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Crumpled in a pile on the wooden flooring and lit only by the television in the next room over, a red lump lay festering; it doubled over to where it seemed to devour itself. Still one moment and writhing the next, it readjusted itself, though the task was fruitless. There was no comfort to be found in its rapidly shifting contortions, nor in the blanket that concealed its form. Flaky felt like they might throw up.
The floor was hard, and they were tired, and nobody in the whole world cared enough to come pick them back up off of themself. The thought, of course, spurred on a dramatic eyeroll, as if they were gossiping with an invisible somebody in the room. It wasn’t true, and the allure of being the victim always wore off when they caught themself in it. No, their soul was just rotten; people still cared.
Flippy had called them not once, but three times this week for that very reason. “Flaky, would you like to go out to have a burger? I heard there was a baseball game in town, Flaky, it might be fun to go see. Flaky, you are going to die in that house if I don’t get you out of there.” He didn’t say that last thing, but they felt he should have. Veiled concern grasped at his every word, no matter how he tried to hide it. He always did. Because he cared, he’d say, when they caught him. It’s why he never asked upfront how they were doing, too. In the moments of silence between his words on the phone, Flaky could hear their heart race. They felt sweat dripping down his back like it was their own.
They decided to stop thinking about Flippy.
The TV distantly spoke from the room beside them. Something about bees and stingers. Documentary narration was a backing track for the house, albeit an accidental precedent set by a streak of illness some years back. They would remember to tell Sniffles something they learned the next time they saw him. She, in turn, would share another more interesting fact in return. Cat and mouse. Flaky's paw briefly fought through quills to scratch at their ear. They thought about band practice. They thought about how they hadn't gone in months. Cuddles stopped asking about it eventually. Which was good or bad.
It was uncomfortable, being strewn across the floor in a fugue state, but they figured there was no place which might be more pleasant than here. The body, always too heavy. And they did not have the resolution to embolden it. The romantic ideal of resting on cushioned fabrics instead of hardwood failed to garner any real appeal. So here, they decided, is where they would spend the rest of their night. They marked their internal calendar accordingly.
Flaky doubled over in some show of physical agony, though their head swam more than anything. Crimson spines bristled argumentatively against the new shape their body took, as if trying to resist the writhing form. With a cheek pressed to the floor and their head cradled like they had received some mortal wound, they shifted again. It wasn't any more comfortable, but they were tired. Even so, their sandy eyes were not met with the relief of being shut tight. Flaky could hear the ground breathe beneath them, if they put their ear to it.
The fleeting thought that they might sink into the floor if they stayed like this crossed their mind, only for a moment. Being the floor would be scary , they think. It was a kind of ridiculous idea. Nobody can turn into the floor. But it did not stop them from suddenly wanting to be off of the ground, right now, right this very second. Their entire soul jerked away from it, frantic at the thought; their body did not budge. And it was happening. They knew it was happening. Of course it would be them that this happened to. The first to ever be so miserable and rotten and hopeless that they simply disappeared and all traces of them vanished and there was nothing anybody in the whole world could do to help even if they were scared and really really really wanted someone to come save them.
They moved their paws over their eyes to cry, missing the way their body shifted in its free will of motion. There was no sign of imprisonment; they didn't notice, or feigned ignorance.
“I want to get better.”
The sentiment bubbled out of Flaky's mouth, in all its wrongness, garbled with snot and wet. It didn’t feel like a real thing to say. It was as if speaking the sentiment into the room's empty void might hold them accountable enough for them to have to mean it in order to say it at all. They didn’t mean it, of course, and it was a scary thought to behold. Perhaps they derived some wicked pleasure from being content in misery and making it the problem of others. People they revered had seen the writing on the wall for years, so the sudden revelation of lifelong inferiority was no real surprise. Still, they cried.
Flaky's knee absently dug into their stomach as they further curled into themself. Their eyes were bleary with haze. And their brain felt like tissue paper, whatever that meant. They didn't care much to dwell on it. They felt sick again. They squirmed helplessly.
When their soul first showed signs of souring, Giggles would chastise them for the self-pitying acts before launching into her own spiral. With how they had come to realize that world-weary feelings were a privilege for anyone who wasn’t a sad person, the action seemed much more permissible to them. The light of suffering angels shined bright against their unjust, unworthy, ugly features. Flaky missed the wrath Giggles would bring to nights like this even if they didn't want to. It felt like a giant hole inside of them was going to eat them alive.
Almost every self-soothing method they knew was something that agitated their malaise to a higher degree. The clearly demonstrated awareness of this fact did not stop their trembling paws from reaching up to take their pulse against their throat. It ran high, as it always did, and they were always terrified further by it. Flaky swore they could feel their blood turn to ice as they counted much too rapidly. But it was helping, so they continued, even if their frenzy only escalated. Their eyes drooped despite it. Surrendering to sleep was out of the question. They were falling asleep anyway. Like a fish that drowns in its own air if it stops swimming. So they gave up, like they always did, and it was easy. They prayed to God that whoever found the red mass of their corpse on the ground didn’t find it too funny. At least, in their final moments, they hoped this single dignity would be afforded to them. They rolled over. Their spines bristled. Their eyes, still damp. They slept.
Tomorrow they might wake up to Flick knocking at their door with Flippy's promised baseball tickets in tow, or Nutty crawling through an open window to invade their personal space without warning.
Tonight, though, they dream that nothing happens at all, forever.