❝ pathological paranoia ❞ byunghun & mai
( / escape was impossible, even after the electronic messengers were deactivated the articles still permeated throughout his mind. outrage, fear, abuse that rotates on the endless sphere of bloodshed, the equation of dominance including misinformation as a function of violence. too many forum posts read, youtube videos watched, positivity, passiveness merging with the aggression and neutral confusion, and the sky remains tranquil but the city – country – is in a state of hushed pandemonium, he can feel it underneath his eyelids )
(. txt ) will the end justify the means?
(. txt ) you’re sacrificing your humanity. if you continue like this you’ll become the monster they want you to be, and less than that.
( / the nausea was bad, had fallen ill after the first broadcast. saw the faces of children, orphans, in his dream, their hands covering their faces as they screamed from all sides, a resonance of piercing laments that coated the nightmare in burning saline, tore him apart and drowned him in the noise and salt – so he stopped sleeping, momentarily, didn’t want to hear the shrieking, rather let it haunt him in the waking world )
(. txt ) mai.
( / he doesn’t know what else to say, had a million thoughts, lectures, screams burning at his lips but now that he texts – can’t call, doesn’t know if his throat will dry and fold in on itself if he does – her it’s gone.
a friend. she was his friend and he trusted her, put faith in her and saw so much, saw what she was capable of and the benevolence she possessed, and now instead of preventing a war she’s rising the flag, letting people, scared and confused and manipulated people die. he presses his palms to his eyes, can’t concentrate on much of anything but fury and fear, and the laboratory is quiet aside from the breathing machines, the slide underneath the microscope a blur he can’t comprehend )
(. txt ) was helping those kids a joke to you?
( / there would be more without parents now, more parents without their kids, more dead because they were given no other choice and more willing to slaughter when their minds become poisoned and – again, he feels sick, grateful that he hadn’t eaten anything but cigarette smoke today and he needs to find a distraction but can’t, not with mai descending, fitting herself into that formula of corrosive rebellion. and they are screaming again, those muffled voices at the back of his skull )