semi-automatic | joshler

5. light

notes:

this one's important.

Play the song: "Female Robbery" by The Neighbourhood.
That song actually describes this whole fic perfectly (I didn't plan this, this song is like a miracle). Listen, please. If the song ends, repeat, obviously.

•

If Tyler thought he'd get his freedom during the weekend, he was wrong. He feels everything at once. Something pulls him aggressively. Every time the light is gone and he is in the dark, everything is pain. There are too many sensations at once.

Every nerve is on fire, and then there are flashes of everything; colours, voices, machines, harsh words, and still never ending, constant and steady, pain. Everything comes back to him, once he tries to close his eyelids. The memory is more brutal than reality. He doesn't want to be awake anymore.

Yet he is awake. He's been fully awake for two and half years now. He never sleeps, because his dreams are torturing him, never letting him relax. They keep reminding him of life he'd never had a chance to experience like everyone else.

It's probably late after midnight, and Tyler should be asleep, like every normal almost 18-year-old kid. He's written down already four pages in his notebook, but sleep still isn't coming. He needs to finally do something with it.

He peels off floral covers and looks out the window. The rain finally stopped the day before, and that finally gives Tyler a chance to go out and feel free for a moment, without getting sick.

He doesn't bother with changing his clothes, as he's wearing white t-shirt with roses and leggings as pajamas, brought from his family house, giddy with the thought of pounding his emotions into the sidewalk and leaving them behind as he goes.

He leaves his bedroom and glances at clock. It's almost 2 a.m. Nothing worse could happen in his life inside the dark space at 2 a.m. anyway. He takes the keys and puts on his shoes, then slowly goes outside.

He only planned a purifying walk, to cleanse his chaotic mind, but he suddenly wants to tear down the road until he can't breathe, until there is not enough oxygen left in the world to keep him from suffocating and every drop of sweat is the stress leaching out of him, taking with it all of his anxiety and energy, so he can collapse into sleep tonight or this morning.

His body and mind have missed this over the past couple of weeks, because of moving to Debby's house, and then constant raining, that trapped him indoors. He would go anyway, but didn't want to get himself sick at the first days of school. Now, he's not going to survive without nightly walks for any longer.

His first late "runaway" from the house happened one night, when he was fighting with his parents, again. Or more like sitting and listening to them fighting about him. It was 10 p.m. He sat on his bed, covered with his floral blanket, exactly the same, which he sleeps under in his bed now. He was listening to his father asking his mother, why she kept blaming herself. She would ask his father, why it didn't even bother him, and he would respond, that it all killed him inside, but there was no point to drown in it anymore. Tyler couldn't stand it.

He put on the first pair of his shoes he had found, not even caring if these were the same or different, left hurriedly the house, leaving it open, and ran.

There was no slow warm up. There was no pace or purpose. There was only running away.

He doesn't remember, how far he made it that night, but probably not very, because a few moments after he was gasping for air and his lungs ached. He had ran too fast. It was too much at once. He was suffering a little bit, but it was amazing.