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What was wrong with him? He had no idea. He had no idea about anything anymore. Shrimpo had been feeling so much he wasn't supposed to feel. He wasn't supposed to be this complex. Fleshed out. His life was supposed to be simplistic and full of passionate hatred. So many new emotions and feelings. As if he was a growing child.
Happiness. That's the one with smiling and laughter. Sadness. Frowning and crying. Disgust. Grimacing and gagging. Numbness. Longing. Hope. Disappointment. Determination. Mental exhaustion.
Despair.
When he wasn't mindlessly wandering around and shivering or having fainting spells, he was just laying in bed. Shrimpo wasn't as active as he used to be. Maybe over text, but he was tired. So tired. Of doing the same song and dance. The other toons were LUCKY. They were made to typically feel happiness. Absolute paradise and ignorant bliss. Even if they weren't happy, they were at least allowed to experience and express different things on their own will. They were given the privilege to have range. They didn't have to simmer in loathing and negativity constantly. 24 hours. 7 days of the week. 365 days of the year. Sometimes 366 counting leap year. He was heavily isolated and alienated. The rest believed he enjoyed being violent and enraged all the time. Thought the only thing he didn't despise was himself. They were far FAR from right.
The bully was bedrotting in the confines of his bedroom currently. Who knew the safest place for him was also a purgatory? Old tear streaks remained on his face. Shrimpo's skin felt all sticky and gross from that. He had, very embarrassingly, wept in front of a certain pocket watch. There were mixed feelings on that, which he'd rather not focus on. In fact, nothing was on his mind right now. He was blanking, staring at the wall across from him. There he was in that humid, battered room on this dingy uncomfortable bed of dirty sheets and a rigid pillow.
Every breath he took felt like a chore, repeatedly bringing back the pain of his agitated and inflamed throat. After the thousandth inhale, he harshly hacked up more ichor. The boiling substance bubbled and fizzled on his pillow, staining the white with black. It was a very concerning amount this time around. Then, he gagged and gargled, coughing up more and more. Shrimpo shakily gasped. His lungs burned. It felt as if he was actually rotting in the literal sense. As if his immune system was attacking itself. Was he falling ill? The idea didn't seem too bizarre to Shrimpo. Plus, he failed to recall the last time he ate... or drank... or maintained hygiene... or exercised... anything to take care of himself really. That must've been what was up.
Shrimpo decided to try going down to the kitchen to grab some food. It strangely took a lot of effort to even sit up, his movements incredibly sluggish and his vision a little woozy. However, he did it.
He couldn't feel his right arm.
The crustacean's tired and glossy pink eyes shifted as he swiveled his head to look at the limb. His eyes widened. The skin on his arm was sloughing off. This was different from the dissolving effects before, from the hot ichor. It looked like half of it was straight up decaying, the surface grossly discolored and weak, easily tearing apart. Shrimpo tossed aside the thin blanket that was on the bed only to find a damp patch of dried and fresh ichor on the sheets. Was this.. happening all this time and Shrimpo just didn't notice?! His heart rate sped up, but he tried to silently convince himself that it didn't mean much. He'd turn out just fine. However, a sickening sound of skin and flesh ripping and detaching filled his senses before the noise of a soft thud. It was silence for a moment, the toon taking a shuddering breath before turning back to look. There was his forearm on the floor. Separated from his body in a puddle of ichor. The reality of the situation sunk deep down into him.
Shrimpo slapped his remaining hand over his mouth, biting down onto his fingers as much as he could while tears filled his eyes once again. He screamed into it, the pitiful noise of agony suppressed and muffled. A shuddering gasp was taken in. He felt absolutely nauseous at the sight, his body trembling. His mind was on the brink of a panicked spiral. A good portion of his arm just fell off! He felt wrong, everything WAS wrong! Shrimpo couldn't come up with a logical explanation for any of this right now. He didn't even have enough time to process what just happened as the ichor was already trying to make up what was lost while other parts of his body decayed too.
As more ichor splattered from his mouth and stained his jaw, a strong claw protruded from the wound, making Shrimpo shout in pain once again. It all burned so fucking bad. Excess fresh tears streamed down his face, seemingly never-ending. He continued to wheeze, hack, and scream. His cries fell on deaf ears, just as he intended. But maybe it would have been relieving to be heard for once.
At a certain point though, he couldn't take this anymore. The suffering and rotting. He got off the bed completely and staggered towards his desk that was messy with papers of how much he hated different things. A handler had recommended this coping mechanism to him some time back. He rarely did it anymore as it didn't work, but he didn't bother to move or throw away his writing yet. There also laid his phone. The device was cracked by all means and continued to function by a miracle. With ichor blurring his sight, he picked up the device, However, it was short-lived as he actually thought about it.
They wouldn't care.
They wouldn't care about him at all and that was the harsh truth.
Once that reality came back to him during his state of irrational panic, he ultimately gave up as more grotesque appendages sprouted from his sides violently. He felt the ichor around his mouth harden, making him choke on any more that his body struggled to cough up. They all hated him and he hated them. No one in their right mind would care about this. Even if he cried for help. Why would they? He dropped his phone. With the bits of sanity he had left, Shrimpo used the rest of his conscious energy to push the desk in front of the door after locking it. He also moved around the room to grab other items that could be used to put on top the desk and barricade the door. As hateful as he was and as much as no one cared for him, somewhere deep down inside him, that violated his programming, held a sliver of care for them. Shrimpo knew that once the flame of his awareness went out, he was sure to be mindless and violent. He felt it into his gut as he was transforming into something else. Something he couldn't control. He didn't want to hurt anyone.
He'd be damned if he let that happen.
