geist davey

David sat alone in his tiny dormitory, head pressed tightly against his desk. It wouldn't be much longer that he'd stay in this place at the rate he was going. Another breakdown. Another several hours sitting here, staring point-blank at the cheap wood of his desk because the thought of doing anything more was mind-bendingly terrifying. Why did the simplest things have to be so difficult, for him and only him? He'd started on equal footing with his sister, at the same place, but while she was out making connections and friends, excelling, he was already failing.

But it'd always been that way, hadn't it?

This time alone, out of the careful, sometimes crushing glances of his parents, had left him stranded, left him time to think and realize that something inside him was broken that wasn't broken in his sister. His hands would shake as he filled out paperwork, and his peers could smell the weakness on him. It only took one night of going out to try to connect before he was sent back to his dorm, unable to scrub out the memory of something he knew he could tell no one.

That was alright. It was his fault for being so weak.

Every new attempt to do anything brought new failures, and with those failures brought fear. He knew how stupid this all was. None of this should be hard, but it all was. At least before he had something to keep pushing him forward. But it became increasingly clear that he was never meant to survive on his own.

The idea crept into his mind and, as the days crept away, it festered like an open wound. His phone went untouched, calls and texts gone unanswered.

If he could not survive on his own, he thought, he would cease to be a burden on anyone.

Gathering the tools was easy, and as he set them up he felt an odd sort of calm wash over him. Some broken part of his mind was satisfied. Yes, it said to him, end it. This is what you are meant to do. Worthless. This is what a weak, worthless thing like you deserves. This is the best end for you. The words were said not with a sneer, but soft, soothingly, coaxing him as he raised the bottle of sleeping pills to his lips, chasing them with a draught of vodka.

That was it. It was so easy. The easiest thing he'd done in his whole life. Now all he had to do was wait.

He lay still on the cot and closed his eyes. It was just like falling asleep.

--

Coughing and sputtering, he rolled off the cot into the floor and the air filled with the smell of bile and alcohol. Adrenaline spiked into his chest as he stared down at the puddle underneath him that was filled with half-dissolved pills.

I did it, he thought. I tried to kill myself. I /did/ kill myself.

The guilt hit him instantly, and he broke into tears, climbing away from the mess he made as sobs wracked his body. How could he have done such an awful, selfish thing? Maybe he did deserve to die, but that would have been just another way of burdening those who for some reason loved him.

But what could he do now? He felt trapped. Trapped in this tiny room that now reeked, and trapped by the feeling of being too weak to live and too afraid to die again.

Something prodded at his back. He snapped to attention, but he found the room empty.

Empty except for a pair of disembodied hands, attached to arms that seemed to fade into nothing where shoulders should be. The skin was ashen and grey, mottled with black specks that faded as they got closer to the pristine white fingers.

"What..." was all he could say. The hands fidgeted and fussed, and as he kept watching their bizarre movements the arms split into four along the middle, and then into eight, all divided into neat pairs like an invisible crowd that flitted around the room. They groped at items as if they were trying to adjust them, but they phased right through every time.

One pair grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him, which to his surprise he felt to some degree.

"I don't understand..." he said desperately. Had it been this bizarre thing that brought him back? He'd never seen anything like it before, but whatever this was, it wanted him. It shook him again with more urgency, another hand twisting impotently at the doorknob. Yet another pawed at his phone.

He may not have understood what this thing wanted from him, but even someone like he translated what it wanted him to do. For whatever reason, it wanted him to keep going. Might as well.

Not as if he had any idea what to do next.