After That Night: Until Dawn Fanfiction

Chapter Twenty-Two

Josh

It’s so dark. And cold. No matter how many hours I spend in this chair, it always feels foreign, the cool metal stinging against my skin. I spend my days and nights in this chair. The only time I’m allowed to leave is to use the bathroom, but then my hands are tied and I’m accompanied by two men every time. I feel like a criminal.

Maybe I deserve it, though. 

Tonight is the same as any other night. I’m unable to really sleep, either the cold metal of my restraints waking me or the night terrors I constantly receive as a punishment for all of my wrong doing.

I wish I knew what was real. 

I wish I could tell Stevenson what he wanted. 

I wish I could go home or at least find a way out. A way out of this life that isn’t really life at all. 

I wish they’d just kill me already. 

Dr. Hill. 

I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to picture how I saw him today. Was he real? Was that really him this time? I can’t tell the difference. I only know that he seemed… sorry.

I open my eyes quickly, scared to be unaware for too long. My breathing escalates as I look around the dark room. I know there are guards outside, but they can’t protect me from the things lurking in the dark shadows of my mind. And they aren’t here to protect me. They’re here to keep me in. To use me. 

Tears start to roll down my cheeks. I bite my lip to keep wrong wailing. I’m so cold. So tired. So lonely. So confused. So… broken.

One by one, they started to enter my mind. Those… people. Emily. Matt. Mike. Jess. Ash. Chris. Sam.

Sammy. Did I make her up? Did I make them all up?

They were assholes. 

Every one of them.

No. 

Wait.

Chris and Sam. They didn’t do the prank. 

The one that killed my sisters.

Hannah and Beth.

That is something I know is real. My sisters died.

But then the others. The prank they pulled. The prank I pulled. It must have all been real. 

No. 

Not all of it. There was something.
Something that couldn’t have been real.

But what they did… They don’t deserve my forgiveness. None of them do. They betrayed me. Left me.

But I don’t deserve their forgiveness either. 

And they were sorry. I filmed them.

Ash said she was sorry. I saw it. I heard it. Mike said he was sorry. Sorry for hitting me. 

I know they were sorry. 

I’m sorry too. They were my friends.

Are they even still alive?

What happened to them?

Did that thing…

No.

I have to focus on what’s real. Focus on what you know is real, Joshua.

Focus on what is real. 

“Hey, man,” Chris whispers. “Josh, over here.”

He motions me over from his hiding place under the table. Ashley, Chris, and I are at Chris’s place working on a project for school. I went to get some fresh air and I came back to find this scene.