Me Or Them (Voltron Klance)

E)I)G)H)T)

Lance's POV

I used to hate Keith. Now I really like him. I used to like Shiro. Now I really hate him. This has been a weird past couple days...

And I am SO tired, but I can't SLEEP because I'm too WORRIED! I mean, it's been eight hours since Keith was found in his room! Eight hours with no word? That cannot be good...

And finally. Just as I'm about to doze off, I hear those glorious words.

"Keith Kogane." The female nurse from before said as she stepped in the room.

At first, I thought I was hallucinating from lack of sleep, but after processing the fact the others stood up, I sprang up from my seat and ran towards her, anxiously. I was trying to read her expression to see if this was good news or bad news, but it was hard to tell.

"Is...is he okay?" I asked.

"His physical condition is stable. Luckily, the cut was not as deep as it looked. Though, it did slightly cut a vital artery, which made breathing harder, so it took surgery to fix. We also had to perform an emergency blood transfusion because he lost too much blood. Currently, we have him on a ventilator and IV. He was dangerously underweight for someone of his height, so the IV is feeding his nutrients. We also treated multiple sustained cuts on his wrists and thighs, as well as a skull fracture." She explained. I let out a sigh of relief.

Skull fracture? Cuts? I didn't notice any of these when I found him...I gulped, feeling the guilt of neglecting Keith creeping up on me.

"So, he's going to be fine?" I asked her.

She nodded. "Yes. He may have a hard time speaking for a while, but other than that, he should make a full recovery in time." she explained.

I smiled, tears pricking at the corners of my eyes. "Can...can we see him?" I asked, hopeful.

"Unfortunately, we aren't quite positive how long he will be asleep, due to the amount of anasthesia we gave him, but you can see him if you'd like." She said.

I nodded, but then Pidge grabbed my hand before I could follow her to Keith.

"Uh...she doesn't know how long he'll be asleep, so he can wake up any minute now. I don't think that we're the first things he'd want to see..." She said somberly.

I looked at Hunk who looked like he agreed. I then looked down. Yeah, he probably wouldn't want to see us...but how do I let him know I care about him without getting close to him? He'll just think we abandoned him like everyone else in his life...I'll just ask the nurse to tell us when he wakes up.

I wanted to stay in the waiting room, but Pidge was convinced that I needed to go home and sleep. I mean, I had been in that waiting room for a little more than eight hours without going back to that castle at all. Though, I really was worried about Keith...eventually, Pidge convinced me to go back to the castle with them. We decided someone would be at the hospital at all times in case of an emergency. If so, they'd contact us. Allura, Pidge, Hunk, and I went back to the castle. Apparently, before I feel asleep, they wanted to show me something.

When we got back to the castle, they wanted to show me Keith's room. All I could focus on was Keith's lifeless body, so I hadn't really seen the room. Didn't think it was important.

As soon as I walked in, I looked at the bed. Hunk and Pidge changed the sheets and cleaned up the blood. But, them I just...looked at the room. I'd seen his room before, maybe a few months ago. It was empty and neat. But this...well, the drawers were all open, one of them was thrown across the room, there was a dent in the wall, the bathroom mirror was completely shattered, and the toilet paper in his room was ripped to shreds and scattered around the bathroom floor. It was like the room was savaged by a wild animal.

I didn't know what to say, so I just looked at Hunk and Pidge. "It was like this when we came in here, we didn't want to clean it up just yet, because of how...irrational this mess is..." Pidge said.

"So...you think he was having some kind of mental breakdown?" I asked.

Hunk and Pidge shared a look before nodding. "That's probably safe to assume...but, I also took notice of this," she said. She moved towards the metal nightstand and motioned for me to follow her. She pointed towards the corner. I did notice that the edge was blunter than the other side and I saw a dried dark stain on it. I looked at Pidge, questioningly. She sighed. "That's blood, Lance. Remember when that nurse said he had a skull fracture? Because the corner is dull, there's dried blood on it, and the nightstand is slightly askew. I believe that he somehow hit his head on this. And, I don't think it was a one time thing. Because of the dent in the wall, this has to have happened at least 3 times."

Wow, Pidge would make a killing as a detective...

"Okay...so, that mystery is solved..." I said..

"There's more," Hunk said. Pidge and I stood up and gave him our attention. He picked up a notebook that was lying on Keith's bed and opened it. "So, this is basically Keith's diary. It's not labeled, so we didn't know, and we kinda read it..." He tossed the book to me and I caught it.

I opened it to the first page. Looks like it starts right after we form Voltron for the first time.

"It starts off as a normal diary for the first few months. He doesn't write ever day. It's just emo stuff up until a couple months ago. That's when you see a major shift. His hand writing gets messier and messier," I turn the pages to a couple months ago and see what she's talking about. His hand writing is usual neater than this. Though, I start to notice something weird as pages flip by. Some pages are written neat and tidy, while others are barely even distinguishable. Then, I turn to a page and I freeze. It's just the word..."kill" written over and over again. It was like disturbing art, written in hard pencil overlapping each other, written across the page, vertically, horizontally, small huge, it was just the word kill. I turned the page and saw that it was the same, but instead of "kill", it was the phrase "I'm sorry". And when I turned the page, it was a neatly written journal entry. I didn't bother reading it. I looked up at Pidge and Hunk completely freaked out.

"Yeah, that was the same reaction we had," Pidge said. "If you read entry day 232, it'll give you some insight, though."

I flipped to that page, and did as she told me.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Day 232

Dear Journal,

I can't stop hearing him. I'm scared. He says that he's me. So, does that make me a monster? A demon? I learned that he can take over my body whenever he wants. He could make me kill them. He can make me hurt them. I don't want to hurt them. But, how do I fight my demon?

It's either me or them. I have a choice to make. It has to be me. I don't want to die, but I have to. To protect them.

He won't leave me alone. He wants me to kill, I want to be killed.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"So...he was thinking about killing us...?" I asked, confused.

"Well...we think that he was hearing voices. Remember when Shiro said that Keith thought he was a demon? He may have a severe mental illness that projects hallucinations. Kind of like schizophrenia. But, I'm not a doctor, so I can't exactly diagnose him. It's just a hypothesis..." She explained.

I flipped through the journal a bit and really let it sink in for a moment. "This has been going on for mouths...how had we not noticed? Why didn't he...why didn't he try to get us to help him...?" I asked, my tears falling onto the pages.

Hunk put this hand on my shoulder comfortingly. "Uh...o-on the last page, he explains it as saying, "if Shiro won't help me, they'll just laugh at me". The other night, Keith was trying to tell Shiro about this, but remember? Shiro just wouldn't listen. He probably felt that if he can't trust his father figure, he can't trust us." She said, sniffling.

I'm gonna kill Shiro, I swear!

I mean, Keith was having a full blown mental breakdown for months and I barely noticed anything was wrong! Well, I thought he was acting weird when he was talking to Shiro, but...wait...now that I think about it, I did remember thinking he wasn't acting like himself...is that what he meant by "the demon can take over my body"...? Oh god...Keith needs help.

I just hope it's not too late...