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It is like a shadow there to haunt him. Always there. Lurking in his thoughts. Waiting until he was alone to haunt him again.
A memory, so distant, he has not thought about it in a while. Survival doesn’t match well with contemplating the past.
But now that his nights are safe, and those that he had fought to keep alive, were safe, his mind is free to remember. To wander and imagine.
To that night that he had decided to end it all.
He remembers the feeling of the lit match, the itching of gasoline on his skin, and sometimes when his siblings are vast asleep, he lets himself regret not having burned that night.
That regret serves as a demon in his mind. He had thought of death the first time he had had a nightmare. He had only been a child. And he thought of dying again, in his nights that were safe and he was protected. No child anymore but almost a man.
His siblings noticed. Of course, they did. They are as cunning as he, Norman even more than him.
They noticed the growing circles under Ray’s eyes, his slumped posture, the time it takes him to react to a question, and the growing tension in his shoulders whenever one of the younger ones are being loud.
Ray understands what the symptoms mean but he refuses to act on them. He stubbornly refuses to address the obvious issue.
Norman knows him as such. Ray never tells; you must tickle it out of him, or he will hide what is in his heart like it was unimportant.
With concern Norman looked at Ray as the latter drank his coffee in such a desperate manner, Norman feared he would choke on the drink by accident.
“Ray?”
Again, Ray reacted only ten seconds later to his name, tilting his ear only the slightest bit to Norman as if the movement cost him too much energy.
“Hm?”
“Don’t you think letting someone help you with your nightmares would be wise?”
“Why?” he asked, irritated by the question.
“Because it’s affecting you. You know it, and the others do too.”
“I’m fine. I don’t need help, it’s just nightmares.”
In the end, they were not just nightmares. After one night that Ray had woken up screaming and crying, repeatedly recalling the sound of gunshots, Norman had decided for him to consult a therapist.
Ray had only glared as Norman had explained his decision to him but ended up silently accepting.
Now Ray sat tensely across the lady that would thenceforth serve as the person to hear him out. The person he could tell his deepest and ugliest feelings to. Or at least, that’s what she told him.
“Tell me, Ray, why did you come to visit me today?”
“I was forced.”
“Then I assume, that was for a reason. Was there any cause for concern?”
“Nightmares?”
In a way, Ray had expected the lady to turn him down and tell him he was too old to fear nightmares, but not the unexpected smile she showed him, seeming to understand exactly what the problem was.
She also named the problem. Guilt.
A sense of responsibility that he had felt as an older brother, unable to save his siblings as they were killed. He felt responsible for their deaths as he knew as the only one who would truly await them behind the gate.
“Ray, it is normal to experience excessive amounts of panic with the number of near-death experiences you had. And to speak earnestly with you, you are also not the first from the other side that sees me. It’s certainly a brave step you took.”
“I don’t feel brave though.”
“That’s understandable. But you’ll catch up in no time.”
Ray was a fool, he told himself afterward. Now that he was not in danger anymore, the naïve and childish belief, thinking of being saved took over and made him drop his guard. He told her that he felt like he had deserved to die as redemption for all the lives that he hadn’t saved and foolishly answered with ‘yes’ when she asked if he still felt this way.
They should pose a warning, that consulting was unlimited as long as you never admitted that you could pose a threat to yourself.
He didn’t protest as the ambulance brought him to a hospital, and neither did he fight. But deep down he had cursed at himself for having opened his mouth and shown weakness. Now his heart felt like it was squeezed between two hands and pulled out of his chest. Exposed and vulnerable like his life was in someone else’s hands.
It felt like that first time. When Emma had caught the match and dragged him out of the orphanage. He hadn’t protested, just let them take control.
In a way, it brought him relief, letting go of the strings and letting someone else pull them.
But with loss of control always comes a great primal fear that even he couldn’t shake.
♡♡
He knows the name of nightmares. He knew the way his mind grew quiet, and he felt squeezed between icy fingers that he had no strength to fight. He was familiar with the racing of his heart as he sat in their palm.
He knew the routine of the nightmares, how they would start and how they would end. He knew the voices and monsters he saw, composed of a fine string of memories.
He feared them not for the truth that lay in them but for the lies woven in them. They brought the kind of fear that questioned what if. Those dreams were darker than the memories. He had to wait and sit out how they would end and what could have been. They were scary because they were so close to reality and yet far from it, woven full of death and loss that he only feared because they could have been.
And because of their realism, he couldn’t help the yelp. The jolt as he bolted back to what was now and what was real. Not the hand clenching at his chest, willing his heart to calm and his lung to breathe.
They were so realistic, the scream, the tears, the shots, and the blood that he couldn’t help the tremble in his limbs and tears pouring from his eyes.
Aggressively he wipes them off, smearing the sweat on his hand over his face. Feeling disgusting and weak, he ripped the blanket off his legs and stood. The cool tiles under his feet made him yelp and yet sent a calming tingling through his body.
Wobbly, like a child learning to walk, he reached for the door, pressing his ear to the wood to make out any voices on the other side.
Only soft whistling meet him, accompanied by the distant sound of life.
Ray peeked his head out the door, almost falling over from the dizziness reigning over his mess of a mind.
Then he cautiously stepped into the corridor. The lights were out, and no light came from under any of the doors.
Navigating through the dark would be easy if it weren’t for the shakiness in his bones.
It is a curious phenomenon that a person can easily pull the trigger of a gun or draw blood with a knife but it takes only the mind to make up stories to bend and become afraid.
Ray was unfamiliar with the layout of the building, had he only seen it distantly from the windows of the ambulance, knew only basic places like the cafeteria thus was left clueless to fend for himself when it came to any other rooms or entries.
Perhaps they didn’t want him to find any entries – none of the patients. They had watched him like falcons whenever he had attempted to leave his room.
Until now, he had never really wanted to leave his room and instead had just so gradually downed the sleeping pills and stayed passed out for most of the days.
Stumbling through the hallways like an infant, Ray was unsure how and exactly when his body had found the exact route to the door he currently stood in front of. Solid and reeking of steel, he felt the rough surface for the handle.
Judging from the staircases, he must be on the roof. The place he had secretly hoped to find. Somewhere high and above crème-colored hallways and sterile reeking rooms and nightmares that had trapped him in this place in the first place.
Pushing through the heavy door, Ray was met with tingling cold all over his body and finally, he felt like he could breathe again. The trembling turned to one that feared the cold instead of the spooky stories his mind attempted to fool him with every night.
Taking a quick look around, his breath hitched again. He hadn’t felt the presence with him, but the presence had sensed his. First, he believed it to be a demon, a foolish thought before recognizing the very human-like silhouette.
Through the dark, he was unable to make out their face or expression, but he was sure they smiled at him as they patted the ledge that they sat on, begging him closer like a trader, trading their view with him.
“Watching the stars can be calming. Usually helps to soothe me,” they spoke softly as if afraid to wake any of the resting animals hiding in the bushes below their feet.
Ray was unsure and contemplated leaving. He had no energy to indulge in conversation with a stranger. They would ask. And he didn’t want to answer, tell his story to one that knew nothing of that he saw.
Yet somehow he felt like a string was pulling him towards that ledge and the soothing presence occupying it. Like a magnet, the force a child felt to run for the comfort of its mother’s arms.
“Can’t sleep?” They questioned as he carefully adjusted himself upon the smooth masonry.
“Nightmares,” he hissed through his teeth when a chill ran over his spine as the breeze blew under his sweater.
“Ah, I get that. That’s the worst when even sleep is terror. Here.”
Ray looked down at the hand reaching him, a rustling bag sitting in it. He tried to make out the contents and concluded they must be offering him some sort of candy. A silent offer? Or a trade to know his secrets?
“Helps to forget the nightmares,” the stranger chuckled at his hesitance, returning their gaze to the stars. It was an offer. A gift, more than a product they expected payment for.
“Thanks,” Ray mumbled.
“No worries.”
The roof fell silent, the breeze slowing like the whole world had stopped to breathe, and listened to the stranger’s soft hum of a melody foreign to Ray. They were almost like a part of the night, ethereal and yet human.
Now, he noticed that the person was wearing headphones and wondered just how they had even heard him entering the roof.
As the quiet lasted on only caressed by the candy person’s voice, Ray took a deep, calculated breath. His heart felt less like a sledgehammer tearing down his ribcage the longer he listened to the reassuring melody.
It wasn’t like the one he sang to himself, the one he had known since the day he was only a fetus. It sounded less like home and a comforting hug and more like a gentle hand bandaging a wound.
“Well,” the person spoke up, slapping their hands to their thighs and bolding up with such a sudden jolt, Ray feared they would topple over and fall off the ledge, “I’d better get going.”
He watched as they hopped off the ledge, stretching and skipping for the door. Light as a bunny, familiar with the place like it was their home.
“Don’t tell anyone you saw me here, okay? They’ll only get concerned. And besides, I don’t want anyone to find out about this place, so this is our secret.”
Unable to find the right words to explain that he wouldn’t tell anyone as he hadn’t even gotten a proper look at their face and knew them only by voice and that they had forgotten their candy, Ray swallowed hard.
“Keep them. You need them more than I,” they dismissed, passively taking notice of the bag of sour candy he was stretching towards them, vanishing as the door closed with a loud clank.
What exactly was that? Ray turned back, facing the skyline illuminated by soft glows of more colors than he had ever seen composed together. Complex and yet simple they stretched over his vision.
Feeling the plastic in his hands, he pulled one of the candies out. Sour Gummi worms. He had mostly heard of them but never bothered to try them when one of his siblings had offered one to him.
He felt like he was five again. Just a child with memories that were yet to make sense to him.
A sob escaped his throat. Loud in the silent night, echoing over the roof. A cry, a plea for comfort.
Pathetic he felt upon realizing just how weak of a mind he had, crying like a toddler alone on a roof of a building that was for people as crazy as him, wishing for something he had long accepted was not his to receive.
♡♡
Imagine the first thing you remember as your mind grows conscious is your body fearing for air. Like drowning your heart pounds, gasping for air although there is more than enough.
Your stomach churns and you wonder if you’re hungry or need to throw up.
Ray knew the sensation, the shake and numbness in his joints, and still every time it ruined his mornings if he hadn’t already woken up from a nightmare.
It was three days from that night on the rooftop and Ray had mostly not thought about the candy person anymore.
Mornings always started slow, with a familiar tingle all over his body that just made him want to scream. In the end, it just always left him tired. The food he forced into his mouth like every other morning, watching with little interest the other ‘inmates’ go about their morning.
Closing his eyes for a little too long, he failed to notice the person directly approaching him until a plate clattered loudly on the table, inches before him.
Ray opened his eyes, heart thundering in his ears – the person facing him striking no memory, and yet they smiled at him like they knew exactly who he was.
“You’re the guy from that night,” they said and finally Ray understood the knowing smile.
“You’re the candy person.”
They held their finger to their lips, leaning forward over the table as if about to tell him where to find the spring of youth.
“Shh. It’s Y/n actually.”
“Ray,” he returned curtly, feeling like it was proper to tell his name in thanks for the candies the other night. And the soothing lullaby even if it was not for him.
“Ray…” they repeated, testing the name, and speaking up once they decided the name fit him. “Got any sleep?”
“Nope.”
“That comes with time,” they reassure,” couldn’t sleep the first two weeks too. This place is too fucked up.”
Ray nodded hesitantly as he felt their gaze shift to his neck, studying his tattoo. He waited for them to mention it or anything of his origin – they must be as aware as anyone of what the black digits meant but Y/n surprisingly said nothing.
“So, Ray? Have you gotten the grand room tour of this noble establishment?” With an accent so thick and exaggerated, they waved their hands around in weird, ‘formal’, gestures.
“No.” So far, he had found his way around without ever being shown around. Reading the escape plans and signs was enough.
They gasped, just as exaggerated. “Then I must, as is my duty, show you around. Or you’ll end up like me in rooms that you don’t want to be in,” they said with a dubious wink.
He doubted that would happen but what choice did he have as Y/n appeared to simmer in excitement?
Their breakfast so fast forgotten, Ray wondered just how much they had even eaten. Seemingly nothing. The only thing he remembered them taking was the plastic knife which had vanished somehow.
Y/n dragged him along, never leaving him enough time to adjust to a room that he didn’t seem to show interest in.
Ray followed along, suddenly awake as Y/n explained rooms or objects like they had studied exactly how they came to be. Why were the walls painted in ugly ochre? Because someone once said that ochre was calming, not having thought of its aesthetic.
Why were they given sticky socks? Because sliding over the floors was ‘dangerous’.
“And this is my absolute favorite place. After the roof, of course.” The library and the first room Ray found close to interesting as shelves upon shelves were stacked with books older than him.
“Do you read, Ray?” they inquired as he let his fingers glide over the spines.
“Uh, yeah.”
“Finally! Someone with taste in cool things,” they exclaimed with excitement, typical for every child once they found you in hide and seek. “I’ve got some good recommendations. What genres do you like? I preferably read classic, weird for someone my age, right?”
“Uh…” Reading has never so much been for entertainment but for the sole purpose of gathering knowledge. It never really occurred to him that reading was a form of free time activity that people did just for fun.
“Ah, no problem. I’ll just show you some of everything,” they took his silence for a lack of knowledge.
And they dragged him by his arm again. Out of the library and down the staircases and through a heavy metal door, similar to the one leading to the roof.
“And my third favorite place. Fresh air is good for the soul,” they said, clapping their hands together.
Y/n led him to a pair of swings on which he joined them with a bit of skeptical hesitance.
Y/n gazes upon the clouds, pushing their heels into the dirt and swaying their legs with the movement of the swing as they won in height.
Ray found Y/n to be irritatingly random, yet their spontaneousness filled him with a feeling of something acquainted. And somehow Ray started to push his feet off the ground and copy Y/n movements until they swung parallel to one another.
His heart dropped as Y/n let go of the handles, jumping with a big leap into the air. And for a moment it seemed they were flying before they unceremoniously landed on the floor with a huff.
They exhaled loudly as if out of breath as they sat back down on the swing just as he lost in height and stilled on the lowest point.
Silence returned and Ray felt he should say something but was unsure of what. In the end, Y/n spoke first.
“Here, I stole one of those puzzle thingies.” They handed him a small box with small pieces of wood in it that should be put together so they formed a star. “Some are easy but this one is just too hard.”
He scoffed. Putting the pieces together they easily formed a star. Y/n gasped.
“How smart are you?!”
“I grew up solving puzzles, it’s nothing.” With a bashful expression, he returned the puzzle to Y/n. They took it, examining it until they understood just how the pieces fit together.
“Damn, you sure are smart. That’s amazing, Ray.”
“As I said, I’m used to it.”
“Still.”
It was when Y/n had declared their grand room tour done that they suddenly began to panic, frantically searching for something.
“Oh, shit, no. I’ve lost my headphones,” they cried, touching their every pocket.
Ray sighed. He knew what to do. He was good at it. He was good at finding things where others lost them. He was a big brother. He had found hundreds of lost toys and thus felt like helping would soothe Y/n’s distress.
It should have been comical just how agitated they could get over lost headphones, considering their age in which most wouldn’t panic over trivial things as such. Yet again, Ray noticed the irritating resemblance Y/n’s behavior had to that of his siblings.
They talked. Much and fast. Almost frantic like they feared if they wouldn’t finish their sentence fast, he would talk over them. They sat in an odd fashion, bouncing around like the seat was hot. And they got stressed out over missing items. Was Y/n aware of their oddity? Or was he the odd one as he had only met a handful of people in the age he was in now?
“I’m so sorry, I always lose my stuff, it’s so embarrassing,” they whined.
Biting his lips, Ray thought. And quickly came up with the place to search first.
Y/n pushed out a loud exhale of relief. Like an intuition, Ray had immediately steered for the place Y/n had left the headphones at. The library.
“Ray, you’re a savior! Thanks so much!” They said his name always like they knew each other. Too familiar.
“It’s nothing.”
Why did their gratitude make him feel so troubled and uncomfortable? He hadn’t done anything, right? It would only have been annoying if they continued whining.
“Still, thank you. You’re really nice.”
“Huh?”
Y/n explained no further, instead indicating to him that they would leave now and that he was on his own again. They always left so suddenly, he thought, reminded of the sudden goodbye they had bid him that night on the roof.
Watching as they skipped down the corridor, with their headphones firmly pressed against their chest, he was filled with confusion.
It felt like Y/n had a completely different and unfitting image of himself. And why did he again feel so lonely after Y/n left? Was it because their behavior reminded him so much of home?
♡♡
“You look ridiculous,” Ray said with indifference when he opened the door to the roof, finding Y/n spinning on their toes with gracefulness, he doubted they did not know what they were doing.
“Mean,” they huffed, heart racing as they had not anticipated his presence just yet.
A fighting heart seeks comfort in familiar things, routines. As it fears what it doesn’t know and that it has no control over, the body gradually obliges to the monotony of habits.
Ray had found comfort in returning to the ever-same-staying rooftop and sharing it with Y/n. They usually went about their actions, occasionally including him or directing questions at him without really needing an answer.
Ray would read, at times, glance at Y/n as they balanced on the ledge, humming a song. They would always jump off again with an easy smile, teasing him for having feared even for a split second they would leap.
“Dancing is my favorite thing to do,” they told him.
Flopping down next to him and throwing his current read a curious look, they’d added, “Calms down.”
“From what?”
“Murder? Arson? Contemplating the uselessness of life?”
Ray considered their words with great care. Despite their never-ending childish mannerisms, Y/n oftentimes would discuss complex principles and values with him. What was happiness? Does everyone feel guilt? How free should a human being be?
“Geez, do you even know how to use a lighter?” He chuckled.
“I’ll have you know, I’m a great lighter lighter, asshole,” they retorted, close to losing their calm and bursting out laughing.
As Y/n leaned back against the ledge, Ray quirked his eyes up, subconsciously seeking out the stars, they would so often gaze upon in wonder.
He found nothing confusing about the stars, unlike his own emotions and dreams. Dreams, like a distortion of reality, they would always present themselves to him, confusing him with their contradictory nature. Y/n was a similar phenomenon that he tried to understand.
Chaotic like a storm and calming like a gentle breeze.
Y/n sat now in silence next to him.
“What you listening to?” He found himself asking, having always wondered just what they listened to if not the sounds of life.
“Musicals. You ever been to one?”
“No. I’ve only been to the opera.”
“That’s more than I. It’s fascinating, right? How they can use their voice,” they wondered, fidgeting with the hem of their sleeves.
Ray’s gaze fell to the bandage, peeking out from under the sleeve of their right arm. It was fresh.
“I guess.”
“Come on! Show some fascination!”
“I don’t know much about music,” Ray said defensively like it could be a flaw in their eyes.
“So, what interests you? Aside from books.” They would always ask so much about him.
“Art?” He answered.
“Oh, I get that! It is interesting, isn’t it? I think I like impressionism the most. What’s your favorite painting?” they continued to press as if telling them his favorite painting would reveal something about him to them.
He smiled, remembering the first time he got to see the famous Mona Lisa.
“Starry Night,” he answered after some contemplation.
“Vincent van Gogh is also one of my favorites. I think we had that painting hanging in my elementary classroom. A copy though. You seen it live?”
“Not yet.”
“You wanna hear?” Y/n asked, suddenly.
“What?” Instead of answering they gently let their precious headphones slide over his ears.
And with the second the melody wound into his ears, his heart dropped at how colorful the world appeared before his eyes. Trees sparkled and time slowed, the air prickled in his lungs, and he felt light. And suddenly Ray understood the spell which Y/n had cast over themselves.
“Life is less…real with music,” he guessed they said, “Less painful.”
They nod along like they knew every beat of the song he listened to.
The prickling in his lungs turned to a lump traveling in his throat. He knew what it meant. Another part of life that he never experienced. Life was more like bliss than a fight, something to admire like art rather than something to pay blood and sweat for. Was that how kids here saw life? Then why does Y/n look like life without music was unbearable?
Hesitantly, sorry to have ended the bliss so soon, he shoved the headphones back onto Y/n ears. He wouldn’t allow himself to relish this illusion. Life wasn’t art. Not to him anyways.
“I could make you a Playlist.”
“Do what you want.”
They pouted but shook it off with an easy smile. Leaning against Ray, he felt himself tense under the comfortable touch. When had strangers started to become allies instead of foes? He had feared those that he had no control over, those that he didn’t know, yet Y/n’s unpredictable storm wrapped him in a bandage of healing.
♡♡
“So I see, you and Y/n seem to be friends now,” Ray’s therapist said with a casual smile which he wondered about its genuine. Does she ever look at that smile and think it looked fake?
“What about it?”
“Nothing. They told me. I think it’s good for you to make some friends out of your familiar circle.”
“Ah,” he muttered disinterestedly.
“So, tell me about your recent dreams. Noted any changes since our last meeting?”
“They’ve been shitty, as always.”
“Just that? Still no improvement in sleep?”
“It’s better, I guess.”
“So, you do sleep?”
“A bit I think.”
“That’s good, Ray!”
“Yeah.”
♡♡
It was another night of terror. A dream more realistic than the others haunted his body like it was possessed by some unknown force.
Ray jumped up and grasped his chest, feeling as his heart was still beating. That was his guide to blink away the spinning darkness that obscured his eyes, drowning out the screeching screams and focus alone on the pounding of his heart.
Light-headed, he touched for the end of the blanket and threw it off the bed as his skin crawled and sweated. His fingers felt numb and cold, throbbing.
He stood. Unstable. He would fall. He should sit down, yet he stumbled for the door, ripping at the handle and then down the corridor until he fell against the massive steel door to the roof.
His safe haven. Here he could breathe. A home in a place far away from home.
And filled with the healing presence of another sleepless traveler.
They lay on a blanket on the hard stones, sprawled out like a star and staring listlessly at their equals. As Ray pushed open the door, they jumped up and gawked at him with concern for his ragged breathing.
“Nightmare?”
He nodded shakily.
Y/n patted the space on the blanket next to them. “Watching the stars calms down.”
He had heard that often, every time he sought out this safe heaven.
“Take a deep breath and hold it,” they ordered as he lay down on his back.
“Your body is not your enemy, give it time to understand you’re not in danger,” they said. Has their voice always been this calm?
Ray listened as they demonstrated how to breathe, following as they in and exhaled until his thoughts became clearer again and his body heavy with exhaustion.
Blinking tired, he turned to Y/n as they listened to the world without their headphones, watching the moon cast its light. And at that moment, they looked so incredibly sad, Ray wondered if they were Y/n and not some replica that he never met.
“I sometimes wonder why God made the darkest moments the most peaceful ones,” they said with a dry and indifferent tone, sounding more like he usually would. “Perhaps so no one could experience peace for their fear of the dark. Isn’t that cruel?”
“You believe in God?”
“I don’t exclude the possibility of his existence. Although I don’t believe he loves everyone equally.”
Holding his breath, Ray glanced at their arms that lay at their sides. With only a shirt on, he saw the fresh bandages over their arms, stained in some areas.
For the first time, he wondered about them; the cracks to their perfect smile and silly carefreeness. They were a crack in the mask and Ray felt as though he saw Y/n without that mask for the very first time. And it was like they wanted him to see. To see them.
“You not listening to music today?”
“No. I think once in a while one needs to wake up from dreams and face reality for what it is. Turbulent. Scary. It’s not all music and rainbows.”
He snorted. For all the times they struck him as delusional and naive for fleeing reality with music, he realized that it was all part of the costume.
“Hey, I’m not that delusional!”
“Sorry.”
“I’m just a coward.”
Ray didn’t answer. Weren’t they both? Cowards and afraid? Both outcast and unfitting. Both wondering and questioning. Both alive and alone.
“Say, Ray? Do you believe love can save a life?”
After a short while he nodded. “I do.”
“I see. And has it saved yours?”
“It has.”
“A lover?”
“My family.”
“I see. That’s good.” They said nothing after that. Ray wondered about their lack of retort or demand for an explanation.
But he didn’t mind it, thinking of his siblings with a loving smile. And then he looked at Y/n again.
They, whom he spent his current days with. Like a reliant shadow, he knew them to always be nearby. They ask about his visions and passions rather than his past.
“Do you have a dream?” he finds himself asking.
“Like career-wise?”
“In general. Anything if you could make it come true.”
They think for a long while. He believed they had already dismissed the random question when they suddenly answer.
“A family that loves without bounds. And seeing the polar lights among the stars.”
“You really like the stars,” he stated, receiving a small smile."
“They’re a family. No one shines alone. And no matter how small their light, everyone has their place.”
They glance at Ray, and he glances back. He wanted to know what else made them happy. At this moment, he wanted to understand. The riddle, the mystery of Y/n’s loneliness. But he remained quiet. He didn’t need to – shouldn’t – know.
Instead, he shifted just a little closer to the other’s warmth and pulled the second blanket over their bodies. Y/n crawls under it, closer to him until Ray could feel their warm breath against his arms.
“I want to be like a star,” they mumbled, and Ray thought they already were like one. Bright, comforting. Guiding. They had guided him out of a dream today, one that had grasped with an unforgiving hate towards himself. They had guided him through his days here, never left him alone to let his head become crowded. And for that, he was grateful like he was grateful for the stars shining every night.
They fell asleep fast like a child with a dream of the coming day. He savored the moment, not able to conceal the tuck at his lips.
♡♡
Unusual days come like a fleeting fragrance in the air, surprising, sometimes pleasant, and sometimes not.
Ray’s siblings were an always welcome and pleasant breeze in his life. One that he only learned to deeply appreciate with time. The feeling of home and warmth their hugs and excited squeals brought to the gloomy hospital and his spare room, brought him to smile.
They were not in full number but enough to chase the terrifying feeling brought by this building off his shoulders.
Norman stood near the window, watching the wind sweep the garden that looked colorless under the grey sky.
“How have you been, Ray?”
“Shitty, like this whole place.” He had already said the words before realizing that they were not entirely true.
Norman chuckled. “Always so grumpy.”
“Although,” Ray intercepted, “it’s not as shitty as I thought it would be.”
“Oh, do tell.”
“The library isn’t half bad. And it’s not like I’m alone all the time,” he whispered the last part.
“Is that so? Made some friends?”
“You could say that,” he muttered under his breath, hugging himself, reliving the chilly night on the roof and Y/n’s sad expression.
“I’m glad. The others miss you. I could barely prevent them from coming but they have exams coming up.”
“Tell them, they’ll see me soon enough.”
“I will.”
Norman gazed silently at Ray, searching in Ray’s posture for answers to his unspoken questions. Ray hated when Norman studied him like he was some kind of open book that Norman could easily decipher.
“Well, I should be leaving then. I don’t think you want me to spend my entire day babying you.”
“Yeah…” Ray was disappointed Norman would leave but knew the other was a busy person despite his age. He could have been too if it weren’t for the nightmare that robbed him daily of his sanity. Ray envied Norman for his strength to smile through every day as if he had never known woe. Norman was like someone else he knows.
Norman closed Ray’s door gently, noticing a presence nearby, hiding in the frame of the next door. The person peeked out and eyed him curiously.
“Are you a friend of Ray’s?” They asked.
“Siblings, actually. Are you a friend of his?”
“Uh, well, more like his daily dose of annoying,” the person said sheepishly, scratching behind their ear, then grasping their sleeves and pulling them over their fingers.
“He’s a handful, isn’t he?”
“He’s rude but I like him.”
Norman nods. “He’s always been like that but he’s more caring than he’d like to admit. He’s constantly worried about his siblings.”
“You have a lot of siblings?”
“Mhm. We are a big family,” Norman chuckled, imagining what that must sound like to a stranger.
“Sounds nice.”
“Oh,” Norman exclaims, “excuse my rudeness, my name is Norman.”
“Y/n.”
“A pleasure to meet you, Y/n.” they stepped out of the door frame and Norman immediately noticed their keen eyes that eyed him up and down just the way he did as if to evaluate his genuine.
“Likewise, Norman.”
Ray waited in silence, listening in as Norman introduced himself to Y/n.
He stayed quiet even as Norman bid Y/n goodbye almost expecting his hospital companion to burst into his room and ask him about his siblings. But the door stayed locked and the hallway quiet.
Ray peeked out the door, searching for Y/n but they were gone.
He shrugged off their absence. They would only ever meet on the roof. They shouldn’t even know where his room was but was not surprised, they had somehow found it.
Searching the rows for an interesting title, Ray later trotted through the silent library, wondering if Y/n was there.
But he was alone.
At dawn he went to the rooftop like so often, expecting the familiar presence but found that he was by himself. Disappointed, he looked around to check if they weren’t sitting in a corner, not having heard him enter.
He waited. Read, watched the sun sink behind the horizon. The door stayed closed.
Ray finished the book when the sky was dark, and no star was to be seen over the black clouds like their absence reflected Y/n’s absence. The night was silent, only a rustling carried by the wind. Y/n wasn’t here to hum their lullaby.
He sighed, closing the book. He waited some more.
He didn’t understand his disappointment. For all the calm Y/n’s presence brought him, they were more a stranger than a friend. Yet still, he found himself grumbling when the frigid wind crawled over his skin as he stubbornly hoped for the door to swing open, and Y/n loudly sing lyrics of the same song they’d listening to for weeks.
Ray had to give up when his fingertips felt numb, and his toes itched.
In the morning he trotted to the cafeteria, tired and groggy after having tossed and turned all night. His usual table was strangely devoid just like the roof.
His heart pounded uneasily in his chest as he tried to swallow a piece of toast through his tight throat. He was suffocating. The world turned loud, dense in its stimuli and Ray felt incredibly overwhelmed by the excessive number of attacks on his senses.
The calming presence was missing, making him vulnerable to all that they caused him to ignore.
Ragged breathing, a heart like a sledgehammer that he desperately clutched and ordered in vain to calm, drew the attention of several nurses that with gentle words guided him back to his room. He wanted to fight them, their unwelcomed touches. He wanted to be alone. On the roof.
Ray cried, clutching his hair until his scalp burned and he choked on his tears.
The nurses he had dismissed, saying he was fine.
He wasn’t. He felt vulnerable. Exposed. And he didn’t understand why. He wanted to go home. To his family.
Couldn’t Norman have pulled some ties to get him out? Did he have to stay here until he stopped considering repeating the same foolish mistake he had attempted on the night of their escape?
Staring at his hands clench and unclench, Ray let the sun pass its bow and when it slowly reached to kiss the mountains in the far distance, he left his room to the only place he knew to flee to.
His heart dropped into his stomach anew like on that first night as he was greeted by a figure on the ledge. Stretching their arms out to hug the wind, Y/n balanced on the edge. Like a cat unafraid to fall, they danced with the wind. Like they always did, but today it scared Ray. Because they might fall. Because their naked feet could slip and their body be pushed by the merciless wind.
His body moved, grasping Y/n’s hospital gown with panic.
Y/n turned their gaze to him. Pearls of tears were drying on their flushed cheeks and nose. They were smiling as if he was the one dancing with the breeze.
“I won’t fall, I promise,” they breathed.
Ray felt relieved.
“Missed me that much?”
“No.”
“So, you held on to my gown just because?” they teased.
“Shut up.” They were right though.
“Mean.” They laughed heartedly, holding their belly as they jumped off the ledge.
“Thought they released you.”
“Me? As if they would,” they jester but with a tone of seriousness underlying. Ray ignored it or rather tried to. It wasn’t his business. A wall he was not climb. Their secrets were theirs to hold.
Y/n sat on the hard concrete with their naked legs stretched before them, drawing indistinguishable shapes on their skin.
Ray sat too, watching them draw.
“Ray?”
“Hm?” He hummed. Y/n clamped their mouth shut. Their gaze fixed on his face or rather the black digits on his neck.
“Spit it out already.” He grew tense under their sharp gaze that he couldn’t quite read.
“I was just wondering about that tattoo. Norman had a similar one.”
Momentarily Ray allowed his eyes to widen before they turned to their normal passive gaze. His secrets were his to keep yet he felt the urge to share.
“I thought we were in the news,” he tested, hoping they knew nothing of the existence of the children from the other side.
“You were. But it’s rude to pretend I know anything.”
“It’s fine.” He adjusted his posture to be more relaxed against the cold and uncomfortable floor.
“So…you’re one of the kids from the other side?”
“Yes.”
“I see.” Tracing the numbers with their eyes, Y/n stayed quiet.
“Do you not want to hear more?”
“I don’t know. I don’t want to press if it makes you uncomfortable.”
“It’s fine.”
“Is it really fine for me to ask?”
“Yes.”
“But isn’t that why you have nightmares?”
“It’s fine,” he said again, this time more forceful.
“How many were you?”
“On the farms? Usually around 35 in between shippings.”
“You mean, when you would be harvested?”
“Yes.”
“Were all farms like yours?”
“No. Most were…under worse conditions.”
Y/n gulped, knowing parts of what worse condition meant.
“Were you the oldest?”
Ray hummed.
“When did you realize?”
“I knew from the start.”
“How?”
“I don’t have childhood amnesia.”
“So that’s what it’s called.”
“Yes.”
“What is your mom’s name?”
“Isabella.”
“She sounds like she is pretty.”
“She was.”
Y/n paused.
“Did you love her? Despite what she did?”
Ray thought. His throat clamped and tight. His voice would come out hoarse but he shook it off.
“I do.” He still loved her, despite the years of lies, despite that she had died before she could see her children be free. He wished she could be here, in the human world for she was as much a victim to the farms as all of them.
“Were you happy?”
“Sometimes.”
Y/n smiled sadly at the ground to their feet.
“Explains why you’re so smart. If you were the creme de la creme for the demons,” they chuckled yet something in their voice sounded incredibly sad. “And that despite your character.”
“Huh? What’s that supposed to mean?” Quickly he forgot the lump that had threatened to suffocate him.
“You’re like the sarcastic one of the main trio. All grumpy and in a bad mood and a smart-ass.”
“Norman is way smarter.”
“Yeah, but he is also nicer.” They grinned, teasingly.
“Well…I--!” He didn’t know what to say, lost for words in face of their cheeky grin.
“Hm, I like the sarcastic character more though,” they say with their finger to their lips, grin spreading.
A warm and fuzzy feeling, spread inside Ray’s chest, and feeling a glow on his cheeks, he gritted his teeth. He didn’t like how casually they made him blush.
They laughed.
And then they were serious again. “But for real, I get it. I wouldn’t have made it half as far as you, Ray. You’re amazing. You and your siblings.”
“I’m not amazing.” He pressed his knees to his chest. A barrier that he didn’t want them to cross. He had said too much. Let them get too close to the truth that he had betrayed his siblings and stayed quiet during years of shattered dreams and dreams none of them ever got to fulfill.
“You are.”
He glared at Y/n but they only gazed at him with fondness in their expression.
“You wouldn’t think that if you knew how many of my siblings I let go, knowing they would die.”
“No, I still think you’re amazing.”
“I’m not.”
When had they closed the distance to a few centimeters in front of him? Why were they looking at him with pity? No, understanding?
“You know, a friend of mine told me once that our mind likes to play tricks on us. It protects us through pain and lies. It likes to think of what ifs and what could have been because it can’t comprehend that not everything is ours to control, sometimes we are just bystanders in cruel times and have no chance of changing a single thing.”
“I should have protected them.”
“You were a child. And despite that, you thought of how to save them and that is incredibly altruistic. And strong.”
“How does that make me strong?” He didn’t understand. How was him looking away strong? Or altruistic?
“You keep their memories with you even now, do you not? Even if it is painful. You refuse to forget them and that just shows how much you cared. You became stronger to save them. You care more than most, Ray. I think that’s amazing.”
“In the end, I didn’t save them though.”
“Well, perhaps you’re right. But perhaps we all need to be saved first before we can save.”
Silence fell. Ray glanced at the floor, letting silent tears, mixed with regret and fear fall instead of words. Tears he never showed. Guilt and shame.
“Did you dream of this world?” Y/n said, gazing at the last rays of sunlight.
“I was meant to die, so I think I didn’t allow myself.”
“But did you never picture what you would do if the demons didn’t exist, or you were free?”
“I guess.”
“That’s not an answer.” Never had they pressed him so much, yet he couldn’t find it in himself to be angry.
“You ask dumb questions,” he returned wobbly.
“Meany.”
“Idiot.”
“But I meant the question.”
“Traveling the world, seeing the Mona Lisa.”
“Eh? And have you seen her?”
“Mhm. Pretty impressive.”
“No shit. Oh, man. You saw more than I could dream of,” they whined dramatically, sinking against the wall with a huff.
“You said that before.”
“I know. But it’s true, I envy you.”
“What did you want to be as a child,” he wondered.
“Mm? I wanted to be an actor.”
“Seriously?”
“Yep. But not anymore.”
“And what now?”
“Writing a murder mystery set in the 19th century.”
Ray frowned.
“Like imagine the clothes and solving riddles with someone. I think historical mystery and romance are awesome. I would love to dance at a ball once.” Longingly they danced with their fingers over their knees.
“You want to dance at a ball?”
“I know it’s stupid.”
“No,” Ray watched their dancing fingers, “I think it fits you.”
“Stop mocking me,” shoving an elbow into his side, Ray released a snort.
“You know that these times sucked?”
“I know, smart-ass! I just want to be someone else sometimes. Somewhere else. I was never as much of a realist as you,” they chirped, and still, they knew so much more about life than he did.
“You can choose who you want to be.”
“I mean yeah. But it’s hard. Do you know who you want to be?”
“No,” he admitted almost shamefully.
“I hope you find out,” they whispered and then fell back into silence, letting the wind carry it with its whistled stories that it liked to tell those that listened.
♡♡
The next day, Ray was awoken by a knock. Soft and cautious. He blinked. The nurses never knocked and for a second, he believed to have imagined the knocks until their reverberated anew through his room.
“I’m coming in,” Y/n called from the other side and then pushed open the door and sneaked in. They looked ridiculous trying to make no noise. He chuckled. But then he noticed their attire.
Not their usual sweats or the hospital gown but street clothes and a backpack strapped on their back. Their headphones hung lazily around their neck.
“How do you even know where my room is?”
“I’ve been here for a while,” is all they say, proceeding to rip the blanket off his legs. The fuck?
“What do you want?” he hissed, trying in vain to protect the sheets from Y/n’s merciless assault.
“Wanna go to the beach with me?”
“Huh?” He blinked. Once. Twice. “The fuck? Now?”
“Yes, before they’ll notice we’re gone.”
“Are you serious?” It was way too early to sneak out of a hospital. And he was still tired. And already annoyed with them for stealing his blanket.
“Did I stutter?”
He could only submit. They held his gaze, aware of their own intensity. Ray could only imagine the endless begging if he refused.
“Urgh. Whatever, sure.”
They cheered, clapping their hands as Ray dragged his tired body out of bed. It was too cold in his room.
Y/n ended up dragging Ray along to a hidden emergency exit that was far from any early rummaging doctors and nurses and opened it with a triumphant squeal. They spun on their heels and spread their arms like they were hugging the entire world.
The air smelled of morning dew and Ray savored the freedom the air held outside of the dreaded hospital walls. Not even the roof felt this free to him.
Y/n led him over the roads until he could hear the distant crashing of waves against the shore and was filled with the confidence that he could find the way. Staying mute, Y/n only ever exhaled deeply and smelled the million fragrances carried in the air.
Ray made it his adventure to study the landscape under the rays of the morning, every person that passed them throwing Y/n either wary or happy glances.
As the beach came into vision, Y/n took Ray’s hand and pulled him down into the sandy grounds, where they pulled off their shoes and kicked a big lump of grains like dust into the air, watching it dissolve and spread.
They spun and stumbled into the sand like a bag of potatoes, yet would their smile never vanish. Standing up again, Y/n sprinted into the waves until they were knee-deep in the sea.
Ray followed no further than the point where the water kissed the shore.
“Got some snacks with me, so we won’t starve and have to go back anytime soon.”
Ray watched as Y/n emerged from the shore like the goddess Venus.
“How often have you sneaked out of the hospital before?”
“Hm. This is the first time.”
“And you had to drag me along?”
“Well, first of all, you’re the only one I would do it with, and second you like it, admit it!”
“I mean it’s better than a hospital.”
They grinned. Bending down they tousled the water, hoping to see some fish.
Ray sat down close. Feeling the cold sand warming under the sun, the grains slip between his fingers, fine and soft.
The beach. He watched the sunrise, the waves growing and deflating, and remembered the first time he saw the beach. That day it had been the most beautiful sight he had ever witnessed. And today it seemed even prettier. The sun felt like a gentle touch and the waves like a lullaby sung to calm him.
Ray snorted at Y/n’s squeal as their trousers soaked up more salt water. They seemed ecstatic, not like the person gazing longingly at the stars, wishing to be one of them. When had he gotten so used to their every presence and let down his guard every time they were around?
What had driven him to reveal so much about himself last night despite the line they never had tried to cross; knowing what had gotten them into the hospital?
He drew forms into the sand, a family, a flower, a house.
“What are you drawing?”
“Nothing in particular.”
“Sure,” they wiggled their brows as they flopped down next to him, slapping their hands into his face as they stretched.
“I envy you, Ray,” Y/n said as they threw a rock into the waves, Ray watching it sink.
“What do you mean?” For all he knew, he envied them. Y/n had grown up in a world just as imperfect as it had always been, yet they never had to worry about going to live another year. They had grown up far away from demons, even war and the violence that he had witnessed.
“Did you know that human beings are pretenders?”
Hesitantly he nodded, “I guess, they are. So, what?”
Their breath hitched and then they turned towards him, gently poking his chest right where his heart pounded in his chest.
“You and I, we are designed to dance our part in this play that we call life. We wear masks, fearing that the construct of society will not accept us if we don’t play our part to their liking. But in truth society is made of the individual and every single one of them fears something that does not exist.
But I’ve found children, those that grew up without fear or abuse, don’t care for this play. They eat, sleep, laugh, and love whatever they please. They don’t care how flawless a mask is, if it has cracks, if the mask is a different color, big or small. They are not disgusted with scars or everything that is dancing out of order because they only see people dancing and they find it fascinating. They don’t care whether people dance with people of the same gender or that they wear a dress or a suit, or perhaps change it. For children, life is an adventure without a script, and they love so truthfully and admire the world for what it is.”
Ray stared at their hands as they moved along their explanation, and he understood what Y/n tried to tell him; they envied the pure and unconditional love he experienced in his family.
With a smile that was far from convincing, Y/n straightened his shirt again, turned, and gazed at the waves.
He followed their gaze and suddenly wondered just how much Y/n had to pretend in their life. The mask that he had seen slipping seemed so perfect at first and it was impeccable around anyone but him.
“You should put off your shoes, so you can feel the sand,” they said suddenly, shaking their dirty sneakers in front of his face.
He followed their instructions, feeling as the grains touched his toes. Y/n grinned at him as he cringed at the sensation. Was that smile real or a part of the mask too?
“You’ve seen the world, Ray,” they sighed.
“I did see some places,” he affirmed.
“And it was fascinating?”
“I mean, it was cool, I guess.”
They hummed. “I love the ocean.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s just what I feel like sometimes.”
Raising his eyebrows, he asked for elaboration.
“Calm and yet stormy. Humans seek the ocean, they are curious about what lies in it, yet are petrified of its depths. It brings life and death. Two sides of the same coin. And yet, I feel like people don’t realize that both sides exist together.
They always judge the anger of a person, their actions when they don’t correspond with society’s values. But what they don’t understand, is just what lies inside that person, their memories and experiences. They don’t look for the beauty in something that scares them, because not understanding always means they hate it. Some people look upon the sea and see death. So they keep away from it, and like that people look at me and hate me because they only see my flaws. Because I can’t pretend like them, I always end up dancing the wrong steps.
Does that sound too emo?”
Ray shook his head.
“I hate to pretend. I want the people not to fear or hate me but instead, I want them to be happy, like a surfer when he sees big waves. I hate to pretend because I have to pretend all this is not a play in which I don’t fit.”
As Ray peeked at their expression, he was met with something that he couldn’t name, yet felt so familiar to him. Like their words were once his own.
“Tell me, Ray, why did you fight to survive?”
“To protect my family. Because I wanted to reach here with them together.”
They smiled and suddenly Ray felt a warm sensation engulfing his hand. Looking down, he realized they had taken his hand.
“See? You’re amazing.”
Feeling a weird sensation spread in his gut, a tingle in his chest, he averted his eyes. What was this weird sensation? He had felt it the first time they had called him amazing, yet this time it was so much stronger. And it grew with every time Y/n reasoned why he was supposed to be amazing. He didn’t understand.
The evening before the sensation had reigned too, perhaps being the push to let his guard down in their presence.
“You call me amazing more than I deserve.”
“Nah, why?”
“I think...,” he hesitated, “you’re more amazing than I.”
They laugh. A scornful and self-depriving laugh. “Why would you think that?”
“You meet the world with such fascination and awe, I sometimes wonder if you’re not just a child,” he admitted.
“Well, I am a child at heart. But in the end, you’re wrong about me.”
“Because you can’t pretend like them?”
They smile as if proud of his answer.
“Pretenders are liars. They claim to hate lies, yet frown upon what is real. The best act I can manage is the clown. They still frown at me but at least I can amuse them.”
And yet, Ray couldn’t believe their joy to be only a clownish act.
“I think I envy kids because they don’t need to pretend just yet. They don’t have a mask appointed to them; they proudly walk life just as they are.”
“Why then a child at heart?”
“Well, something suppressed is not quite gone, now, is it? The most convincing act is that that has truth in it, just enough that no one knows,” they wink at him.
“You think, I’m no pretender?”
“Mm. You were a pretender. Kids that learned something that they were not supposed to usually grow up to be excellent pretenders, but you pulled the mask off. I think the carrying Ray, who worries about his siblings, wishes for their happiness and feels guilty for those he couldn’t protect, is quite the cool person and no mask.”
Ray contemplated. Were they a liar? A clown, hiding behind a mere mask of a cheerful and energetic, music lover who loves to dance on a roof just to amuse the crowds that they can’t be part of?
“Do you never put the mask down?”
“I try to. When I listen to music. Or when I talk to you. But I think most when I suffer.”
“What do you mean?” His tone grew wary.
“Hm? What do I mean?”
Abruptly they stood up and shook off the grains from their feet to slip into their dirtied sneakers. “I think we should get back or else they’ll be on my ass with the police.”
Ray nodded.
For a second, he waited to burn the view into his mind. He wanted to remember. This moment. His heart pulsing in his chest like a mad drummer. The sand and the crashing waves. And Y/n.
Y/n had become more family than he had wished them to be. Perhaps even something else. A comfort person or what was the name for the peace he felt or the anger at Y/n’s self-deprecating laugh as he had called them amazing?
♡♡
As they returned to the deprecating walls of the hospital, nurses swarmed them as soon as they passed the entrance, shouting well-meant curses at Y/n as they only held their head low. Submissively, they let the nurses push them around, tucking at their sleeves, taking blood, and pushing them away to their room.
Ray, they mostly left alone, blaming Y/n for having involved him in their frequent escapades.
‘Again’ they would all sigh and grumble, one slapping Y/n lightly on the back of their head. Y/n winced but threw Ray a half-assed smile that covered only few of the remnants of the unmasked expression they had shown him.
“Sorry,” they mouthed over the sighs and grumbles and then stumbled from his view with three nurses trudging behind Y/n.
Ray was quickly snatched up for his daily therapy session.
The moment he sat down and placed the throw pillow on his lap, he felt something was wrong.
“You’ve made a lot of progress, Ray,” she said in a tone almost sickening because, for the first time, it sounded ingenious.
“I guess,” he answered, the urge to leave growing.
“You should be proud of yourself. Most take months to make the amount of progress you did. Although, I did expect it from you. Therefore, I see no need to keep you here any longer.”
Ray blinked. Once. Twice. His breath stocked and the throw pillow pressed into his abdomen.
“You mean –?” It has only been a month.
“Indeed. You’ll be discharged. Your progress does not ask for a longer hospital stay, although I would still like to have a few more sessions with you,” she said, crossing her legs and leaning back. Ray stayed stiff.
Feelings of regret and dread filled him up like a balloon. He hated this place, he wanted to go home but also he didn’t.
He could gladly go without the disgusting meals and the scratchy bedsheets.
So why did his fingers cramp around the pillow and his throat tightened?
“What about Y/n?” he pressed through his teeth, concentrating on the leftover grains of sand between his toes.
“What about them?”
What about them? Weren’t they only patients in the same hospital, sharing the roof as a hideout and glaring at everyone daring to occupy their table in the cantina?
They gave him candy when he couldn’t sleep that first night. They told him he was amazing without caring about what he had done.
“Are they being released too?”
She quirked their eyebrow up in silent confusion.
Then she sighed, sinking her eyes, “I see.” She straightened and fixated him with seriousness. He held her gaze, demanding she answer the question.
“No. Y/n is not being discharged any time soon.” Looking to the window, wherein the distance they could see the beach, her expression appeared less like a mask and more like the expression of a worried mother.
“They are in no condition to leave this establishment. Far from it. I can’t give you the details, although I’m surprised, they haven’t told you themselves as you seem to be great friends these days?”
Ray stayed silent.
He knew but didn’t understand. Y/n had given him the hints. He had seen the bandages that were stained with blood every day yet didn’t understand – didn’t try to.
“They haven’t told me anything.”
“I’m sure they will do so. At least that’s what they intended to do.”
She waited for him to return something but was greeted with stoic silence.
“Perhaps, you can visit them after we’re done here.”
Softly he knocked at the door, unsure if he had caught the right one, despite having written it down.
304
“It’s open,” they called from the other side and Ray hesitantly turned the knob.
Y/n sat on the bed, turned to the window, not even sparing him a glance as he approached.
The bandages were freshly wrapped, no stains were yet to be seen.
With a dreamy expression, their eyes followed a bird into its nest into a nearby oak.
Suddenly they flinched and turned to him. “Oh, hey Ray! Sup?”
“Here.” They took the book from his hands turning the cover carefully like it was made of glass.
“What’s this for?”
“I’ve finished it and think you might like it.” They smiled at the cover and press it against their chest.
“Thank you.”
After a few bits of silence, they patted their bed, begging him closer.
Interpreting the content appearing smile on their face as a good sign, Ray let the silence sit for another moment, relishing its peace in the same way they did before he would have to bring up the topic that gnawed at his stomach. He still couldn’t fully grasp the meaning of his uneasiness and unwillingness to leave this gruesome and gloomy place.
“So…” he started, unsure and at a loss for the right words.
Y/n raised their eyebrows, showing him they were listening.
“It seems I’ll be leaving this place soon,” he muttered barely loud enough for them to hear, unsure if he should have even filled them in and if it wasn’t a better idea for both him and them he had just left without a word. They had only met by a chain of coincidences and always had to go back to their separate lives eventually.
“I guessed as much,” they said with an easy smile like they had long waited for him to find out himself.
“It doesn’t bother you?” he asked.
Y/n shook their head gently, “I mean, wasn’t that always gonna happen?”
Something dropped in Ray’s eyes, in his heart into his stomach. Disappointment? What for? They only said what he knew himself.
“Guess it’s just me and the wall to talk about books to after you’re gone,” they jest, yet determinately avoiding his gaze.
“Is that why you dragged me to the beach today?”
They shrugged, “I’m that obvious?”
He said nothing. His throat suddenly dry and all smart remarks died on his tongue.
“Well, you can finally sleep in your own bed again. Must be heaven,” they continued and Ray had the impression that they only tried to free him of the unwillingness he was feeling deep inside. How did they even know of that growing hesitance? Were they clowning right now?
“Yeah,” he only muttered, not in the slightest bit as enthusiastic to go home as he should have been.
“You okay? Ray?”
Was he? He should be, he knew that, but was he really? He should be glad to go home.
“I am. Just gonna miss making fun of your clumsy dance moves.” He tried his best to match their game of pretense, of fooling themselves that him going home was his entire motivation every day to get up, not the late-night roof conversation like they had some kind of power to change the world, the laughs he always tried to suppress when Y/n thought it a good idea to sprint down the slippery hallways with only a pair of wool socks on or the sour gummy worms Y/n carried on them like their own currency.
Y/n smiled at that. “I’ll miss those snarky comments.”
“And those disgusting gummy worms.”
“Hey! You ate more than I, so you liked them, you tasteless douche!”
“That’s bullshit,” he lied, grinning without being able to control himself.
As silence fell back between them, Ray dared to look at the fresh cloths wrapped around Y/n’s arms like the skin could peel off without their support, recalling his therapist’s comment about their health. To him, they seemed so full of life like a child discovering the world and yet he had to believe that that was no more than a false façade to hide a human filled with cruel memories and pain so deep they would open their skin to feel relief and drown themselves in false imageries made up by a mind that fights to survive.
“I’ll visit,” he vowed to both him and them.
“Huh?” Their surprise prickled at his skin as a bad premonition.
“Until you’re released.”
And Y/n only returned his determined stare back with one that didn’t believe. They looked old, tired, and on the brink of submission.
Pulling out a small device that they handed him, Ray felt them pulling away from him in a final and concluding way.
“What-?”
“It’s just a modern MP3 player, guess you haven’t seen them really,” they said, standing up and gathering themselves in the corner of the room opposite him.
“Why?”
“Just a little present, nothing much. It’s just a couple of songs that screamed you. And also a little something as well, but you’ll know in time.”
He looked down at the small device that looked nothing like the ones he had seen in books at Gracefield House. There was so much to learn in the human world still that he felt sometimes overwhelmed by it. But this was a gift from them and he coiled his fingers around it.
“Thanks.”
“As I said, nothing special. Just thought you didn’t listen to music much on the other side and seemed thrilled when I had given you my headphones.”
He remembered. His face heated up as he realized how easily they had seen through the effect music had had on him back then that he oftentimes had thought of asking them if he could listen some more.
As Ray stared into his palm, Y/n came out of the corner and awkwardly patted his shoulders. Unsure, like he was all of a sudden a stranger that they had never met.
“I hope your nightmares will cease their terror now.”
Then they left the room. But it felt like they were walking out of his life, with their gift and words lingering in the room as the only evidence of their temporarily intertwined lives.
Ray stayed behind as they vanished, and he held back the bile of hot tears that wanted to escape.
♡♡
Unenthusiastically, bones heavy and joints aching, Ray pretended with his most well-crafted mask joy about leaving this place for his home. His place, his things, and people. Where his siblings were, his real family.
He pretended with his typical easy smile but Norman, who stood near the door, throwing wary glances at Ray, knew that Ray was hiding something. That the smile was insincere, and he was not telling him something. Norman wouldn’t push, despite knowing something was holding his brother back from dashing out of these walls he was forced into against his will.
Ray hadn’t seen Y/n since that time three days ago. Not on the roof or the cantina. Not in their room, the garden, or with one of the nurses.
They were gone. A phantom in his memories of these past weeks.
Frantically he had wanted to see them again, especially today if only to make sure that their parting was of no finality. And yet deep down, he knew Y/n had intended that moment to be their last.
As he passed the lobby, Norman in the lead, Ray paused, mentally bidding the place goodbye.
“I’ll be waiting outside,” Norman said, Ray nodding absently.
It was evening by then, the time he would have sought out the roof. He wanted to see it one last time, just to experience the peace it brought him, the comfort. It would make leaving easier. And even then, he could always visit, in the hope to run into Y/n again.
He passed the hallway to the staircase, the one that was abandoned and absent of the hustling of nurses, doctors, and rolling hospital beds.
Feet shuffling over the slick ground, the staircase approached until he suddenly stopped dead in his tracks.
This area was usually abandoned is what Y/n told him on his grand room tour. Could they be? No.
Holding his breath, he tried to listen to the sound of life here where no one went. Then he further wandered the unfamiliar hallway, scowling at the ugly cream-colored walls, the forgotten stretchers, beds, and dimmed light. He always wondered what was down here Y/n had dragged him away after shortly introducing the place.
Cream color, white and yellow light, red mixed to one in one blurry vision and Ray almost missed the heavy smell of iron lingering in the hallways.
The scent was familiar to him and caused him to reach for a non-existent weapon at his shoulder before realizing that not he was the one in danger but the slouched figure, curled against the wall, with an awfully familiar pair of headphones slung around their neck.
Ray didn’t think, didn’t know what he was doing as he rushed to Y/n, who was whipping their head to stay conscious as blood pooled in rushes out of the deep cuts, lining up perfectly with their veins. Their eyes lost all their focus as they barely seemed to recognize his face or throaty voice frantically screaming their name.
Yet in some twisted act that Ray couldn’t understand they smiled at him and the wall and the world. Ray paused as a theatralic laughter toppled over their lips. It sounded unreal, hoarse, and dead to him. Nothing like those that he had come to know.
“What are you doing?” they breathed and it scared Ray. The look in their eyes, their dull tan, the crimson blood that stuffed all his senses with its metallic scent that sent him nightmares.
‘You can’t save the dead,’ he heard and he was unsure if Y/n had said it or his messed up mind, using Y/n to remind him of his helplessness.
“You’re not dead,” he called, screaming over the rush of noise filling his ears. This wasn’t real. Not the twisted features Y/n’s, the blood that stank of death. They weren’t dead. He wasn’t helpless. He could do something. He could. He must.
The expression they returned appeared almost disappointed.
Warmth spread on his cheeks. Blood. Y/n’s hands touched his cheeks. He smelled the blood, the death.
“I’m sorry,” they whispered. What for? Because he failed to save someone within his grasp?
“No, you can’t—You’re not dead.” Y/n leaned back as the blood painted the floor in its beautiful color. In death and life.
And then he saw the tears. Mixing with the stain of crimson on their cheeks.
“Y/n!” he screamed. He took their arms, abused by the plastic blade that lay carelessly at their feet. His fingers were smeared by their blood but he couldn’t care as his fingers trembled.
“Y/n, keep your eyes open!” He heard their struggle, the familiar ringing for air, for sight and thoughts.
“I wanted to be like you, Ray. You’re so much braver than I.”
“Shut up, you’re not going to die!” Ray shrugged off his vest and wrapped it around their underarms.
“Leave me alone, Ray,” they mumbled.
“No, I’m not going to watch someone else die!”
“Leave, then you won’t,” they said with a hardness that he had never known from them like they were angry at him. “You were not supposed to find me, no one was. This was supposed to be perfect, I’m tired of clowning, I can’t do it anymore.”
They kept talking, gurgling the cruel words in a terrible-sounding tone.
“No. No, it’s not a mask, it’s real! Being childish and true to yourself is not a clown mask!”
“God, I wish you were right.” Their chuckle cut off with a pained hiss as Ray tightened the fabric as best as he could around their split skin. God, there was so much blood.
“Help!” he screamed.
“Stop, it’s got nothing to do with you, Ray.”
“To hell with that! As if I’ll let you die, asshole! Fuck!”
He had no choice but to look for help, down here no one would hear them. He wouldn’t let them die, not today, not here, not as long as they were within reach.
“Ray?”
“I’ll look for help.” And he raced down the hallways, and up to the lobby and Norman must have worried because Ray was taking so long as he was the first Ray saw.
He hadn’t said anything, and Norman was off looking for the nurses and doctors. Ray was covered in their blood.
Ray trembled. What if they were dying at this moment?
“They’re in the west basement corridor,” Ray told the frantic nurses and watched as they hurried off, screaming instructions.
“Ray.”
“Norman?”
♡♡
“Ray, I’m horrible. For all the flaws I like to point out to the world, I think I’m just as bad as them. I lose that I touch, and I was afraid to lose you, so I was so cruel as to take myself away.
I lack what everyone seems to have, I’m not human, or perhaps I’m the only one who sees through the construct of society, who knows?
Perhaps, you were here because you suck as much as me at this little society play. I liked that. You were the only one I’ve met like myself. Do you know that feeling where you just want to die? I guess you do, they wouldn’t have put you here just because of nightmares. You have been there too, right?
I don’t really know what I’m telling you. Perhaps I feel guilty about what I will be doing. Hilarious, isn’t it? A worthy end for a clown. Although, I have to say, with you my act felt not like an act. I loved discussing the world with you as if we have any power to change it.
Will you forgive me for what I’m about to do?
I hope you won’t hear this too soon; I want you to enjoy your return to your family. I wish I could be part of that, Norman seemed really nice.
The truth is I’m not okay. I wanted you to see and I also didn’t. I didn’t want you to think what everybody else thinks once they have seen my scars. But I guess you are not like most. Perhaps to you, I wouldn’t have looked ugly, broken.
I can’t be loved normally by normal people but you are not normal yourself, are you? You are smarter than any of them, kinder, and the snarkiest.
Ray, if I could wish for one thing then it would be that you never listen to this. I want you not to know of my pathetic end. I’m a coward through and through that I couldn’t even tell you how I felt.
Ray, you were my favorite person. I wanted to dance with you. You, if I had to attend this dance, but in the end, I was too afraid and took the easy way out.
Ray, if I can wish for something else then it would be that you brought your family to the sea. I feel like the ocean sometimes, remember? I hope they throw my ash in the waves than I can meet your siblings, they must be adorable.
I’m sorry, Ray.
I could have danced some more, be braver. But I’m tired. Everything hurts and I don’t think anyone will remember the clown once it’s stopped performing. They all laughed while I was drowning.
Please don’t blame yourself for what I’m about to do. Because of you, I have held on longer. Thank you. That last chapter of my life was my favorite because you were part of it. But your story has to continue. I’m just a side character.
Please, Ray, rely on your family when you need them, I know you like to fight on your own because you don’t want to be a burden but you’re not.
Goodbye, Ray. Go and see Starry Night for me as well, would you?”
The ruffling that announced the end of the recording, resonated for the third time in Ray’s ears. The personal extra Y/n had mentioned to his playlist was their suicide note. He was meant to hear it after they had died. The first time he had suddenly heard their voice in his ears, he had cried, now he only stared numbly at his ceiling. His ceiling. His room.
Norman and Gilda had checked on him earlier, worried about him. He was fine. He really was.
Shoving off the headphones, he left his room. He needed fresh air.
Ray found himself at the beach, feeling the grains between his naked feet. The afternoon was tranquil, without Y/n the sun seemed less bright and the waves crueler.
The hospital stood in the distance. He feared going near it.
The lobby has lost its liveliness. Or did it only feel this way because Y/n wasn’t waving at every nurse, greeting all the doctors they knew by name, and racing with the children in wheelchairs, letting them win and insisting they were too fast?
“Yes?” the lady at the reception said over her phone but when she recognized him, she only nodded.
304
Ray knocked gingerly before letting himself in.
Y/n sat leaning against the wall on their bed, holding the book Ray had last given them on their lap. Their expression was unusually dull.
“You were right, I think this one is now my new favorite,” they said, without losing their focus from the pages.
Ray didn’t know what to say.
“You meant it that you would visit, huh?” they chuckled scornfully.
“You can’t be left alone,” he only returned, and Y/n smiled softly, peeling their eyes from the pages.
They were tired, pale, with dark circles under their eyes. Their nose and lips were still swollen.
“You’re right. I can’t be left alone.”
At first, Ray expected them to be angry, yell at him for what he had done, but Y/n only acted as if they had never been down there with their wrists bleeding until the nurses had found them passed out.
“How are you, Ray?”
“Your shitty message made me cry this morning.”
“Sorry, you can delete it, I obviously failed.”
“Stop joking about it.” How could they? When the doctors had sent him home without the reassurance that they were okay? When he had paced his room night to day until the call from his therapist reassured him.
“I’m sorr—”
“Also stop apologizing.”
Y/n clamped their lips together, touching the bandages covering their underarms.
“You were not supposed to see all of that, I didn’t want to hurt you.”
“Well, you did.” They had hurt him. Telling him to leave, telling him it had nothing to do with him. Those words had stung, and he hated Y/n for saying that. He was scared they would die, right then and there.
“You’re a dumbass. Shouldn’t have pulled a stunt like that while I wasn’t yet miles away from this place.” They clicked their tongue, having realized the same thing.
As Ray sat down on the sheets, Y/n turned to the windows that were locked tightly.
“The sunset never looked so sad,” they muttered.
♡♡
Ray had to hold down Phil and the others, from storming the walls of the hospital. They impatiently grumbled and whined asking for the 40tiest time when Y/n would finally come out.
“I don’t know,” Ray sighed.
“Y/n needs to be thoroughly checked before they can be discharged,” Norman helped, and Emma nodded eagerly.
His little sibling pouted all in unison. Ray rolled his eyes, imagining Y/n making a similar face whenever Ray had taken too long to match their excitement.
The big entrance doors opened and through stepped a nurse and Y/n at their side. They wore the same clothes they had worn on the beach, with the same dirty sneakers and their headphones slung around their neck.
Ray smiled as he waved to gain their attention. They turned to the nurse before being released and approached the group on their own.
Ray could see the angry red lines under their sleeves peeking out. They were still healing but were good enough to be strained.
“We’re playing tag, I hope you know the rules.” Ray released his siblings from his hug, smirking at Y/n who seemed at a loss with the mass of people there to greet them.
“I have you know, Ray, I’m an ace at tag.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Although, I guess, against you I’m just a noob.” Ray saw them blushing, the same moment that he felt his cheeks warm up.