you want it to be.” another voice mumbled, his tone full of disdain.

He didn’t listen to either. He waited till the knocking was long gone before he went to open the door. Nothing was there. Nobody at all. Sighing, poor Alex locked it before slumping down on his couch. It wasn’t a comfortable couch, with all its tears and escaping fluff, but it was still a couch nonetheless. He sat there, taking deep breaths. The feeling of being watched still wouldn’t go away. He shut his blinds, closed his windows, covered his mirrors, yet it never disappeared. At the end, he collapsed on the floor of his kitchen, curling up like the abused child that would always haunt him at the end of the day. He cried and cried, and it got to a point no tears would ever fall out. “Aria.. where did you go?” He sounded so young, so innocent. He stayed silent for a moment, before the thought hit him. The pills. The pills would fix this all. That’s what Aria said, anyway. He stood up so fast a person with iron deficiency would’ve fainted, and then rushed for the kitchen cabinet, yanking it open with all of his remaining strength. He swallowed the pills down with water immediately. 

It was too late when he realized what he had just digested. These were no pills. These were nuts, specifically the kind he was deathly allergic to. Why— he was ALLERGIC. He would never buy nuts? Were these from when Aria came over? She knew of his episodes, yet she kept them here. Poor, poor boy. Tricked by the one he trusted the most. His hands trembled, and he tried to speak, yet all that came out was a mindless mutter. “I.. please, what did I..?”

 The woman’s voice sounded so weak, and so gentle at the same time, “He was the sweetest man I’ve ever seen. The sweetest the world would ever get. I don’t know what drove him to do this, I loved him so much.” she told the reporter. The second the camera shifted its focus away from her, the viewers swore they saw what seemed to be a smile on her face.