Page 12

It felt like the walls were closing in on me, a writhing mass of maggots, each one squirming its way across the surface to get to me. I could see them dropping off the ceiling and landing on me one by one. I shook my head but the itching crawling sensation intensified. It spread across my face, down my arms and across every centimetre of skin that covered my body. I wanted to claw at my skin and rip it off, free myself from this living nightmare as it threatened to consume me.

Every step was accompanied by a squelching crunch under my feet and a thick viscous liquid swelled between my toes coating them in entrails or blood or both. My boots stuck to the floor like it was a black pool of tar, leeches suctioning to me with every step.

Bile rolls and churns in my gut, the pressure building until it is pulsing up and down my throat searing the tender flesh. I raise my hands and my breath catches in my throat, a vice constricting around my lungs tightening the locks one notch at a time.

A silent scream echoes in my head as I stare at my hands. Where they should be pale pink flesh, broken nails with chipped black polish there is only bone; from my phalanges to my metacarpals, there is just bone. Desiccated and sun bleached, weak and pitted. The smallest amount of pressure would make them fold in on themselves, flake away and turn to dust.

My skeletal fingers are sharp like razor blades as I wrench them down my face. I can feel the skin flaying from my skull as they slice through my flesh from temple to chin. Until it’s hanging off it in mutilated chunks of fat, and muscle exposed as thick blood starts to seep from the wounds like a swollen river ready to burst its banks.

A mutinous bellow makes the walls tremble and the ground shake underneath me. My knees buckle as I try to keep my balance. My hands fly out attempting to grab hold of something to save myself from being swallowed by the black pool that’s slithering tendrils up my calves. My heart stutters in my chest as my hands sink into the writhing mass of bodies moving on the walls and sink into it as it engulfs me slowly. First my hand as liquid ice permeates my skin and sinks into my veins. Moving up to my elbows as it continues to devour me.

All consuming fear rips me to pieces making me spontaneously combust. My body shatters as I watch my insides be obliterated. Fragments of bone fly through the air, drops of blood and other viscous substances rain down around me with a haunting pitta patta. As part of my lung sinks into the black pool at my feet, it oozes, swallowing it and slurping up my entrails as they fall from me.

My eyes blink rapidly like a computer trying to reboot but it’s stuck on repeat until someone pulls the plug and it all goes black.

Heaving breaths are wrenched from my chest as my feet thunder down the back hallway on the way to the art room as my body slowly morphs itself back together. Inhumane screams following me down the deserted corridor. The temperature drops, ice crystallises on the window panes spreading like a glistening spider web across the glass.

Acrid rotten breaths punch against the back of my neck, permeating the air like poison. My nose and throat burn as I try to suck in precious oxygen as the cogs tighten the vise around my lungs.

I trip and stumble as black tentacles wrap around my ankles from the black moving pool at my feet trying to drag me down. “Fuck.” I rasp barely more than a whisper.

A bloodthirsty howl reverberates around me, the sound waves thick and capable as they pummel against my skin, sucking the energy from me.

Tick, tock.

Tick, tock.

Tick, tock.

Drenched in sweat I collide with the solid oak door to the art room. Ragged breaths punching their way up and down my raw throat. I swipe the back of my hand across my face wiping away the rivulets of liquid that are flowing over my skin. I pull it back expecting to see thick blood and tissue, only to see my dark blue hoodie nearly black with sweat.

“Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.” I chant as I push the door open, the walls of the room bow as if they’re about to explode but instead, they vibrate and with each shuttering blink they stabilise and fall still. My heart is hammering so hard in my chest I can almost feel my ribs cracking under the relentless abuse.

I clench my fists expecting to see bone carving into bone but all there is are broken black nails digging into pale pink flesh leaving blood reddened half moons where the first layer of skin has broken

I take deep inhales and my senses are overwhelmed with the earthy scent of paint and turpentine. The subtle flavours of paper that dance across my tongue and the tick cloying smell of rubber. I shake my head trying to clear the drugging tendrils of darkness from my addled mind and snap my eyes open when I hear an unmistakable voice.

“Maxamilian!” Michelle squeals, bouncing in her seat next to Kait. I take a step forward and follow her voice blindly before stumbling onto the only free seat in the room.

“She thought we’d try Roman names today,” Kait snorts, rocking like a precariously balanced spinning top at the edge of a table. “We’ll figure out your name one of these days.” Her volume control is out of whack, is she drunk already? She’s basically shouting in my ear but has her hand cupped round it like she’s whispering.

“Kait.” I pull her hands away from my head, placing them on the table as her voice ricochets around the inside of my skull dredging up the meagre contents of my stomach. I place my finger over her lips. “Shhh. You need to calm it before they give you a breath test.”

“Pssht.” She slams her hand down on the table with a derisive snort and winks. “Theo, has a thing for me, you know,” she slurs, fluffing her black curls just as Theo’s voice echoes down the hallway. “He won’t get me in trouble. I can always offer him a reward for his silence.” Batting her lashes at me like butter wouldn’t melt before she almost tips off her chair in her inebriated state.

“Think it’s time I played matchmaker,” Michelle chirps, lacing her fingers together and stretching her arms out palms first like she’s preparing for battle. She does this before every art therapy session she once said she was limbering up her awesomeness but it’s just one of her little idiosyncrasies.

We all have them, random unexplained quirks. Things that make us different, the reason why we’re shunned by those who are considered ‘normal’. Jenna said we’re just made up differently like a mosaic with a million different facets rather than a standard plank of wood.

We’re individuals. Perfect… Neurodivergent. We didn’t break the mould, we were created outside of its parameters. Whatever the fuck that means, pretty sure I woke myself up snoring when she went on explaining it all because it’s all lies isn’t it? Another way to try and make me conform to their rules.

I don’t know what Jenna hopes to achieve with our sessions. She will never be able to see the world through my eyes, she’ll never truly understand what created me because she’s never experienced it. There are not enough graves in the whole of England to bury the pieces of me that have died.

“Welcome everyone.” Theo’s gaze darts around the room from underneath his black rimmed glasses, a soft smile lifting his lips. His obsessive sunny disposition used to make me feel like carving layers of skin off my arms but now it’s a buzzing white noise that I choose to ignore.

“Isn’t he just dreamy?” Kait muses, resting her head in her hands as her elbows thunk down on the table making Michelle titter a laugh.

“He does look rather fetching today.” Michelle wiggles her eyebrows as she looks him over slowly from his feet to his head. Leaning back she makes a frame with her thumb and index fingers as she studies him. “The way the sunlight glints off his golden curls. He’s your goldilocks.”

“What the fuck?” I gape at her just as Kait’s cheeks stain red.

“Nothin’.” She snickers, shrugging.

“Alright everyone.” Theo claps his hands to get our attention but mine is trained on the two girls sitting next to me. “Today we’re going to create a piece that reflects our current emotions. You can use whatever medium you like. If you need to use a prohibited item please come to me, your safety is my first priority.”

“Yeah, and then some.” Kait shoves Michelle’s shoulder with a heated glare. “You gonna need scissors or a chisel for printing?”

Snorting Michelle rolls her lip between her teeth, “Or something.”

“Once your pieces are finished and only if you feel comfortable we’ll discuss your pieces as a group. Someone else might be feeling what you are but unable to put it into words, you never know who you might be able to help with your words and art.”

Flinging her hand in the air like we’re at school Kait blurts with a wicked smirk stretching across her face. “Isn’t art subjective though, Theo?”

“It is.” He clears his throat and I swear I can see hearts in his eyes. “That’s why we’re going to discuss your creations. What you see when you create it might be interpreted differently by someone else, but neither viewpoint is wrong, just different.”

“Huh.” She grins manically at him until his cheeks are underlit by heat.

“Alright then everyone. Grab what you need and get started, feel free to use the tables or the easels set up around the edge of the room. I’ll come round and check in with each of you throughout today’s session.”

“Eeeeekkk, this is gonna be so much fun, Kait.” Michelle giggles linking their arms and dragging her off to get set up at their favourite easels.

My eyes heavy with exhaustion fall closed and when I finally manage to pull them open the room has been replaced with a writhing mass like the hallway earlier. I can feel them crawling and wriggling all over me. Sinking sharp teeth in and drawing blood, the electric burn of pain ejects me from the delusion.

I rub my eyes with the heels of my hands as my vision clears and it takes a second for my brain to catch up and realise the pain is the blade currently slicing into my palm. Fuck! That’s meant to be hidden away in my room, I slump dropping my head to the cool table and inhale a shuddering breath as I try and order the maelstrom of thoughts in my head but they keep slipping through my hands like water.

My free hand cards through my hair, fingers wrapping around the strands trying to anchor me in reality but something keeps pulling at my fractured mind, unravelling me with all the savagery of a black hole. Sucking me back into the endless darkness. A haunting howl ricochets inside my skull making the bones in my body vibrate and my eyes clamp shut. The thundering sound of hooves on hard ground echoes around me and a deep rumbling growl baying for blood taunts me from my subconscious.

I start to run, my muscles burn as I push myself to my limits, pumping my arms and legs as the ground falls away beneath me. I chance a look over my shoulder as a blood red monster materialises from the aether and I fall into the black expanse at my feet.

Tick, tock.

Tick, tock.

Tick, tock.

“I know exactly what I’m going to do.” The words fly from my mouth as I land back in my body, jolting upright and blinking profusely as blinding brightness sears my eyes.

“Brilliant.” Theo’s hand lands on my shoulder squeezing it and I flinch. “I can’t wait to see it.”

“Don’t fucking touch me, man,” I growl. His eyes widen as he steps away slowly, hands raised in surrender.

“S-sorry, eighteen.”

My seat falls to the floor as I push it back with an anguished snarl and stalk across the room over to the sink weaving through the throng of inmates milling around. Shoulder checking some guy in a pink polo shirt with the collar up I scoff as he turns a glare towards me and snap my teeth in his direction, smirking when he flinches and stumbles back into one of his douchebag friends.

A path clears for me like the red sea as the idiots step back with wary eyes and I make my way to the sink grabbing what I need, before quickly stopping off at my allocated drawer to get my sketchbook and a small pot of red paint. Electricity hums under my skin making the hairs on my arms and the back of my neck stand on end. The monsters in my head howl, shriek and snarl, claws extended gouging at the bones of the prisons that hold them.

My fist connects with my temple in a futile effort to subdue them as they revel in my pain making me grit my teeth. Flicking through the full pages of my sketchbook until I find a blank double page, pure and innocent like freshly fallen snow. My tongue runs along my chapped bottom lip softening it before I sink my teeth in and chew the flesh. I surreptitiously glance around checking no one is paying me the slightest bit of attention, which, unsurprisingly they’re not. I pull the butterfly knife from my sleeve and flip it open and slice into the soft flesh of my palm about an inch down from my little finger.

I watch enraptured as bright red rubies bead around the dull silver blade. My mouth waters as the copper tang reaches my nostrils. I inhale its intoxicating scent as it coats my taste buds and squeeze until my blood is welling around the knife and trickling down my hand. Raising my hand over the pure, blank pages I push harder and clamp my fingers around it in a vise-like grip and watch as droplets of blood fall like the first drops of rain in a desert staging the arid land that swallows them up.

The juxtaposition between red and white. Innocence and purity versus sacrifice and danger, calls to all the pieces of me that have died at the hands of the devil over the last ten years. I let them splatter marring the page, staining it with my pain, my fear and my unrelinquishing agony. But it’s not enough. The viscous liquid is too thick for what I need. I need something more malleable and wild.

With an aching sigh I lick the blade clean savouring the flavour of my pain and slip the knife into the side of my boot. Hiding away the temptation, the oblivion it represents, it’s dangerous and alluring calling to me like a siren’s song. But the hot stale breath brushing against my neck switches my mind into hyperfocus.

I mix the red paint with a small amount of water and sprinkle it onto the paper using a pipette watching as tendrils of it flow into my blood, a perfectly marbled composition. My monster howls, gnashing its maws, drool pooling between its teeth, shaking the doors of its cage. I blow watching the combined liquids spread and stain the page, contaminating it as my monster forms before my eyes as rivulets of red stain and splinter through the fibres of the paper. Wild and terrifying as it is pulled from the deepest recesses of my obliterated mind.

The world around me fades away as I give myself over to my subconscious and the monster that’s being released from its cage. Nothing else matters apart from exposing it in all its horrific savagery. It’s a demon inside of me feeding off the darkest most traumatic moments of my past, they play inside my head like flickering shadows sucking me dry and shredding my soul. The flashbacks ricochet through me like a knife driving into my heart and I’m an innocent bystander shackled by my pain watching the blood of my innocence pour from my ravaged body.

My fingers absentmindedly trail across the coarse wooden surface of the desk until they wrap around the pen I picked up earlier. I start to work into the fresh bloody tendrils with the black ink shading, adding depth and form to the monster that stalks me every second of every day making me suffer and relive my torture.

Jagged spines and horns appear from my spilt blood, porturing from gnarled bones that resemble vertebrae and ribs, elongated twisted skulls with teeth sharp enough to rend flesh from bone and hollow fathomless eye sockets that will suck your soul out. Razor sharp claws curl and writhe coming off the paper with the power to split my brain open and pull memories from the darkness I’ve tried to bury them in, refusing to let my suffering off.

I can’t form the words to say what I’ve experienced, what turned me into the living dead but my hands can show it without the need for dredging my spiralling mind. Every one of my nightmares resides in this monster on my page, and I’m held hostage in my body—a small eight year old boy just desperate to be loved. To be wanted. To be chosen.

A piercing scream shatters the silence that’s been suffocating me. My mouth is open but no sound leaves my throat. It’s trapped in the past inside me on an endless loop as a child’s crying face appears before my eyes clutched between crushing jaws, tears falling in torrents.

I’m engulfed in an endless darkness inside and out as the monsters feed off my suffering. I’m helpless. Nails claw at the flesh of a human skeleton held down and crushed by a taloned skeletal foot. Rivers of blood seep through cracks in the desiccated bones pooling off the page and armoured arachnid shaped legs crawl from the cracked open skull tearing off pieces of brain.

My mind and body disconnect. I’m lost to the tumultuous maelstrom of emotions surging with me, unable to keep my head above water they suck me back under and pummel me into the unending night of oblivion that is always chasing me. I’d welcome it if it was death’s cool embrace but this isn’t, this is fear and hunger so grotesque nothing you can do will escape it. It’s a poison, a cancer eating away at me.

Untethered and broken.

Lost.

Abandoned.

Human hands with peeling flesh and open sores, claws of all sizes and shapes, scratch and maul at my body, tearing into my skin through muscle to bone. I’ve lost agency over my body, autonomy over myself. My brain shattered and crushed, rewired and broken. The world is reshaped, reformed and terrifying. There is no safety to be found in the dark and the light is not my friend. I want to cry and scream and beg for justice for someone to hear me and save me but what’s the point. I’m being suffocated until my lungs can’t inflate, they’re screaming for oxygen.

My heart is screaming for acceptance and understanding.

My soul is screaming for its other half, its count point, its balance. The light to its ruinous darkness.

Screaming.

Screaming.

Screaming.

My monster snarls, moving across the page in its new cage. Taunting and goading, ravenous for blood and pain. Extracting it from me by a million needles raining down on me like artillery fire. Sinking into my arms, hands, legs and head.

Pain surges, lava melts my veins as I throw my head back and unleash a sound so inhuman that it’s been pulled from the depths of hell. Blood flows across my tongue and coats my teeth, seeping down my lips. Tears burn my skin like acid as they fall like rivers down my face.

“Shit. Shit. Shit.”

Blackness engulfs me like an eclipse. A roaring wind blows through my ears drowning out the howling beats.

“Get everyone out of here now!”

“Someone get doctor Jenna. NOW.”

A whisper trickles across the raging torrents of my mind, trying to pull me back from the edge that I’m throwing myself over. The world falls away and I feel like I’m being tossed around like a rag doll. My bones break and reform as my monster tries to take control of me.

I’m cold. So, so cold and numb.

“I won’t let you go, angel. Come back to me.”