Ethan's P.O.V.
Originally it was just the four boys in the Sidemen house, but after a few long discussions about our future together as a group and what would be best for our content and careers, we decided to find a house for all seven of us. It was about the same size as our last but there was more space within each room for our office set ups and the backyard was perfect for filming large scale, outdoor videos. It was brilliant, honestly, and I loved the first few months we spent together. It was crazy and loud, sure, but I thrived in that environment.
But for a while, everything was perfect. The other boys seemed to enjoy it as much as I did, living in the same house as everyone else, but after a couple of months I noticed some changes. In Vikk, specifically. In the beginning he was just as excited as everyone else but after a month or two he began withdrawing. He stopped coming downstairs when we had parties, he barely ate, he always seemed to be working and never sleeping.
In the beginning we didn't discuss it, we figured it was Vikk's way of coping with the new, rather busy environment and wouldn't have been surprised if it was. I thought depression may have played into it as well- he had disclosed to us that he had been diagnosed with mild depression at 17 but was medicated for it and seemed to be coping. Maybe the medication wasn't working as well or something else had happened to do with that.
But it was when there was a visible weight loss, I started to panic. He looked drawn and tired all the time, constantly pushing himself to record at every hour of the day, never eating. I talked with Tobi first because I didn't know how to intervene and he said that he had noticed it too, and was just as worried.
"We need to do something." He had said, biting his lip. "I'm really worried about him. I don't want him to do something stupid."
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But it kept going, and it kept getting worse. The visible weight loss was even worse, he looked like a stick, and I hadn't seen him in the kitchen in over a week. I didn't think he had snacks in his room. There was a constant state of anxiety among the other members of the Sidemen as we knew something was desperately wrong, but we didn't know how to act to make it alright again.
However, one night, a couple of days since I had last seen Vikk, I knocked on his door to ask if he was up and wanting to record. But I didn't hear a reply. It surprised me, I knew he was in there but given that it was three in the afternoon and he had uploaded a video half an hour earlier, I had thought he was awake. I knocked again, and once again there was no reply.
Tobi came up behind me as I continued to knock, also looking concerned.
"Is he in there?" He asked, frowning. I shrugged my shoulders.
"I don't know, he should be but he's not replying." I knocked once more, only louder. "Vikk! Please, are you in there! I'm gonna come in if you don't reply!"
But, just as I expected, there was still no reply. So, with a heavy heart, I turned the door handle and pushed open the door. I don't know what I was expecting, but it certainly wasn't the scene that greeted me and Tobi when the door was opened and our eyes adjusted to the dim lighting. Vikk's curtains were closed.
And then I saw him. Vikk was lying face down on his bed, sprawled out not even under the covers, and there was so much blood. The sheets on his bed were stained underneath his wrists with puddles so big I didn't even know that much blood could come out of a person. He had slit his wrists. He had slit his wrists. The scream Tobi let out was ear shattering as he rushed to Vikk's side, pulling the unconscious boy off the bed and onto his lap, desperately trying to stem the sluggish bleeding with a t-shirt from the ground. I was frozen in shock before Tobi screamed at me to move, to call an ambulance, to do something!
