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The light in your eyes used to shine much brighter...

A flash of white, his eyes opening, only to close again as he groaned, sitting upright. Where was...Oh, that's right. He'd been knocked out by Zack ages ago. He sighed, shaking his head and glancing around.

"Alright, let's get this over with. What do you want?" He sat there, staring straight ahead, his eyebrows furrowing more and more by the minute. This is always how it went. "I said, I-"

"I heard you." The voice echoed, gravely, just off to his right shoulder.

He didn't bother to look, he was quite familiar with the grim visage already.

"Then answer me already, I'm sick of playing this game with you." There was a rumbling hiss, almost like a sigh, and the voice growled from over his left shoulder now.

"You? I'm sick of this too." The voice rumbled, actually reverbrating through his chest with each word it formed, like being too close to a bass speaker. He hated when it did that. "You think I want to be locked up in here, with you?"

He didn't feel it, but he knew it had tried to touch the side of his head, and he waved his hand across his hair by instinct.

"The way you're living disgusts me."

"Yeah, I can understand that, your breath does the same thing to me."

"Joke all you want, I can't allow you to continue like this." He felt a shifting behind him, sighs, and climbs to his feet, turning and facing the bleached white skull millimeters from his face, pupil-less eyes glaring at him from each eye socket. "This is completely unacceptable."

He scoffed, crossing his arms and glaring right back at it. "You're right. You can't keep me in here, having to listen to your droning voice forever."

"I can and I will, until you give in." Another rumbling hiss, that voice rumbling through his insides again, making him nauseous. It seemed to be its way of adding an angry tone to its words, as it only seemed to happen when he upset it in some way. Damn it was annoying though.

"I am you, as you should be, as you were meant to be." It continued, gesturing with a long arm and continuing to speak without moving its mouth, though its eyes never left his own. "No limits, no barriers, no soft, weak heart to hold me back. Everything within my grasp, every dream, every goal..." It seemed to smirk for a moment, sliding closer again, looming over him.

"Everything you failed to accomplish."

It was a simple enough phrase, but it shook him to the core, and not just due to the feel of its voice rolling through his innards. His stomach dropped; he'd heard all of this before. Every day in fact. You're not good enough. You're useless, hopeless. That was him saying all that. That small, incessant voice in his head that berated everything he did, remembered every mistake, and made sure to bring them all up at the worst times.

He tried to keep eye contact with it, found it hard to. Its pupils seemed to glow. He frowned slightly, narrowing his eyes.

"So...You're me. Or a part of me. You feel different than Forest or any of the others, and I'm not sure why yet." He shook his head, arms slipping to his sides as he clenched his fists. "Look, there's a reason you're not in charge. I don't know what kind of creature you're supposed to be, but-" It drew back slightly, as if hit physically.

"Creature?" It looked down at its long arms, covered in bones, then back up at him, those pupils narrowing. "...Is that how you see me?" It drew back to its full height again, glaring down at him. He raised an eyebrow, rather confused by that reaction. It hissed again, eyes burning brighter.

"...I should be the one in charge, not you. You're ruining us. You'll die alone, wallowing in a pit of your own regrets, too old to do anything you'd hoped to, failing in every dream you've ever had." It hissed, leaning closer, practically touching him now.

"One day you'll slip. You'll give in, your heart will break and you won't be able to deal with it anymore, and then, I will be there and..." It hissed, looking over itself again, before locking eyes with him, the jawbones on its face parting to let a long, sinewy tongue glide forth, curling partially around him.

"...I will devour you and take your place."

They stared for a few long moments, neither budging an inch, before he moved his hand to brush aside the slick appendage.

"...That's it then, huh? That's all you want? Fine then..." He stepped back, reaching next to him and motioning as if pulling a chair from a table, one materializing in his hand. He twirled it and set it backwards in front of him, flopping down and resting his arms across the top.

"This is still my mind. I'm in control here, not you. There's a reason I'm the one in charge and you're delegated to...Whatever this is you're doing." He narrowed his eyes, resting his chin on his arms. "But...I'll play your game. I don't quite understand why you exist yet, as everyone else in here seems to have a purpose. I'm guessing yours just got lost somewhere along the way." It continued to stare at him, eyes narrowing as well.

"I realize I'm not perfect, and maybe I don't "shine" as brightly as I have before, but..." He paused, glancing down for a moment. "I'll figure it out. And I don't need you to remind me of my failures all the time, when I can recount every single one I've made on my own." He closed his eyes, sighing heavily, feeling so very tired of it all. How many times has he had this same conversation? It feels like hundreds, each one a little harder than the last. He buried his face into his arms, muttering to himself.

"I'll be fine. I have to be fine, I can't afford to give in now." He stirred a bit, his leaden body barely responding as he forced himself to look back up again. As he opened his eyes, the light blinded him again as they adjusted, and he found himself staring into a familiar, bright-eyed, fluffy face.

"Ah! Guys, he's finally awake!"

---

A bit cheesy maybe, but I just felt like I had to address this somehow. If I was a better artist I could've finished the nigh 7 pages I'd done for this already and posted it in that form, but I just couldn't seem to. It just seemed to get worse and worse the further I went in, the artwork, the writing...So I condensed the idea, wrote this up real quick, and I hope that's enough to quell the desire I've had to show this playing out in some form or fashion.

We all have our own demons to deal with, right? Those terrible, muttering voices or feelings in our heads that only seem to remind us of how miserable our lives are. "Oh, if you'd only done that instead, how stupid of you", or "You'll never be able to find a job, you're not good enough, you know that", or "Why would they love you? What do you have to offer them in return?", or any other number of things. It seems like no matter how much we struggle, or how much other people and friends tell us the opposite, you just can't shake it; every one of those words rings true with you, on some small level. It can't all be a lie in that case, can it?

Its all something we struggle with, some more than others, and I wish that I could help everyone with such things. I know how miserable it can make you, and how worthless you can feel...Just don't give in. Like in the story up there, I always have to remind myself that I'll be fine, that I have to be fine; too many people depend on me to let everything go south again. And after reading about suicides and such this past week, and knowing what its like to be there, its something I feel adamant about.

So, its not much, but I hope knowing someone out there knows and cares about what you're going through, what you have to deal with, the ridicule and hopelessness and feeling like the most worthless human being on the planet...I've been there. And none of what that voice is saying to you is true.