#bad brain shit surrounding my irrational terror that she's going to go through my room and all my things and find things she shouldnt

[intertexts]

tonight is going to be so cool 👍

[sweetnestor]

you can’t wake up

"I think there’s a fault in my code.” Read the first one if you haven’t already!

warnings: blood, murder, disturbing scenes

After Anti had his fun, it was hard to get back into the swing of things. Sometimes, Jack would find himself staring ahead before he remembered that he could control his limbs again. He should have been relieved that Anti had gone silent, but this kind of quiet was the skin-crawling type. It was the silence that left you with anticipation. Jack couldn’t let his guard down anymore.

He was tense, very tense. Signe would always point this out and then try to relax him with a massage. It wouldn’t help. Relaxing meant letting your guard down, and letting your guard down meant Anti. All it took was once for Jack to never want anything to do with that guy ever again.

Sleep still evaded him. He told Signe he was doing video stuff, which wasn’t technically a lie. But she had been getting suspicious lately. Jack would cross that bridge when he got there.

In the meantime, he sat at his computer, obsessively searching for, well, anything. “How does demonic possession happen?” “Signs you’re possessed.” “Hallucinations vs possession.” His hands never stopped shaking, his eye never stopped twitching. It was like an automatic response to things like this.

Schizophrenia. Maybe that was it. Jack wasn’t exactly religious, so anything about demonic possession in mental illness meant nothing to him. But still, he read the symptoms.

“Attraction vs. aversion to religion.” Again, he wasn’t religious. Demons want nothing to do with it either.

“Rational vs. irrational speech.” He liked to think he was well spoken. He could usually get his point across without any difficulty. However, his stomach turned when he read that untreated schizophrenics often speak in nonsense.

“The claim to be possessed.” Anti never revealed himself during the time he was active. Jack never told anyone either. According to this page, untreated people with schizophrenia or psychosis didn’t realize they were ill. Fucking shit.

He read on, not feeling particularly reassured by this article. He quickly went onto another page, not realizing how short his breathing had gotten despite that he could hear it right in his ears. There was another list of symptoms, but again, they were biblical.

“Fear and depression.” More like he was petrified and practically broken. He wasn’t the same anymore.

“Unhealthy obsessions.” Does his work ethic count? Jack’s need to remain consistent on YouTube did cost him some things. Opportunities, family events, anniversaries…

“Compulsive cutting or self mutilation.” That brought him back to the last one. Since Anti left, Jack had been scratching at his arms as if he were itchy. It was unconscious at first, but then he started scratching in other less conspicuous places, like his thighs or his stomach. He’d scratch until the skin was red raw. Then he made the decision to stop biting his nails. Now he couldn’t stop until he drew some blood. He wasn’t bothered by it, he just had to see it.

The rest of the symptoms fell together. “Physical and mental health problems.” “Racing thoughts and mental torment.” Signs were pointing to possession. This wasn’t something wrong with his brain. A supernatural being of his own fucking creating was living in his head. He created a monster.

“Sean?”

He was so focused on the screen that he yelled out in terror. He instinctively hot to his feet, knocking over the lamp on the desk in the process. His heart was racing, for a second he thought he was hallucinating again.Then it processed in his mind who was at the door, and he turned to face her.

Signe was in shock, needless to say. She was about to ask what was taking him so long, but then she looked down at Jack’s arms and her eyes widened.

He didn’t realize he had been scratching at himself. Droplets of blood were trickling down his arm. He didn’t know what to say. Anti was still silent.

~

“I’m not sick,” he mumbled. “I’m nuts… psycho… mad…”

Jack was in bed, fighting off the medication he had been given. After Signe found out what he had been doing to himself, she immediately took him to the hospital. Jack was placed under various psych tests, one of which involved a brain scan. Nothing indicated schizophrenia or any form of psychosis. The doctor just diagnosed him with depression and sent him home with some meds. That, and now Jack had to see a psychiatrist every so often.

But anyway, the medication was making him drowsy. The doctor deemed that Jack’s lack of sleep had caused the delusions of paranoia.

However, there was a fucking reason he didn’t sleep anymore. All he could think of was being stuck in his own mind, letting his guard down, and letting Anti come through again. All he could see were the people who crossed Anti’s path, all dead and lying together in a pile. The worst part was that those were actual people, dead on his hands.

“Where did you go?” Jack wondered. “What made you run away?” His eyes were drooping, his body was relaxing. Oh no…

Jack was in an all too familiar road. It was as dark and empty as that night. He could see the girl walking ahead of him. He could feel the knife in his hand. The only difference was that he was in control of his body. Not this again.

He started walking, dread filling his system, a weird static filling his ears. He knew where this was going, and even in his dreams, he couldn’t stop it.

When that was done (still as gruesome as the first time), he had to go on to the next one. He could feel himself hyperventilating, he kept trying to stop himself but it felt like he was just floating. It was like he had lost control all over again.

The next one was a teenage boy. Just as unaware as the last victim. He was leaning against the wall, typing on his phone. Jack could feel himself sobbing as he threw the knife from where he was standing. It sink right into the boy’s head, and he fell over, dead on impact.

That wasn’t enough. Jack ran over and pulled the blade and then repeatedly stabbed the boy’s neck and chest. Every splat of blood on his face was just as vivid as when it actually happened.

Then there was a group of drunk girls leaving the bar. Jack approached them, just like Anti did that night. The girls giggled and exchanged glances, then one of them pointed out that Jack was “famous.” He wanted to take the knife into his own heart just from hearing that.

One by one, he took them out. Slit two throats. Stabbed one through the chin, up into the nose. Took one by the heart. And the one that recognized him? Decapitated, left the body in the dumpster. As for the head, he left it on the street, and use the surrounding blood to trace a circle around it and a little tail. He had never been able to look at his own logo the same way ever since.

And then, he heard it. That soft but sinister laugh right in his ear. Jack froze in fear, still clutching the weapon.

“Don’t you know how to greet an old friend?” the voice was like the static he was hearing.

Jack turned and was face to face with… himself? Except, the green was darker and the eyes were pitch black. This was the first time he was seeing Anti as a separate entity.

“You never fail to amaze me,” the devil spoke. “You’re aware that you’re dreaming, I wasn’t even here half the time, and yet, you still murdered those people.”

“I couldn’t control it!” Jack argued. “You made me this way!”

Anti grinned and tilted his head to the side. It was like he was entertained by his host’s humor. No, wait. He definitely was.

“Why did you do this?” Jack asked, his blood beginning to boil. “Why me?”

Anti faded away, just like smoke, that grin never faltering. It made Jack even angrier, he yelled for Anti to come back. He ran around, looking for this fucking entity. He ran until he fell to his knees, and then he coughed.

He spat out blood, and he couldn’t stop. He felt himself choking and sputtering, he felt it rising in his throat. His eyes began to water, but when he rubbed at them he just found more blood. He started to panic. He screamed. He threw up more…

And then he sat up in his bed, gasping for air. Jack was shivering, but he was sweating profusely. He was breathing heavily and his heart was racing. The room was dark, putting him more on edge. How long was he asleep for? Did his body stay in bed, or did Anti try anything?

Jack put his hands over his face, only to realize just how sweaty he was. He looked down at found that the sheets were mildly damp, so he stood up and stripped the bed. His body was still trembling, even when he tried to occupy himself. He dropped the bed sheets and left the room.

“You’re awake!” called Signe from the end of the hallway.She approached Jack, watching him carefully. “Feeling any better?”

“Bathroom,” Jack responded, but he felt like he was miles away.

“Why are you all sweaty?” she asked. “Did you have a bad dream?”

He didn’t remember what he told her before he shut himself away in the bathroom. Like before, the silence was nerve wracking. It felt as if he wasn’t there, like his soul was fading away, and all that was left was his beating heart.

His body was on autopilot as he went to turn on the sink. He splashed some cold water in his face, only to see it run red. Jack immediately took a step back, his heart racing. His hands were soaked, as was his face. This couldn’t be happening again. What did he have to do to make this nightmare end?

“Stop it,” he told himself. Then he started smacking his head with his fists. “Stop it, stop it, stop it, stop it. Not real, not real, not real, not real.”

Static was ringing in his ears. It was slowly raising in volume, getting louder and louder to the point where Jack was covering his ears. He tried to yell over the noise. Then he punched the walls and yanked at his hair, trying to make himself heard. He just wanted this to stop. Why couldn’t it end?

Suddenly, the static was gone. All Jack could hear was persistent knocking on the door, and Signe’s worried voice. Jack was somehow sitting on the floor, leaning against the wall.

Anti may not be present, but that didn’t mean that this was over.