The Uncanny Valley - Corey Taylor FF (Slipknot/Stone Sour)

10

Tears. Calming and conveying solace but breaking down every wall you have ever built with so much difficulties. Sometimes revealing secrets you buried furthest down your soul. Silencing your thoughts and assassinating your happiness. Making you feel weak when you are supposed to act brave. The virtuoso of waking you up from the dream you have been dreaming, saving you out of the worst nightmare or ripping you out of the most heavenly dream one can have. Tears feel hot while streaming down your cheeks, leaving behind an ice cold feeling. A trench on your skin like the bomb that detonates in the crook of your arm before showing you god himself shooting through your veins.
I could not think of drugs now, not now. The interplay of hot and cold marked my face while I fought my way through the branches and bushes before I found myself in the middle of the street. Only lit by a single lantern, palm-fringed and oh so welcoming to probably everybody but me. Because right now, I only saw the headlights blinding me. They got bigger and bigger, giving me the solace that my own tears failed to give. Bigger and bigger, nearer and nearer and I closed my eyes.
"Kaelyn!"
I opened them again. There was no car. I wished for one overrunning me, breaking my bones and stopping this. Stopping the painful heartthrobs, the craving for drugs and his face in front of me. It was dark and the lantern remained as the only light, staying exactly where it was.
I felt arms wrapped around me but I felt numb. This could not be true. This must be a nightmare, just like he said. An imagination, just like he thought. Not real. Not real...
Someone whispered my name right below my ear, but it wasn't him. It felt so unreal how I shoved her away and looked at her, empty inside, marked from my tears outside. Constant sobbing leaving my throat. I wanted to get angry, I wanted to scream, hit something, someone, I wanted to feel. But I couldn't. No noise would leave my mouth, no limb would move.
He isn't even running after you. He wouldn't even try to catch you in a dream. Instead, he would just stare in disgust, as if you've had hurt him. As if it was your fault he betrayed you and as if it was you cheating. Instead, he yelled you were an imagination.
"KAELYN!"
My head shot up, meeting Lia's gaze. Her eyes were shocked and she looked as if she saw a ghost. Seems like she was talking to me. Someone appeared at her side. Two guys, actually. And it suddenly hit me because I recognized the red-haired guy. They also said something. I had only heard it in a distance as if someone had have plugged my ears with cotton. Giving me just the distance I needed right now.
"What.. I'm... Kaelyn," she tried, but probably too unsure of what to say she kept to herself. After another few seconds, she seemed to realize that we were standing in the middle of the road though and she tried to grab my arm, but I took a step back.
"You knew?" Was it a question or a statement?
"Kaelyn we are standing in the middle of -"
"I asked if you knew," I spoke a bit clearer, my voice hoarse but seemingly as cold as I felt.
Silence. Another set of tears tore it's way out of my eyes but I refused to blink or react in any way. She could see them, could see what she did to me. I had trusted her.
"How would I.. what would I know?" she tried, but the guilt in her face spoke more than a thousand words could ever have done. I took another step back, feeling a stone under my sole.
"Don't...just... just fuck off."
"Please, Kae, I don't... I mean..." she searched for words but I would not let her speak up again. Did she really think I would want to listen to her pathetic excuses and her words full of lies? Or theirs? Instead, I just started to walk away from her. I heard her saying something again, heard her new friends yell something after me but I was done with her and I was done with them. This was just too much. I don't really know how long I walked alongside the road but after some minutes, maybe hours, I realized that nearly all my things were in the car. With Lia. I closed my eyes, took a deep breath and tried to calm myself. Wiping away the salty trails from my face I sat on a big stone and emptied my pockets. A few coins, my cigs, and my lighter. At least something. Still shaking uncontrollably I lit one of my little carcinogen sticks and inhaled deeply. After I smoked one, two, I kept following the road again. Searching for a payphone. Wondering that nobody followed me, even though I was glad about that fact at the same time, I eventually ended at a gas station. Trying to adjust myself for one last time I entered just to get a sympathetic smile from the woman behind the counter. So much for making myself look like a proper human being again.
"Dear, can I help you?" she asked me and as if I was in trance I answered. Next thing I know is sitting in a fancy car, lamps and lights flashing through the window, blurring into each other like rain into a sea. A comforting hand on my shoulder. When he stopped the engine everything was quiet. He stared out of the window as far as I could tell and I just stared at my hands which I had folded in my lap. I then heard him getting off the car and shutting the door noisily. The gravel crunched beneath his weight and eventually I heard him opening my door. Hence, I found enough courage to look at him again. The flashback came without any warning and instead of Mason opening my door I saw his face again, his watery blue eyes and his slicked back hair. I shook my head and watched Mase again, flashed him a crooked half smile and pushed myself up and out of the car. My feet hit the gateway and the gravel crunched beneath me.