Pain is of the essence

Rewrite CH.3

Everything was quiet. The horizon was flat. Nothing for as far as he could see. The ground a deep, void black, sucking up all light and color. The sky the opposite. A bright glowing white that threatened to blind him. A thin layer of thick water covered the ground, coming just to his ankles, soaking his feet.

But who was 'him'? He looked down at his hands, but they weren't his hands, at least they didn't feel like they were. It felt as though he was in an entirely different body. As though he didn't know who he was, or if he was 'him'. Who was 'him'? As these thoughts plagued him, the hands changes.

Fingers grew, erupting from these hands at all angles. Some were on his palms, the back of his hands, the side or even on his wrists. They all varied as well, from thumb to pinkie fingers in appearance. Soon, there was no more room on his (?) hands. To combat this, finger began to disappear or fall off, only to be replaced. This all was happening in seconds.

Suddenly, he felt the urge to get away from these hands. He stumbled back, but the hands followed. His feet caught on one another, and he fell. The boy landed on his rear end. He sat, half soaked, leaning back slightly with his hands supporting him from behind.

As he recovered from the sudden change in position, he quickly brought his hands out in front of him. They were no longer growing and loosing fingers, but they were now starting to slowly decompose. Fear settled like a rock in his stomach, like a boulder. Hot tears pricked his eyes and a lump swelled in his throat.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw something. It was floating in the water in from of him. When he looked away from his hand at the thing, he almost puked. It was his face, or what he thought was his face. It was Ranboo's face. But he had a half circle porcelain mask on that covered the bottom half of his face with a painted smile.

As he stared in horror at the thing, two slime, pale, long hands settled on his shoulders, making him jump. He turned so fast and didn't even notice that his arms had completely decayed. The face that greeted him was covered in a full circle mask, a simply painted smiley face on it. "Hello Ranboo."

Ranboo woke with a start, in a room he didn't immediately recognize. This, obviously, terrified him. Hot tears fell down his face. His face, and he wiped them away with his hands. He was real, this was his body (he hoped). But as the effects of the dream wore off, he slowly realized that he was, in fact, in a room he recognized. His room, specifically.

Sighing angrily, he fell back onto the bed with a hard flop. He stared at the ceiling, the large fan circling just out of the corner of his eye. He could hear the hum and the moving of the blades. The white popcorn ceiling seemed to become extremely interesting as he studied every shadow and peak.

The feeling of hands on his shoulders still haunted his thoughts. Like when you feel bugs crawling on your legs while you try to sleep, even when you know they aren't there. It was the same. He wasn't here, he was in an asylum the last time he heard about his whereabouts. He was safe, even if it didn't feel like it.

Suddenly, the song Once Upon a Dream play through his phone. He flung off the blanket and walked to his cluttered desk, where he tapped the off button on the alarm. He stood in place for a moment as he stared at the neon green numbers that read 6:00. He finally came back to reality, blinking a couple times, 3 minutes had already passed.

He sighed at how he had tuned out again. Turning to his dresser. Infront sat a simple Hawaiian t-shirt, black long sleeve shirt and black sweatpants. He had picked this outfit last night. He really liked the 'dad' shirts, they were comfortable. He quickly grabbed them and began to change for the day.

He looked at himself in the mirror, he had bags under his eyes, which was understandable, he hadn't gotten to sleep until one in the morning. He hated his insomnia. Not only because it stopped him from sleeping, but when he finally got to sleep, he always had nightmares. And usually that made him sleep walk. Thankfully today was one of the rare times it didn't happen, he didn't want to freak Alex out.