Paint Me Black and Leave Me Alone

-37-

Morgan POV-

"I'm sorry my child..."

I gasped and sat straight up in bed, sweat dripping from my hair and into my eyes, making them sting as the tiny salty droplets made their way past my eyelashes' defenses.

I pushed my bangs back with one hand and propped the other out behind me to keep me upright. My chest was still heaving, trying to take in oxygen that my body was lacking due to fear.

Wait... What was I afraid of? Was I even afraid, or was I just startled?

I tried to think back on the details of my dream, but all I got were cackles. Loud, insane cackles that filled my head and wouldn't stop once they started.

I put my hands over my ears in a vain attempt to quiet them down, but it didn't work. The laughs echoed in my mind, as if five mental patients all decided to have a fucking scary as shit cackle party in my head.

I realize why I'm now curled up in a fettle position, my head nearly between my knees and my arms trembling from the strain of trying to block out the terrible laughs that now seemed distorted from the original.

I was scared.

No...

I was terrified. Terrified I was loosing my sanity.

First, I suddenly find myself in 1889, then my best friend gets murdered, then I'm on the zombie Titanic, then I've been pretending to be a boy for months on end and almost got burned alive? It could drive anyone to the brink.

Maybe I was already crazy and it only started to show now...!

Maybe I was still in the sewers of modern London, running from the cops!

Maybe something happened to me, like I'm in a coma or something, and nobody will be able to find my body!

Maybe...

No! I can't start thinking like that right now! I need to get some help.

I squeezed my eyes shut and held my ears tighter. "Sebastian..." I whimpered. "Help me... I don't know what's going on...! The voices just keep laughing louder and louder and I can't get them to stop!"

Even though I said it on a whispering tone, I knew he would hear me, even though I could barely hear myself.

Tears of pain began to form at the edges of my eyes, and I curled myself up tighter.

"Sebas-!"

I was cut off as I felt a pair of strong arms wrap around me and pull me up onto a black clad lap.

"Shhh..." My best friend whispered soothingly, rubbing circles on my back and pressing my head to his chest at the same time. The soothing sounds of a heartbeat didn't meet my ears, partially because of the laughing in my head and partially because the demon didn't have a heartbeat, but I didn't care at the moment.

"Shhh..." He repeated. "It will go away in a few moments..."

With that, he began to stroke my head, almost as if I were a kitten.

At first nothing happened, yet slowly but surely, with every stroke, the twisted laughter began to fade until it was only a whisper. A few seconds later, it was gone.

I let out a huge sigh of relief and melted into Sebastian, wrapping my arms around him loosely.

"Thanks..." I muttered into his black clad chest.

He huffed and looked down at me in concerned amusement. "I wasn't entirely sure that would work, you know."

Weakly, I raised my head up to look at him in a questioning way, my eyes already beginning to fall shut again. "Why?" He smirked down at me a bit. "I'm usually the one causing the voices, not ending them."