The Insane

(tw: mental health, substance abuse, violence, death)

The woman of fiery red hair was drawn to something that others feared, drawn to something that could disturb one's mind. She was drawn to something that was feted with medication, drawn to something others strived to cure, drawn to something that made people wail and cry out in mental misery and stress. She was drawn to her hallucinations, elicited by continuous drug abuse and the toxic process of hourly alcoholism. What could become one's vastest fear had turned into her very own addiction. Something she could not go without. She needed it, she needed to feel it, be all absorbed by oh so many pretentious images that projectedd her hallucinations clearly, no matter how cruel they were, how vicious they were shredding through her mind, breaking her down, pushing her to the ground, disrupting her peaceful thoughts, severing her apart, she needed them. She needed all of them and she could never go without them. As others craved their daily dose of caffeine, she had her postures of feeling all devoured and sickened into the chasms of her own hallucinations.

It was rather clear how shattered her mind was, how truly insane she was. Pure insanity, that was the person everyone knew her to be. No part of her analyzed she was still sane in any part of her persona and that was as true as it could get. She had hurt, destroyed, and killed but she did not even know. She had done it...without mercy. Taken life, but it was as if those memories had almost entirely been wiped from her mind, because of how little she even understood what she was doing herself, only these few hallucinations related to that, gave her the hints of what had happened. It was always the same, yet always different. Bloodied shards of glass dropping to the ground with painfully loud clings. Water dripping. Bodies thumping. Blood scattering over fabric and across concrete ground and a voice, a whisper. Male. A voice so soft and threatening that it sickened her each time.

Never did she even begin to think how terrible of a person she was. She laughed and she kept going, always unaware of where her insanity might take her or what her madness may lead her to do. There was no question that this young woman was completely insane, utterly and completely insane. There was truly... only madness in her mind.

Her eyes closed slowly. The leftover combination of alcoholic substance and pills devoured her and caused her to lay her head to the side. She had no concept of time while in that state. Half asleep, half on alert...subsequently to the prior three awful years. She genuinely felt that she was unsafe Believed that life could never be good again. The world seemed to fade away, everything seemed to become numb and cold and darkness consumed her. She slipped into something she did not understand. She looked different. Maybe a bit younger by two or three years. She saw herself, felt herself, leaning over the body of him, holding him, trying to feel that closure. She wants to say something, scream his name. But she couldn't, she wasn't really there. Just witnessing it all from a place she doesn't quite understand. It was a dream but it felt too real. Then the dark man from the shadows begins to talk, a sound so simultaneously aggressive and childish that it sickens her. Her full presence feels like it isn't there but at the same time, she was sure that she was really there because she could still feel it. The irritating coldness emitting off of the walls, the sounds of rain dropping down onto the roof and metal bars, seeing the broken water drain, bubbling of muddy water. She felt it all and then there was her pain and the apathetic screams that weren't hers because she wasn't there.

She watched the man from the shadows approach more and saw the girl and the boy on the ground, listening to the screams of agony and the whispers that left his mouth. Too fast the scene faded into blackness, leaving Valerie in a void of nothing but her thoughts. She had gone back to that dreadful day. She always did when she closed her eyes. The ache inside of her was deep and gnawing, bitter and violent.

"Wake up! Wake up!"

"Wake up from what? This isn't a dream, little Val" a rough voice would cackle in her ear.

She cursed herself. Troubled by the threatening darkness that tried to pull her further into complete oblivion. Leaving her with nothing but the fear that this indeed was reality and she couldn't face it but even if it was a dream she only had the strongest urge to wake up from what she hoped was only an awful dream because nothing in the world that was so terrifying could actually be real or could it be? Was she in that broken house?

Would she prefer this to be real or to be a nightmare? Valerie had never been able to tell the difference between nightmare and reality.

Because no matter what, she continued to hear the thump sound of Lucas' body hitting the ground from when she had just moved a single second too late. Too late to safe him, to jump in front of him maybe or pull him back from danger, shield him from being hurt at all. The sound was like a piercing rattle in her head. Trickles of fear filled her body. It was only a dream or was it? Deep unconsciousness. Then finally something pulled her from it. A bright light. She fought the fear that consumed her, hacking down onto Herz it was a massive force that clamped her down.

"Andy!"

She screamed out with her mind. But he didn't hear. She called his name. Again and again, as she kept on endeavouring against the aggressive pull of what tried to make her understand reality but what was real? This was a dream. It had to be. Then finally it happened. Reality swept in, brushing away the darkness as if it had never been there. Engulfed in terror, Valerie opened her eyes shot up into a sitting position. Then she screamed his name. This time for real, immediately trying to reach out for any kind of closure to him. Her heart beating faster and faster against her rib cage. Adrenaline surging through her veins like racing cars over the freeways. It was pumping and beating, in a way as if it was trying to escape and her eyes darted through the horrid place. It was not her bed, not her room, not her home. It was still the darkened building. It was no nightmare. She still laid here, trapped, stared upon the man from the shadows, releasing his manic laughter.