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Corey sits on the edge of his bed, back slouched over and hands burying his face. He tries to ignore the raging ache of nothingness weighing his chest, but all in vain. It’s exhausting, the constant touring, the shows, the flights, the people, the reporters, the interviews- just fucking everything. All he wants is a break, just to pause for two fucking minutes and get himself together again. His body seems to grow even heavier with the throb of emptiness filling inside him. It had progressively been getting worse as the cycle went on, but now it was at a breaking point.
The echo of voices clamoured through the walls, filling the air with nothing but irritating chatter. It rang through his ears and sparked fresh rage within him. Corey had had to sit through these worthless voices for too long. There was no point to their conversation, and nothing was achieved from it, so why did they never stop speaking?
He sighed heavily as the racket grew louder from beyond the walls. It seemed to vibrate painfully against his skull, and he pressed his face further into his hands in an attempt to drown it out. He didn’t know how much longer he could stand this. At least the tour was almost at its end, but that didn’t help much.
Suddenly, the door swung open with a striking bang, and Sid barged into his room. Corey looked up in surprise, which was quickly replaced with annoyance.
But that emotion didn’t have enough time to form any longer as Corey noticed something strange about Sid.
He looked like Sid, sounded like Sid, acted like Sid… but he wasn’t Sid. He couldn’t place his finger on it, but his instincts told him that this wasn’t Sid. A heavy air hung around him, an essence which gave away that something was wrong about him. This wasn’t Sid.
0 stared at him expectantly, silently encouraging him to join the others outside. But Corey knew that he shouldn’t do that. This was an imposter. He couldn’t be trusted, no matter how similarly he acted to Sid. Something about his presence twisted Corey’s stomach around, and he knew that 0 was going to try and kill him. He didn’t know how he knew, or why he knew, but just knew.
0 frowned, confused at why Corey is only staring at him, and took a step further into the room. At the movement, Corey jumped back as panic surged through his veins. He was trying to kill him. He was trying to kill him. He knew it.
Fear started to build inside his chest as he watched the imposter with horrified eyes. He can’t let the appearance of his friend put his guard down. They’re infiltrating his friends to try and gain his trust, just so that they can kill him when he least expects it.
“Dude, are you okay?”
0 looks concerned, but Corey can see past those lies. He can fight whoever this imposter is. He knows who they truly are.
But then there’s another face in the doorway, then another. Just like 0, they look exactly like his friends, but there’s something wrong about them. The air feels malicious and deceitful. Now, all of his “friends” are standing at the entrance of his room, their faces twisted in an untruthful confusion. Had he ever even been touring with his friends, or had he been tricked by these imposters the entire time? They were all coming to get him. He couldn’t escape.
Fresh waves of terror flooded through his body at the number of assailants. His heart started to beat quicker. Thinking fast, too scared that he might miss his only chance, Corey sprung up from his bed and ran straight to the doorway. Pushing 0 out of the way, he stormed into the group of imposters and barged his way towards the entrance door of the house. The frauds moved out of his way surprisingly easily, and Corey thought he had just made it out of their danger when a strong hand wrapped around his torso and pulled him backwards.
4 grabbed hold of his body and held it tightly, denying an escape from his clutches. Corey screamed and thrashed against the imposter’s imprisonment, but to no avail. He felt his breathing grow erratic as new panic rushed through him. His heart pounded lethally fast and his vision had begun to falter, either from horror or tears streaking his face. Even his fingers had started to grow numb and tingly, which was new. Desperately, he kicked out against 4’s grasp with all his strength. He wouldn’t let them kill him. He couldn’t.
“Jim, let him go before he hurts someone!”
One of the other imposters called out from the back of the crowd. Strange, wouldn’t they hold on since he was already at their mercy? But Corey wasn’t complaining. After a slight hesitation, the arms released him and he darted to the front door, pulling down on the handle and fleeing into the cold night streets. He could hear commotion growing behind him, and the sound of many footsteps rushing after him.
He didn’t look back. He had to escape them. He had come this far, he couldn’t give up now. Even as his sight started to blur and falter, he pushed onwards into the dark night, twisting through labyrinthine streets until the footsteps grew fainter in the distance. His body gave an exhausted shudder, and he stumbled into one of the shadowed alleyways. Little stars swam through his vision, and he felt himself fall towards the ground in a dizzying wave, even though he couldn’t feel the impact of the concrete. Silently, he slipped into darkness.
~~~
Corey slowly opened his eyes.
He was in his room. Laying on his bed. The lights were dimmed to a comfortable brightness. Had he fallen asleep? Why did his body ache so much?
Tiredly, he turned his head to the side and saw Jim, Paul and Sid standing around the room, Paul sitting almost directly beside his bed. They all shared a look of concern and fear in their eyes as they watched him wearily.
Why did they seem almost afraid of him? He hadn’t done something to upset them, had he? Not that he could remember at least.
Sid was the first to break the silence.
“Dude, what happened back ther-”
Paul twisted around and glared at him quickly. “Shut up!”
He timidly turned back to Corey.
“You feeling alright?” He asked gingerly, a hint of fear trickling through his voice.
Corey watched him confusedly. Was something wrong? Then he looked down and saw his arm. It was bruised and had fresh red grazes tearing through the skin. Clearly, something had happened, but he couldn’t remember what.
“Did I do something?” He murmured quietly, turning back to Paul.
The three members shared a glance of concerned uneasiness, but didn’t say anything.
“I think you need some rest,” Paul finally responded, avoiding the question.
Corey watched them confusedly. Why weren’t they telling him what happened? What did happen? What did he do to them?
But his body was too tired to fight. Silently, he closed his eyes and turned to his side as the three left the room.
Why couldn’t he remember what he did?