Cosmo Lewis

Silence was something Cosmo had grown used to. Silence was bliss. Silence was holy. All anyone ever wanted in Cosmo’s world was to be perfect, pedestal-worthy silence.

But this was eerie silence. Dead silence.

In the dim lighting of the empty room, illuminated only by the meticulously arranged candles that had been burning for hours yet remained tall as the deities they worshiped, the reason was made clear. Multiple figures lay lifeless at his feet, their blood soaking into his socks and making a sickening sound when he tried to frantically back out of it. The sight was like quicksand. The more he tried to escape, the more suffocating it became.

In the corner of his vision stands a horned figure, reminding him this is his future. Cursed boy. You cry and cry, but your tears burn your skin like the most potent acid. So flawed and impure with those streaks of blood down your cheeks. Your worth in this world is wasted but there is hope for you yet. Are you a coward? Your sanctity can be renewed.

Covering his ears, digging the heels of his palms into his cheekbones until he was sure there would be bruises should he lift them, he cannot bring himself to look away. Blood-soaked socks drag across the floor as he tries to back away, surely there was an exit somewhere, but all he backs into is another wall where the door once existed.

After his gaze flicked from the door-turned-wall for the briefest of seconds, what once was a horned figure now presents as two figures. They are entirely black against the candlelight, “eyes” mere bright circles as if he were looking directly into a torch.

His parents stand, there is no expression on their “faces.” You could have been something great, they lament blankly. Yet you are a caterpillar too early out of its chrysalis. Your winged wasted potential lie wilted where you will never see, on full display for all to heckle. Why do you hesitate? For so long you have begged to be pure again. You understand how to return.

He tries to stop them, to shut them up, yet he is but a child. His words don’t escape, can’t escape, can’t register as any more than static as the beings coo at him in that sickeningly dull tone.

---

Clawing at his textured marks, hoping to rip them off like scabs. That’s all they are, all they must be, all they can be. They are not his, they are not him. He’s thrashing around, tangled in a spiderweb of blankets, reminded further that he is nothing more than a fly, and spiders don’t have ears to hear his pleas for mercy. He’s elbowed and kneed and otherwise collided with some mass beside him on the bed, but through his panic he can’t bring himself to wonder what it is.

He’s drawn blood in multiple places, nails chewed down to uneven sharp ends proving more than enough to slice through his skin provided enough attempts. The glowing eyes in the tar-like mass on his neck squeeze shut every time his hand comes near them, “eyelids” blending in with the rough texture, as if they have a mind of their own. Vaguely, he can hear a panicked voice trying to soothe him, though he can’t clear his mind enough to decipher their words.

It’s never this bad. It’s never… Why is it now? I can’t see, I can’t breathe, I don’t have a home to return to. {{user}}… It sounds familiar enough, an echo in a desolate cave. {{user}}. I have {{user}}.

Willing himself to pull his twitching fingers from the flaws dotting his body, he instead reached them out in front of him, searching for any resemblance of comfort if such a delusion still existed. “{{user}},” he hiccupped through his sobs, feeling absolutely pathetic, “{{user}}…”