AGAIN & AGAIN & AGAIN \\ introduction?

[THE OSSUARY.]

i'm out of my head

text

//OOC eh, i apologize for the somewhat excessive length. you don't have to match nor do you have to read all of it. all that you really have to know is that he's having this inner conflict with himself over what is and what isn't real, and that he's talking to himself. i apologize in advance for the abrupt ending; i felt like this post was getting too long, haha. also, trigger warning for a suicide attempt - it's nothing too graphic; there's no blood or anything but i just thought i'd put a warning down anyway.

Henry wavered there on the edge of oblivion. Maybe he'd stay dead this time... maybe he wouldn't... or maybe whatever god above would give him the middle finger and have him survive the fall. His thin legs shook under his own weight as sunken eyes stared outward across the mountains. He had traveled all this way and had managed to survive in this body for so long, and for what? He felt like he didn't belong here or in this body and had come to the belief that, if he died on his own account, then maybe he would stay dead. Either that, or maybe he would come back in his human body, in his own home, and realize it was all nothing more than some terrifyingly realistic dream. A good part of him wanted to deny that he was actually here, anyway. That would explain the talking animals and perhaps some of the abnormalities that he had seen. Then again, what if this were some waking nightmare like the one he had before this one?

The nightmare - or, at least, that's what he thought it was - was of him stumbling around in a dilapidated version of the studio. He felt only sickness the entirety of the time that he was down there, the chemical smell in the air choked him out, the monsters attacked him relentlessly, and - more importantly - he was alone. There were no staff members, no Wally Franks, no Norman Polk, no Boris or Alice or Bendy. There weren't even any bodies... save for a few Boris clones and Butcher Gang clones, but that was it. Henry then grinned stupidly at himself. He remembered how he stuck around for a little too long trying to find anyone; he even thought that Bendy would just turn up out of the blue and ask him what took him so long. But there was nothing there except dust, monsters, and the memories that died a long time ago.

That dream felt too real and, when he was having it, it was like it was real. He had so many questions and he was terrified at the thought of whatever fate had come to those he had called "friend". He could feel and remember everything from that dream... almost. The end of it was foggy, unclear... like the memories of his deaths in this dream which were altogether nonexistent at best, with the exception of his knowing that he had died. "None of it was real Henry," he told himself then. Yet, if none of it had been real, then why did he still feel so shaken? The state that the studio was in couldn't have been possible, right? Perhaps it could very well be, especially since they were barely saving enough money to keep the light and heat on. Then there were the monsters that had roamed the halls - that couldn't have been possible either, right? Well, Bendy, Boris, and Alice existed - did they not?

Henry suddenly sucked in a breath of the clean mountain air to clear his head. A shaky sigh followed soon after as he finally turned his gaze down the mountainside - it was a good fall, if by "good" you meant that it would certainly kill you if you slipped. Maybe he was just doing all of this as a distraction from the past. He swallowed and lifted a paw, "You can do it," he whispered to himself, "It'll be easy... You just-" He gasped, cutting himself off when he slipped. His instincts kicked in, causing him to catch himself and back up a few steps from the edge. "Damnit Henry!" He sat down, his body shaking violently from the shock. In that moment, an abrupt, loud heave left him that was rapidly followed by a sob. A few shuddering breaths escaped him as he shook his lowered head, trying to pull himself together. Eyes squinted shut and brows furrowed, he just managed to slow his breathing. "Damn if I just wanted my life to be normal again," he uttered then as he lifted his eyes, an unsteady gaze struggling to focus on the distant peaks of mountains. Had his life ever been "normal" anyway?

So many fears coursed through Henry, mainly of what was going on while he slept... if he was dreaming at all, that is. What if the things he had seen before waking up as a cat weren't a dream at all? "Jesus... what happened while I was away?" His pupils focused on the grass again as he thought to himself. He had a plan back then; he planned to come back just days after he had left. Henry knew Joey was going to be shipping some of the company's products out; Henry thought that would've been a good time to save his friend from Joey's plans but... "Good God, what happened?" The crease between his brows became deeper as he thought. The last thing he remembered was sneaking in and... and then what? There was nothing, that was what. It was as if there was this vacancy where memories should be. There was nothing there, nothing his mind could conjure up, nothing to fill the space.

"GAHHH!" A frustrated shout pierced the silence among the sound of the wind that blew up the mountainside. Henry abruptly stood and turned away from the cliff's edge. Why did he have so many unanswered questions that he felt would forever remain that way? Henry tried to focus on what he had seen in the studio and everything before that. There had to be something that could give him a clue, a hint of any sort. "Uh, let's see... The ink machine was still there, unplugged... There were pentagrams everywhere... ink flooding the place. Was there a flood? No, that could've been cleaned up, right?" His eyes lit up then, "Wait, there was writing on the walls..."

Lost in his thoughts, Henry remained where his was on the mountain, near oblivious to anyone who could've overheard him talking to himself.

❝i'm strummin' on the corner, about to catch the last train home. i'll have to jump the barriers so can you spare a penny for my thoughts? i've been praised upon the pavements. passers by don't pay much. chased away by neighbors. seen things you couldn't make up. if the streets could talk they'd tell a story or two. i'll paint a picture for you. i can tell you what it feels like to lose your home on a cold night. ❞ TAGS ✦

[nuclear repository;]

  /tw: discussion of suicide (with blood and gore mentions) in all but the last two paragraphs- last two paragraphs are the most important part anyway

  It was strange, how one's view of such a severe topic as suicide could morph so drastically in the span of just a few years, and almost entirely because of one person.

  As a child, she hadn't been able to comprehend entirely the prospect of ending one's own life. When Michael had contacted them all through telepathy and told them he couldn't lead anymore, and when she had arrived at the roadside to find him bloodied and broken, her fragile psyche had assumed that he had accidentally stumbled into the path of an oncoming car, and the telepathic message had been sent in his last moments afterwards. Never had she realized, at least until Florence showed up on their doorstep a few months later, that Michael might have sent the message while leaving the territory, and then flung himself into the automobile's path of his own accord.

  For the longest time after that, she had despised him. While he had been enjoying his peace in the afterlife, LithiumClan rotted away within the confines of the hospital, its members slowly scattering to the winds in hopes that maybe, somewhere else, they could find happiness- but never there, never where the pathetic, childish weakling of a leader had been chained down and left to watch as everything fell apart. And then- and then he'd had the gall to betray them, to terrorize them, to act like being the good guy was so "difficult" and "boring" when they had all been doing so for so much longer than he had. How could she see suicide as anything other than a cowardly escape, when Michael's sole purpose for doing so had been to sabotage the clan that had loved him so much?

  Yet, when she had stumbled across Devlin's bloody note on the floor of her room, she hadn't loathed the seal point for doing so. As much fury and resentment as she had harbored (and as Peregrine would have once been able to attest, Seija had harbored several lifetimes' worth of both), she could never bring herself to hate the one person who had stayed after Michael's death, the one person who actually understood that a child could not lead a clan alone- the one person whose internal agony had been clear to see for months, and yet whom she had done nothing for. Of course Devlin wouldn't have been able to withstand any more of it, not when everyone she had once thought was worth caring about had abandoned her.

  Now, of course, Seija had no one left to rely on, and no one left relying on her. Two things, both intangible and relatively trivial, tethered her to the mortal plane; one was the fact that she had to find someone who would listen to her if she told them about LithiumClan, and the other was the fact that she absolutely would not let herself become even the slightest bit like Michael (a thought that was petty as all get out, but it worked well enough to keep her going).

  Regardless, when she overheard screaming from down the mountain, the mutated canine rushed down the trail, eyes narrowing. She didn't recognize the voice, but allowing a newcomer and potential listener to die would likely shoot a hole in her future plans. If they needed medical attention, she'd just have to lead them back up the mountain if possible, or administer first aid if not... staying focused on logistics was probably the best survival mechanism there was.

  Arriving on the scene, Seija glanced between the stranger and the ledge. She wasn't entirely sure what he was rambling about, but given the scream she'd heard earlier and the fact that the snow would make it easier to slip and fall, odds were that if she left him like this, he'd probably go careening off the edge of the cliff sooner or later (by accident or otherwise). "I would recommend that you follow me to the peak," she stated bluntly- no introductions, those would come later. "Staying out here is inadvisable."