Writing Championships #3

Orange Ornaments

Song: Circles - Kira, Gumi

You haunt me in my dreams

Grian gripped the edge of the mirror, breathing heavily.

They were back again.

But was it real or fake, real or fake?

Black figures bobbed at the edge of his vision.

"GET OUT OF MY HEAD!"

His voice screamed shrill through his lungs, and he knew he sounded crazy. He looked crazy too. But the voices wouldn't stop, though.

His head hurt.

It burned.

It burned.

"GET OUT!"

Grian.

"I TOLD YOU TO STAY OUT!"

But you need us, Grian.

But it's all I want to see. 

His red sweater felt hot, suffocating against his skin.

"I DON'T!"

But c'mon, you know you do.

"I don't, I don't, I don't please JUST LEAVE ME ALONE."

But Grian knew that he did, that the Watchers had given him everything, and they could take it away in an instant.

They had given him his powers; they had given him life.

But they had also hurt him so much.

It confused Grian.

He tried to run, run away.

Running was easier to bear than staying.

But in front of him was them again, they were shouting at him but whispering.

Louder and louder and louder and louder.

They choked him, his voice and words stuck so he couldn't speak. And he wanted to breathe and live, but they were the only thing that could keep him breathing.

But he couldn't breathe when they were around.

He needed them to live.

Hands grabbed at his neck.

Were they his own, or someone else's?

You're the oxygen I need

Tears leaked out of his eyes as air stopped in his throat, but yet nothing was really there.

He knew nothing was really there, but he felt the bruises.

Spinning, spinning, blue and black against his neck. Nails and fingers and sharpness.

And he would wake up again.

Repeat, repeat, repeat, redo. I want to redo. Redo again and again.

He waited for rebirth.

He really wished the pain would stop.

Bedsheets clenched in his hands in fear.

But oh, they would comfort him.

It was a black light at the end of a hall. 

It was a blue, tarnished, faux comfort.

And he hated how everything felt like arrows cutting into his skin.

They trapped him in the same little room, the same little room.

Would he ever get them out of his head?

Tears streaked down his face, and they clogged up his throat.

He couldn't cry out.

His breaths were stuck in his mouth.

Trust me, Grian.

Hands patted his light brown hair, combing through the locks as he sobbed.

Were they really there, or just an illusion?

Another mirror.

Grian wanted to throw himself against it, he wanted to shatter it. To feel the silver shards against his skin, to feel something again.

We are the only ones you have.

"I- I know..."

Grian closed his eyes, letting the blue and black overtake his lungs, as his body set into utter defeat.

Blue filled everything up.

"I know, I know...."

One last sob shuddered through his body, quiet and breathless.

"I know." 

Yet I can't breathe