主妇丈夫倡导的户外生活

Chapter 256 Tormented by the Dark

Roland rubbed his face groggily as he looked at his alarm clock. It's only 3:47 in the morning, and yet he had woken up. Or maybe he never truly slept, just stuck in position and closing his eyes trying to force himself to sleep.

He stared into the darkness for a while, making shapes that weren't really there.

In the morning, all he ever wanted to do was to sleep. And when he does lay in bed at night after a long and tedious day in court, he can't sleep at all. But he had long accustomed to the insomnia that it eventually felt like an essential part of his entire being, never being able to rest.

He wished that he would just die. Then he would finally be able to get the rest he so desired.

But at the same time, he couldn't just kill himself. Not because he was afraid of suicide, of commiting the act. But because there were just so many things to think about when going about it.

How it will affect his friends and loved ones, how he will pass on his possessions, both material and immaterial reasons chain him by the neck and keep tightening around him, yet not allowing him to get the freedom that one achieves only when they perish.

He stared at the dark ceiling once more. He wished he could just stay staring in the dark forever.

Become nothing, become one with nothingness.

It would be much better than to continue living this life where no one would truly understand him. Where he would remind an outlier, even among the groups of misfits and the abnormal, where he was utterly and forsakenly alone.

The pain of just wanting it to be over was sending him over the edge.

What was once metaphors and symbolisms in his head became a desire for the physical and literal. He just wanted to consume himself, to eat everything that he was until there was nothing left.

And as he looked at his own hands, he was consumed by the desire to actually do it.

The nothingness also manifested into something physical, as the creature loomed over him in the pitch black.

It had always been present even when he was young. He had tried to run away from it, but it had returned. It had mixed with who and what that being that desecrated him was, the one that loomed over him and entered every fiber of his being.

Metaphors into reality.

He had always been constantly consumed by him, and now it did happen.

"Hello, Mr. Shadow." He greeted it once more.

Mr. Shadow's form was just like his. When he was younger, Mr. Shadow was also young. The same height as him, the same dark eyes, same dark skin, same dark hair....

As he grew, so did Mr. Shadow.

Mr. Shadow pinned him to the bed, not allowing him any exits. He smiles at Roland with that same familiar smile, but it was twisted into something that wants to torment him.

That was the difference between him and Mr. Shadow.

He never knew that he was tormenting Roland. He wasn't doing it on purpose. Roland knew that very much, and yet Mr. Shadow manifested anyway as something that wants to constantly drive nails on every single one of his pores, wants to suffocate and bury him into the ground under piles of…..

Shame.

The shame just kept on getting stronger anyway. No matter how much he tried to make it go away. Shame then gave way to guilt, guilt gave way to anger. Anger to himself, this constant desire to commit violence on himself.

There was a time in high school where Roland would constantly wear long sleeved clothes, sometimes even gloves just to be safe.

He couldn't let anyone see those marks on his arm. Especially not him, because Roland knew….

That once he saw it, he would know he was the reason for those marks.

And as much as he was being tormented by his mere existence, he will not torment his friend.

If there was a way to make it all go away, he would. His own memories, his feelings of shame and guilt and madness and pain... Himself.

Not death of the body, but death of who he was. He was defined by this constant torment.

He never asked for this, and yet it was still his fault. It will still be his fault in the end. Maybe he was just too weak-willed to go on the straight path.

Or maybe it was something unchangeable, like a curse with no cure.

Mr. Shadow finally spoke to him.

"You wouldn't end his life. Your tormentor. Yet you could not end your own either. Aren't you pathetic?"

Roland just scoffed. "You think I didn't know that? I already know that I am the most pathetic in this world. Because I believe that, even though I know that there would be others who suffer worse. And yet I still truly believe that, making me even more pathetic."

"I am the most despicable thing in existence."

Mr. Shadow laughed at this, and then he placed his large all-consuming hand on Roland's head.

"The most despicable thing is existence itself."

And he couldn't help but agree. He wished that everything just didn't exist. Him, his tormentor, this awful world...

"I just want to be normal."

He whimpered quietly, pathetically. Like a desperate child clinging to his parent's arms for some toy that he will never get, that he will never deserve.

"But that's not possible, so I would rather cease to exist."

Mr. Shadow grinned at him. "Why don't you ask someone to do it for you?"

Roland frowned. "Who? Am I supposed to pay someone to just end my life quickly?"

But even that wasn't enough. What he wanted was to truly disappear, to leave no trace. Then there would be no guilt in his mind about leaving his friend behind.

Mr. Shadow didn't say anything….

And then vanished, merging himself with Roland.

He just laid there, staring at the ceiling and the nothingness once more. He just wants to rest.

Just as he was about to close his eyes….

There came the ringing of the telephone.

Ring! Ring! Ring!

He grumbled, and felt vertigo as soon as he sat up too quickly. He stumbled on his steps, the world spinning like a ball and he was inside it, just being tossed around.

He picked it up and asked. "Hello?"

And then he was snapped fully awake.

------------------------------

"He's dead! He's supposed to be dead! I saw….. I saw..."

"Artea, you need to calm down. Harker's not dead. Let's just wait for him to wake up."

There was chaos all around in the ER. The passing figures of nurses, patients and doctors were blurred in his vision. His head still aches. It aches so much.

And the sounds of Artea's cries were not helping.

Still, he offered her a shoulder to cry on and he patted her back. The poor thing was shaking, no doubt traumatized by whatever she had seen that night.

Roland pitied her, and yet he still couldn't help but think:

'Welp, welcome to the club.'

No doubt she would have nightmares of her own, and it will just get worse from here. And it doesn't get any better, you never get used to it.

"Tell me what happened. Start slow, just breathe." He coaxed her.

His voice had managed to calm her down and get her to spill the truth. She was incoherent at first, but eventually the words flowed better and she had described in detail about the land of Imposters, their counterattack with the garden shears, and the final thing she had seen before she passed out.

"His heart was.... It was taken out. How can he still be alive?" She sniffled.

Roland sighed. "You know the answer."

Artea wiped her tears, hating herself for crying. "He's…. He's like them, right? Those monsters, gods…. whatever they are."

"Yes." Roland sighed. "And I need you to listen carefully at this, because this is going to be a long one."

It was then his turn to explain everything from the beginning. How Harker became a demon lord, all the monsters he encountered so far, what they knew... everything except the parts with his interaction with Hanker.

Still, Artea managed to read between the lines and make a fair guess:

"So that's why you were so….. Lost. Conflicted. This whole thing was probably a punch in the gut while you're already bleeding from your own hidden wounds."

Roland smiled at this. "It's nothing. My pains are nothing compared to what Harker possibly had to endure."

Even so, his throat felt dry. He stood up wanting to take a drink.

"Excuse me."

He went to the vending machine to take some. But as he took a gulp…..

He realized that the water was pitch black, and he dropped it immediately.

Then when he looked around, everything was black once more. Flickering. He tried to calm down, to make it all go away but….

He was so tired of fighting that he could only collapse, and curl up in a ball beside his water bottle that spilled putrid tar and ink. So dark that it might as well be the blood of the abyss.

He suddenly felt a hand touch his shoulder.

"Don't let the darkness feed on you."

It was someone who he never would have expected to anchor him from that pitch black.

"Chief Fieldings?"