You're so caught up in your own problems, drowning in history, being buried alive with every single memory of Kellian that you can conjure, that you never even notice Elsa following you. She could have been an elephant, a marching band, a jet engine plane and you would not have heard her. You only hear that constant chant- Drugs. Drugs. Drugs. Drugs. But it's stopped with you, and whatever little bit of sanity that chant offered you, however many of your memories it held at bay, it's all gone. They come flooding back, washing over you, wrenching your heart and throwing it on the ground, stomping on it and shredding it to pieces. This is why you need your drugs. This is why you have to have them. At first it was a habit, something you couldn't break, something you never meant to start doing but it happened anyway. Now? It's your lifeline, your anchor in reality and sanity. Without them you are a broken man. Nothing but a shadow. No wonder you blend into the darkness so well.

As soon as your head is against the wall, more memories begin piling up on you, images you never wanted to see again, because they bring up so much pain. Days of you and Kellian lost in the forest, talking, training, doing whatever, with no cares in the world. Those nights on the plain, taking turns watching over the herd, keeping them safe. Those trips to the ocean to watch the waves crash against the shore. Trips to the marsh to get your plants... You shudder. Did you actually love her, or is everything amplified because you were forced away from home? You think that's the worst part- not knowing.

You might have loved her, you think, as you stand here now, head pressed against the wall, that you did love her, that she was your one and only, your beloved, your heart and soul. But if she was your one and only... why did you want to kill her? Why did you try so hard to smash Elsa to bits and pieces, for the crime of just looking like Kellian? Maybe you didn't love her. Do you kill someone you love because they left you for another man? Did she even really leave you? Or did they coerce her into acting like she was with the captain of the guard? Was it all an act because they wanted you out? Did it break her heart as much as it broke yours? But why wouldn't she just stand up for you, or be banished with you? Did they threaten her with worse? Death, family? But wouldn't they have just killed you if they wanted you gone so bad?

Fiction and reality begin to blend, morph, become one in your mind, making new stories from old ones, combining truth with falsities, making you question your own existence. It's too much, so much that you're ready to scream, to bellow, to fall to the ground and lay there and beg for your heart to stop, for death to come take you away. But you don't get so far. Someone else has joined you. Oxy. That's you. Right? Sometimes it's hard to remember.

“What do you want?” The words are a nearly incoherent slur, your low voice practically whining and you consider smashing your skull into the rocks in front of you, just because you think it might be more fun than you're having right now. And then you just moan, not from the physical pain but from the mental pain. Are you turning out to be just like the rest of them? So confused and wrapped up in yourself, in your false reality, that you don't know real from fake? Is this how your days end? You shake your head from side to side, appreciating the way your horns screech against the rock, trying to drive Kellian's smiling face out of your head. It doesn't seem to help.

@[Elsa]- Don't be sorry for fast replies, lol! Besides, I'm really enjoying threading with you and Elsa!