TW: Take a moment to step into Xephos’ mind as he reflects about the labs and how it has effected him. I hope everyone who reads this enjoys!

I always wonder if they notice… the changes.

I know it’s not possible, but a part of me always wonders.

They always seem so happy, at least, for the first few days.

Those days, where their feet mingle with the grass and they can smell the ocean that’s a stone throw away. I’ve seen them, smiling, laughing, it’s art really. How they actually play out the old saying and smell the wild flowers before they pass them. They lay and stare up at the clouds till they turn into the stars. When I call them, they come, with their smiles. Ah, those smiles. I wish they lasted longer.

After the first scarce weeks of their carefree stages, they always, always, begin to harden. Their laughter lessens, their eyes forget the sun… and they find me. These weeks I don’t mind too much. They follow me like lost children, and I guide them. They don’t understand the machines, or the chemical compounds but they know me, sometimes I wish I could be the only thing for them to be exposed to. Occasionally, they catch on and enjoy listening, nodding at every new long winded explanation. They still pine for the songbirds and camp fires but they adapt to the sterile environment well enough, they always do.

Recently, the months upon months it took for them to start to close off, to practically detest what surrounds them, have begun to grow shorter in length. They are starting to catch on too quickly. They begin to see the experiments as cruel instead of intriguing, the food as bland instead of inventive. They begin to see me as… cold, emotionless. They almost… fear me.

When they fight back, as they always do, I retaliate. I have to… there are no other options once they have crossed that point for which there is no return. I take no pleasure in it; the duty I have to destroy them, but it has to be done. I cannot allow them leave the labs, not after what they have seen, not after what they have partaken in. All they’ve ever known is me and the labs, and that can be all they ever know.

When I’m foolish enough, I think about what goes through their head, in those last seconds, as I hold them and whisper chaotic apologies. In their last thoughts, do they curse me? Do they wish they never had met me or that I had ever even existed? Has one ever thanked me… for ending it all?

These thoughts, I could say they keep me up at night, but that would only be half of the truth. They never let me sleep. The black circles under my eyes, I know they are there, but I never dare to look. I long ago smashed my mirrors. I cannot look at what I am, for I don’t even know anymore.

The shadows I see, in the corners of my eyes, sometimes I believe they’re my past: lurking heavily out of view but constantly present. I could close my eyes. Close my eyes and pretend they’re not there, but when I do, I see the faces. The faces of those I held, while they died. The same face, the same shaking eyes, the flooding tears.

When I’m alone, I can hear my breathing. My deafening breathing… and I wonder if I stole my air from those lungs that I have pierced. I shift and I hear my bones creak, like the ones that have given up as they break under my hand.

Some nights, when I’m irrational and try for sleep, I feel as if I’m not there, that my very existence has been gone of years. How many have there been before me? What number am I? When will I be replaced? Am I even real anymore?  I dig in my mind for these answers as I feel my fingers drum above my heart. The scratching: it starts off harmless and every, single, time, I think nothing of it. I think, and I scratch. I think, and I scratch. I feel the pressure from my nails, I feel the heat from the repeated friction and yet I choose to dig deeper. I need to dig deeper, the answers are there… I know it. I push harder… my skin begins to peel. I pushed harder; I can feel my heart beat faster. I push harder and I can’t stop. I need to know… if I’m still human under all of this.

When I can feel my breathing sputter, I move my hand to my hair. I pull, as hard as I can. I need to pull harder than those faces that push in my mind. I need to wake up my brain. My mind, how does it tick even when those faces constantly ask why? I feel hairs begin to be pulled out by the roots, simple one by one as I continue. The feeling is almost soothing at times, like I’m shedding away the confusion, the hatred and all there is, letting go, trying to find the real me again. Was I ever the real me, or am I just a copy, like the faces? I pull out the rest of the strands in my gasp and let them float away, with the questions that plague me for the night.

These days and nights continue, when I’m alone too long. I suppress the need, to see the smiles again as I tell myself I can live without them. That the distraction they provided for me was merely that, a distraction. Without them, I could work, even with the battle behind my eyes as I cling to any normality that I could possibly have left. That every pain in the night and every fear, I try to brush it away, concentrate on something different, but it never happens. The faces, the voice, the tears… they haunt my every moment. It’s all still with me, but I am alone.

As my will breaks, as I hear the hiss of the machine as I bring it all back to life, I know the grim cycle will be repeated. It always repeats… but as I see the eyes open, the eyes which I thought I permanently forced shut for the rest of eternity, I forget the consequences. As I hold, the living, breathing, warm body in my arms, I can feel the need resurface again. I need to show them the world, everything for them as they help me forget, what I have become. I can hide and live in their world again, the world of flowers, small docile animals and warm starry nights. They are my time machine, I can go back.

They help me forget.

They help me pretend.

I watch them again, in the meadows and under the tall swaying trees. I stand and watch him. I watch my friend… my friend. He calls to me… he calls my name. I can hear his voice resonate life itself. He brings me my name again, I have a name again. My name is not monster; psycho… murderer… my name is Xephos.

I remember it again on the breath of my friend.

My name is Xephos… and his is Honeydew.

He calls again.

My name is Xephos.

I see his smile… I found it again. It’s there, like it always is.

I am Xephos.

“Coming friend!”