Ride with you

17

Darryl sat on his bed, he was restless and his knee was bouncing up and down. He had hoped that he wouldn't see this room for a long time but here he was, sitting in the place that he used to call home. The door slowly opened and he looked up to see his mother. "Hey honey, how are you doing?" Darryl looked back down at the floor, "I'm doing... I'm doing just fine." His mother sighed and walked to his bed sitting next to him, "I'm glad your home, Darryl,"
"M-me too mum," he wanted to cry. He wanted to break down, but he couldn't, not in front of his own mother. "Do you need anything hun?" Darryl shook his head and she stood up. Just as she stepped out the door she turned back and smiled, "If you need anything, just call me," Darryl nodded.

The door shut and almost immediately tears started streaming down his face. The thing he was most worried about was what they were going to do to Zak. He placed his head in his hands and thought for a moment. He needed to get out of here with Zak as soon as possible. He did it once, he can do it again. As thoughts and plans swirled around his head, his mother entered his room again. "Darryl, dear, are you ok?" He looked up and quickly wiped his face with his forearm. "Yeah, yeah, I'm fine. Just really happy to be back," he whimpered. Pretending, he was good at that. His mother smiled slightly, "Well you should get some rest, you have an appointment with your therapist tomorrow,"
"What?"
"I'll be driving you to your therapist at 10:30 tomorrow. Do you want me to pick you up so we can get something for lunch?" He hesitated, then an idea popped into his head. "No, I think it would be best for me if I had time to clear my head afterwards, I'll just walk home." His mother nodded and then turned off the light as she closed the door, "Alright, get some rest," her soft voice spoke.

***

Darryl opened his eyes to a dark room. He took a step forward but stumbled to the ground. It felt like there was a force pushing up against him from every direction. The floor was cold and felt hard like concrete. Suddenly a spotlight turned on. Darryl stood up and looked to where it was pointing. Zak. The beeps of a heart monitor were playing from a speaker somewhere, they were Zak's heartbeats. He had the chords for a heart monitor attached to him and they all conjoined to one single chord, which led off into the darkness. Instead of laying on a hospital bed, he was chained up to a wall, like a dangerous criminal in medieval times. Darryl began to panic, "Zak!" He cried as he sprinted in his direction. Zak looked a lot closer than he actually was. Zak opened his eyes, "Darryl?" Sounded Zak's voice from the same, missing speaker. Just as Darryl got close, the floor collapsed underneath him.

As he fell into the black abyss, he heard the heart monitor stop as the long, high pitch sound began playing around him. He covered his ears, desperately trying to get the noise out of his head.

He suddenly landed in a chair. He caught his breath and looked up, seeing a very familiar room. The therapy room. Taylor smiled as they made eye contact, "It's great that your back, time for your pills." She held out her hands revealing multiple different pills. They began melting and dissolving parts of her hands like acid. Her skin and flesh began melting and her voice deepened, "If you don't take them, you'll burn in hell." The objects around him began to melt as he stood up and ran out the door. He slammed it behind him and saw Alex standing on the other side. He walked up to Darryl and pressed his lips up against Darryl and pinned him up to the wall.

Darryl tried to push him away but his limbs became weak and he couldn't control his body. Alex put his hand up Darryl's shirt as the two of them embraced each other. Alex pulled away, breathing heavily, his hand still placed on Darryl's back. "We were only planning to make out right?"
"What?" Darryl mumbled in response. Alex removed his hand and suddenly morphed into Darryl's mother. "Were you planning to do more with him?"
"Mum?!?"
"You're a disappointment. If you weren't a sinner you would have been the perfect son."

Darryl shut his eyes and shook his head, "No! That's not true!" Suddenly it was silent. He heard the crackling of a warm fire and opened his eyes. Zak was resting his head on his shoulder. He sighed and began to whisper. "I wonder what would have happened if you hadn't burned your foot..."
"What?"
"Would you have gone all the way?"
"I-I," he hesitated. Darryl didn't know what to say, "I bet you would have. You wanted to do things to me, didn't you?"
"Zak,"
"Be quiet. I don't want to go hear anything from you." Zak stood up and walked towards the fire. He stepped onto the hot coals, his back turned to Darryl. "You're a demon. You are an awful person I don't see why you think we could be anything good."

The fire extinguished and everything became dark. Suddenly the space around him erupted the sound of people degrading him. He collapsed and covered his ears as he began to cry uncontrollably. "STOP IT! STOP IT PLEASE!" He cried. Begging for this hell to stop.

***

Darryl woke up in a cold sweat. He grabbed his chest as he tried to regulate his breathing. "Darryl! Get up and get ready! We leave in 1 hour!" Called out his mother from another room. He looked at his hands as they shook uncontrollably. He was not ready for today.