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Silence.
Pronounced as two syllables, "si" and "lence", it is defined as the "complete absence of sound."
Logically speaking, sitting in a room all alone would be the best way to channel this silence. In the center of an empty room aside from the furniture still just as bare as the day they became trapped within the plain walls along with him, it should be the epitome of silence.
And yet, there they remained, unwilling to give him peace.
The silence he so longed for as he sat straight up, feet neatly tucked below him was just out of reach. The perfect setting; the perfect time; the absolutely disastrous mind.
Eyes glazed over, looking but not seeing, he sat there for what felt like years but couldn't have been more than a few minutes. He waited for the silence to arrive: inwardly impatient, but outwardly frozen in time. It was right there. He could feel it; feel it like the draft that flowed in through the open window; feel it like the strands of hair blocking his vision; feel it like the rapid beating of his heart, he could feel it just out of reach.
So he continued to wait.
He knew what the logical solution that anyone would tell him would be: listening to them. Indulging them until they got bored of playing with him. It would be a logical solution, yes, however, an inevitably reckless one as well, for he knew that making such a decision would just start the roll of the dice. A gamble of his mind. Who would win: it was impossible to tell.
Thus, the torturous purgatory between sweet indulgence and clarifying silence would be where he remained.
Ha- "where."(Not even two minutes into the stalemate and he had already seemed to have succumb to them. Oh well- it was just a delay of the inevitable, anyways.)
That stupid weretiger that they couldn't shut up about- for better or for worse. It wasn't the being itself- no, even if he was clueless and insufferable at times, it was never actually him- but rather the role he played: the role that he was supposed to fill, not that animal that was chosen instead. The stupid feline couldn't even control his own abilities so what was it that made him so much better?
Obedience? Righteousness? Power? Or was it something else entirely?
Was he just simply not enough?
Yes- that had to be it.
If the man he had idolized so much for so long was able to treat that idiot so well, able to change his ways to turn a bullet straight to the head to an encouraging pat on the back, it just meant that he was never worth changing for.
And could he really blame him?
It's not like he was the best subordinate one could ask for, after all. One who carried out each job flawlessly and with no issues at all, who obeyed all orders without a word of defiance, who stood patient, ready and waiting for his next sentence. He wasn't that. He'd never be that.
Pathetic, they called him.
Good for nothing. Useless. Incapable. Hell, you even dragged your sister, the one you were supposed to protect, into this mess. But you can't protect anyone- not yourself and certainly not her.
Louder and louder they got, listing all his failures, all his wrongdoings, all that he couldn't do.
Loveless. You're not worthy like the others are.
At some point during all this, he started to cry, the salty tears wetting his lips, stinging where he had chewed them raw. It gave him enough of a ground to reality to shift his eyes into focus and notice the pure darkness that surrounded him. Too dark to simply be night, no, this darkness was self-inflicted; a punishment to disorientate him further and remind him how truly alone he was.
What would you need to know your surroundings for if no one is to come for you?, they came back to remind him.
And they were right. No one was coming to save him (you wouldn't be worthy of it even if they did). No one would even think to look in his direction. He was the mafia's dog: meant to sit there and be a good boy on his leash until the day he could no longer be revived and beat down again and again and again. That was all he was and that was all he'd ever be.
The darkness persisted for the next few hours.
He felt the tears as they ran down his face and heard them echo in his chamber of despair, roaring like thunder that he tried to convince himself was just outside and not there with him. He sat and cried like the pathetic runt he was. He and them: it was the endless cycle he was made to endure, and endure it he shall.
It wasn't until the morning sun finally peaked out from the horizon that he finally, finally, would feel what he had longed for since he first entered the room. The complete absence of sound as he sat all alone, as he always would be.
Blissful silence.