John laid on the ground. His body was twisted and bent and wrapping around every part of him was thorns.
Standing above him was a young girl. She had a scowl on her face as she watched John writhe in pain below her.
"Don't you belive it now? There's no light at the end of this path. Only thorns." Sloth said
John looked up at her.
She was right. Why was he doing this? This pain...… This cutting agony that drills through the glass dome of your heart and reaches all the way to the churning ocean of your soul.
It wasn't worth it.
John slumped.
He looked ahead. No trees or any objects were obstructing John's view. So John could see clearly all the way off into the distance. And he saw darkness. It shined like a sunrise.
There was no point.
There was no sun. Only the shadows that it cast. Hopelessness. Because you can only see more when you hope less.
Yes. And John could see it. He was a logical and reasonable being. He could analyze the current situation around him and find the most logical answer.
The answer was simple in a place as thorny as this.
Death was the best way to go.
Flickering. Light. A light bulb deprived of electricity. It still doggedly flickered with the sparks that were given to it.
Flickering. Flashing through the dark. Making the dark ripple.
Then came a new voice.
"If not for you."
"Thank you."
"Even if you are going through something."
Flickering. Like gunfire.
Murderer. Sinner. Monster.
There it was. On the horizon. Barely visible through the veil of darkness. It was smaller than even the smallest star in the night sky.
"Sloth….. What happens when you don't stop moving?" John asked
Sloth looked down at John.
"You stop moving. What do you mean?"
"You generate a bit less heat. There's a bit less friction. Where there's heat and friction, there will inevitably be fire."
There were stars in John's shadow-shaded eyes. He'd seen it. Flickering.
"And where there's fire, there's light," John said
"Are you saying you want to make your own light?" Sloth asked
John shook his head.
"No. But if I keep moving. Then maybe I'll glow more. And if I glow more then maybe. Just maybe. Things will be a bit less dark."
"So you want to keep going?"
"I want to keep going."
.
…
...
...….
......….
"YIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIP!"
John was too tough to know if a fall could reliably kill him. His neck had too much muscle, and John was too heavy for a noose to do anything other than snap. The toughness of his skull would just crush a bullet. So there was only one other way.
John looked down at the two bottles in his hands. One was full of morphine and the other was full of sleeping pills. John knew from his monthly research that when sleeping pills and morphine were taken together, they caused death.
John swished his spit around in his mouth. He could taste a bit of each. But with John's size, he knew he would need to down a bottle of each for it to be fatal. He was fine. He was alive.
"YIP!"
"YIP!"
His two dragons. Naos and Neptune. They were beings that he loved more than anything. And right now, they were screaming at him like he was about to do something horrible.
John grabbed a shard of broken glass that had been on his shoulder. He watched it glimmer. The dragons were right.
He must have robbed a pharmacy.
Do I have multiple personalities or something?
He could guess what he'd done from his current state. But there was nothing he could know for sure because he had no recollection of the event.
"YIP! YIP! YIP! YIP!"
"YIP! YIP! YIP! YIP!"
Naos jumped on top of John. Neptune did the same. They both sat on John, trying to hold him down. John just giggled as he left them topple him. They were light. He could throw them off with almost no effort.
But he let them topple him.
John hugged the dragons.
"I'm fine. I'm fine. There's nothing wrong."
. ..
. ..
. ..
…
. ..
. ..
"I swear there's nothing wrong," John said
BANG! BANG! BANG!
John had found himself in an apartment with copious amounts of drywall. And now someone had broken through it.
John looked at the man. He had brown eyes that rattled with rage like an avalanche. He had a pistol in his hands and a look of utter anger on his face.
"FUCK NO! FUCK FUCK NO!" He screamed
"I WON'T FUCKING TOLERATE THIS FUCKING BULL SHIT. NONE OF THIS QUITTER-ASS I'M GOING TO END THE GAME BECAUSE I DIDN'T GET A HAPPY ENDING BULLSHIT. I WON'T STOMACHE YOU FUCKING SOULESS LITTLE SHITS SHOVING THAT IDEA UP MY GAY ASS!"
BANG!
John's dragons shuffled off him, and a rubber bullet slammed into John's flesh.
BANG! BANG!
"I AIN'T LIVIN' IN A WORLD WHERE A MAN MUTTERS OF DEATH AND EVERYONE JUST LETS HIM REST! FUCKING! FUCKING! FUCK!"
BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!
Four more bullets slammed into John.
John just looked up at him with a bored expression on his face.
Maybe I should shave my beard.
BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!
"THAT'S RIGHT! I'MMA SHOOT YOU UNTIL YOUR BODY BREAKS! BECAUSE I'M NOT LETTING THINGS END THAT WAY! CUZ IT'LL RUIN MY DAY!"
BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!
I should. I don't grow good facial hair. It always looks ragged. It's a shame. Then I can't hide my double chin.
John looked up at the man.
"Are you done?"
"ARE YOU FUCKING SANE!?!?!?"
"Yeah. I was just in a different feeling then."
The man nodded. His face held a serene calm. His eyes were brown like a dirt field.
"Good. Because I need to get to work."
He turned around and promptly walked away. John watched him go.
Never once In John's life had he doubted that a crack addict made this reality. And moments like these just reinforced this theory.
The man was gone. All that he left behind was a bunch of rubber bullets and a hole in the shape of his body.
John looked down at his medicine bottles.
~ should probably return this.