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4
Aiden
The plan was going to shit. No, not just shit. It was going to the bottom of the goddamn toilet, where it was festering like some insidious mold.
“Leave tonight? Leave tonight? Leave tonight, my fucking ass,” I murmured to myself as I stormed into my dorm room a short while later. I kicked at the leg of my bed, releasing curse after curse as my anger and frustration at the world bombarded me. I roared, pulling at my black hair, before moving to the bedside table and throwing it over. The lamp shattered into hundreds of pieces, though I barely paid it any mind.
Kace, who’d followed me into our shared room, moved despondently to his own bed and sat down, his back against the wall. He brought his knees up to his chest and wrapped his arms around them, his expression wary and drawn.
“Aiden…” Kace said, a hint of warning in his tone.
I spun towards my best friend, baring my teeth at him. He barely glanced up from where he was staring intently at the top of his knees.
“What? What the fuck am I supposed to do?” I demanded, moving to the closet, wrenching it open, and tossing all of the uniforms onto the ground. It was childish, sure, but I wanted to break something. I wanted the world to bleed. “If what Bianaca said is the truth, we’re in motherfucking Purgatory! And…” The words got caught in my throat as pain bombarded me, branding my flesh for all the world to see. “And Josie…” My legs wobbled, threatening to give out on me, but I channeled the pain into white-hot rage and moved to my bed, bending down to upheave it.
Kace watched me with a deadened expression.
“What’s the point of escaping?” he asked after a moment of silence. He twisted his head so his cheek was now resting on his knee. From this position, his eyes were trained on the door, making it impossible to tell what he was thinking.
Kace never admitted to me out loud that he suffered from bipolar disorder, but I knew. I’d suspected as much whenever he would disappear for days at a time or lie in bed, unmoving, but I only had my suspicions confirmed when I found a bottle of his medication. I didn’t understand what exactly my best friend was going through, but I knew a battle was being waged inside of his own mind. Demons fighting demons. Monsters slaying monsters. I wanted to help him, but I didn’t know how. Words somehow seemed inadequate when I knew he was struggling.
“You doing okay, man?” I asked with feigned lightness.
This was the part I hated about being the leader. If you were a good one—no, not just a good one, but a great one, you learned to compartmentalize your own feelings, your own emotions, for the good of the group. People called it autopilot, but I referred to it as survival.
You couldn’t lead the masses when you struggled to control your own thoughts.
Though…
I wanted to fall apart again.
I wanted to break and scream and cry, giving the world my middle finger while simultaneously destroying it.
My sister, the light of my life, wasdead.Gone. Eaten by some fucking monster while I remained oblivious. What type of brother was I to allow that to happen? Oh god. Josie…
I shoved all thoughts of my sister in a steel barricaded box, locking it up tight and then throwing away the key. This wasn’t healthy, I knew, but I had no other choice. If I allowed myself to think about her, think about what happened, I’d fall apart.
But this box wasn’t a foolproof option. It was riddled with explosives, and at any moment, it would ignite, burn, then explode. I knew when that happened, a barrage of hidden feelings and emotions would wash over me. Drown me. Fucking kill me.
I couldn’t allow that box to break. Not until I knew for sure my friends were safe.
So I did what I did best, what a lifetime of pain and suffering had taught me—I emptied myself, so I felt nothing at all.
“Kace,” I said again, pleased when my voice remained strident. Firm. “Are you okay?’
“Just leave without me,” he whispered in a broken whisper. “Just go.”
“Afraid I can’t do that.” I moved towards his drawer, where I knew he kept his pill bottle. I had no idea if it fucking worked where we were, but it was worth a try.
Where we were.
In Purgatory.
In Limbo, to be exact.
Hanging on to life.
Dying.
