once a month. it only happened for less than a week, once a month.
except— it happened every month.
his mask was no longer just a mask— it was him. cruel, sadistic, mean, angry, unable to tamp down his emotions because what good would that do when they were already overflowing to burst? when the only thing that could distract him enough from his own painproblems to make him genuinely laugh was other people getting hurt.
when not just his heart, but his mind rebelled against him.
his already twisted belief system, turning from something he had to convince himself of to something he had the strongest conviction in. if before he thought of something he knew logically wasn't real but still had to convince himself of it, he unthinkingly, legitimately believed it was.
not to mention the flashes of green (and more recently, white and yellow) in his periphery, familiar figures in the darkness of his bedroom, sometimes even hearing things. (voices he used to love turned sour— laughing at him, mocking him, telling him to give up, come join us, you'll be happy even when that would mean being as good as dead.)
(he didn't remember much of his life before– nobody ever did– but he remembered enough to know that the things his mind was doing weren't a new occurrence. the only thing that'd really changed was the subject material.)
but he never told anyone— why should he? why would he? he never told anyone before– that would've just gotten him sent to a psych ward, and he knew damn well what they did to people in those places– so he wouldn't tell anyone now. besides, if he had to deal with one more pitying glance from Ragatha, or Gangle, or god forbid Pomni, he'd probably just give to Abstraction right there.
(Gangle probably already knew what was going on— or at least had the right terminology. stuff like this could sometimes come with bipolar, right?)
it didn't matter. he would deal with this just like he always had.
but if this ended up being the thing that killed him, at least their trio would be complete again. right...
(a/n: wrote this on a whim. might clean it up and post it to ao3 later (comment if we should post the link 😅😅))
kianamaiart
snowghoul
romaincrisis
gummygunk
yousharknotpass
vaporwave
andulkaphoto
dailybridgerton
