⚠️ trigger warning, talk of death/wanting to die and overdosage ⚠️

Rune's POV

I can't do it anymore.

I can't live anymore. Not without Nix.

I want to, but I can't.

I need him. I need my anchor back. I need him to ground me back to earth, to give me confidence and motivation to wake up everyday.

But he's gone.

He's really, truely gone.

My Nix.

I burst into uncontrollable sobs, again. I try to stop the tears chasing each other down my cheeks, but I can't.

They won't stop.

Attending Phoenix's funeral was not a good thing. It wasn't a goodbye for me. I already said goodbye. It was a reminder. A reminder of what I lost, no, of who I lost.

I can't deal with it.

I can't live without Phoenix. I tried. I really did. I have been trying my best to get on with my life, the way I know he would have wanted me to.

But I can't do it anymore.

In our world you need to sink or swim, and I'm sinking faster than a rock thrown into the ocean.

I can't get back up for air. I'm drowning.

And I don't care anymore.

I want to drown.

I want to die.

I want to be gone.

I hate living without my Nix.

My anchor.

My best friend.

I can't stand without him there to support me. Yes, I reply heavily on my best friend.

Of course I do.

He's always been there for me. Through thick and thin, rain and shine. For as long as I can remember, Phoenix has been there for me, and I for him. We've barely ever been apart and these last few months have been pure torture.

I don't want to live without him, and if he's no longer here, well then, I don't want to live at all. I need Nix back. He keeps me sane and grounded, he would know exactly what to do right now.

Right now when everything is against me.

Right now when I want to leave so badly.

Right now when I would give absolutely anything just to be with Phoenix again.

When people say the world is unfair, they're completely and utterly truthful.

I never believed it until Phoenix died. I never believed that grief was such a soul consuming feeling. I never realised just how depressed and reliant I was on Phoenix until he was gone.

Gone...

I want to be gone. Like Nix.

Gone, gone, gone, gone, gone. Gone.

I want that.

I want to see him again. Embrace him again. Talk to him again. Live with him again. My reason for existence died when Phoenix passed away.

What am I supposed to do now?

Why should I keep living now?

How should I continue breathing now?

Inhale? Exhale? Inhale? Exhale?

Pointless.

Useless.

A waste of time.

Why do I have to be alive when Phoenix is gone?

Why does the world hate me so fucking much?? To take my reason for existence away from me?

How dare it.

How. Fucking. Dare. It.

I'm done.

I'm done with life.

I'm done with living and breathing.

I'm done with feeling like this.

I'm going to do it.

I need him back.

I'm going to do it.

I'm going to reunite with Phoenix.

I can't wait.

Hiccuping loudly, I get out of my bed, tears still cascading down my cheeks and hitting the floor.

I make my way into the kitchen and grab a bunch of different pills, I also make my way to the cutlery draw and grab a butcher's knife that has recently been sharpened.

Then I double check to make sure my parents are definitely not home and make my way back upstairs and go into the bathroom.

I close and lock the door before turning on the bath to fill it.

Sniffling, I take a full two handfuls of pills and swallow them, drinking water from the sink as I go.

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⚠️ DO NOT READ IF SELF HARM IS TRIGGERING FOR YOU. THIS IS A MAJOR TRIGGER WARNING, DO NOT CONTINUE IF YOU CAN NOT HANDLE SELF HARM. LOOK AFTER YOURSELF AND DO NOT READ IF YOU CAN'T HANDLE IT. I REPEAT, DO NOT CONTINUE IF YOU CAN NOT HANDLE SELF HARM, THIS IS THE ONLY WARNING YOU WILL GET.⚠️

(A/N: You can skip to when it says 'end trigger warning' and continue reading from there if you can't handle self harm xx)

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Sniffling loudly and choking on a sob, I make my way over to the bathtub with the knife in hand.

Slowly, I lower myself into the warm water and turn off the tap.

Tears continue to rush down my face and spill into the warm bath water. I remove my hoodie easily and pull up the sleeves of my dark purple long sleeve shirt. I hold my wrist out in front of me and stare at the pale skin.

Mostly faded scars and some newer ones, along with few week and day old cuts stare back at me. Tears blur my vision until I can't make out the scars on my arm anymore.

Slowly, I drag the blunt side of the knife along my inner forearm, building up the courage to sink the sharpness of it into my poor skin.

I take a deep breath, choking on a loud sob.

I turn the knife over, letting the sharp side rest against my skin. More sobs pass my lips and echo into the eerie silence of the bathroom.

I clench my jaw and tighten my grip on the knife. I press the knife into the skin of my arm, sinking it deep into the flesh. I drag the knife along my arm, making sure to apply pressure. Blurred red droplets well up and drip down the sides of my arms and plop into the bath water.

Stinging pain flies up my wrist to my shoulder, the hand holding the knife starts to shake as the reality of what I'm doing actually sinks in.

Soft pants leave my lips as more blood drips into the bath, turning the water a washy red colour.

More tears pool in my eyes, blurring my sight again before rushing down my cheeks. I press my knife against my skin again before applying pressure and dragging it slowly along the surface of my flesh.

The skin cuts, revealing the different layers beneath the protective outer layer, before my knife pierces something dangerous.

Dark red, almost purple-blue-ish looking blood gushes from my arm. Gasping softly, I quickly slash the knife at my arm some more, creating deep wounds.

I watch my arm as the whiteness changes to red and blood dribbles quickly down my arm, racing to take a swim in the warm bath water. Other cuts gush blood as I manage to nick different veins.

Shakily, I switch to hold the knife in my other hand and shift the sleeve of my uncut arm.

Blood drips heavily into my bath, turning the normally clear water red.

More tears run down my cheeks, silently now as dizziness finds a nest in my mind and causes me to almost slip in the bathtub and go under.

Gasping sharply, I rub my eyes and adjust myself in my bath.

The water starts to change from warm to lukewarm and my whole body trembles.

I grip the knife tighter in my hand, causing more blood to spill out of my arm and waste into the water.

Breathing starts to get somewhat difficult and I find myself gasping softly for breath.

My hands shake like crazy but I force myself to stop shaking so bad.

I press the knife against my skin and drag it sharply across the surface of my flesh before going over it again and again and again, until something snaps and blood comes pouring out of the wound. I watch as blood splashes into my bath water from both arms.

"Still not enough, I need to do more.. I can still be saved." I think to myself before tightening my grip on the knife again, since the lack of blood and the pills I took start to take their toll on my body.

I shift my knife and press the sharp point into the veins of my wrist.

Small amounts of blood drip past the knife. I press harder.

More blood spills down the sides of my wrist until the knife tip presses into the vein and snaps the protective tube and blood spills into the bath to join the rest.

Not too carefully, I yank the knife out of my wrist, which causes it to rip the skin and more blood flows out.

I drag my knife over the inner part of my forearm again, keeping pressure applied so that the sharp blade pierces my soft skin and draws more blood.

Whiteness appears behind my knife blade before it's soon flooded by blood that mingles with the other droplets of blood before they plunge into the water together.

My soft pants turn into shuddering breaths as my body starts to shut down from the drug overdosage and the blood loss.

I slowly slip into the water, my face the only thing that's not submerged.

Blood swirls out of my stinging wounds into the water, turning it a darker red.

My eyes flutter and slowly close as I suck in sharp breaths of air before going under the water.

My strength leaves along with the blood pouring out of my arms into the bath.

Bloodied water covers my face and sinks into my nose as I struggle for air, before passing out.

⚠️ END TRIGGER WARNING ⚠️

***

(Moments later)

Third Person POV

Rune's mother and father arrive home after being out on a lunch date. They walk inside and Rune's mother heads towards Rune's room to wake him, only to find he's not there.

She walks to the bathroom and knocks, "Rune? You in there?" She asks.

There's no reply.

Rune's mother tries to open the door but it's locked.

She searches around almost frantically but can't find her son. She goes back to the bathroom and knocks again, louder.

"Rune honey, are you in there?" She questions, voiced raised a bit more than before.

Her husband, hearing the distress in her voice, makes his way to the door to comfort her.

He knocks on the door, "Rune, it's not funny anymore. Unlock the door, now." He says, authority lacing his words.

The two parents frown at one another when there's no answer.

"I'm going to break the door, Hannah, shift out do the way." He tells his wife.

She nods and moves out of the way to watch her husband. He slams his shoulder into the door repeatedly until the lock breaks and the door flings open.

A shriek of disbelief and horror pass Hannah's lips before she can stop it.

Her husband stares in shock and horror before rushing over and carefully but quickly lifting their son out of the pure red bath water.

Hannah quickly takes out her phone and calls an emergency ambulance to get to the house and gives them the details of what she can see.

"M-my son.. he's.. he's cut his forearms deeply and was bathing in water and blood... h-he.." she pauses to choke on a soft sob as her husband starts performing mouth-to-mouth CPR along with chest compressions on their son.

Hannah gives the directions to her house to the operator and stays on the phone with them.

"Chester!" Hannah shouts suddenly and points to Rune's mouth.

Water rushes out of his open mouth and Rune coughs harshly before groggily opening his eyes to look at his parents in confusion.

Realisation sets in and Rune starts to struggle weakly.

"No... n-no... this.. I..." he stutters, unable to form a proper sentence to explain the way he's feeling.

Tears run down both his parents cheeks in relief and they embrace their son tightly.

Rune screams, "NO!!!!!"

His parents look at him in shocked confusion as their son bursts into tears, repeating 'no' over and over again.

Eventually, the blood loss gets to him again, and Rune passes out, only his breathing is extremely shallow.

Chester checks his son's pulse, only to find it's barely there.

"Hannah, we need the ambulance here, now!" He shouts, before quickly scooping Rune up in his arms and running downstairs to stand out the front of their house.

"The operator said they should be here any second!" She replies, rushing after her son and husband.

As if on cue, the ambulance arrives and the paramedics quickly usher Rune into the vehicle and start hooking him up to the equipment to keep him alive.

They put an oxygen mask on Rune and quickly wrap his arms to keep him from losing more blood, before needling a cannula into one of his veins, hoping its one that's not damaged and start to transfer blood into his system to replace that of which he has lost.

Rune's pasty white skin starts to slowly gather colour as the blood works its magic.

Hannah gets into the back of the ambulance and sits near her son, watching the paramedics do everything they can to save him with what little they have in their vehicle, before they drive off with Rune's father, Chester, following closely behind in his car.

Once they've all arrived at the hospital, the paramedics rush Rune to the emergency area and the doctors get to work, stitching and cleaning his wounds, before wrapping them thoroughly with bandages after using antibacterial creams.

They then scan for anything else that could be wrong with Rune, and find the pills he swallowed.

They pump Rune's stomach until every single pill is gone, along with everything else and then flush out his stomach and put him on a drip.

(A/N: not sure if they actually do that but yolo)

They get a new bag of blood and continue to transfer more into Rune's body, replacing all that he has lost, before keeping a close eye on him and monitoring him as he rests.

Rune's parents, Hannah and Chester sit on the seats either side of their son, holding each hand and waiting for him to wake up.

Throughout all of the cleaning and changing and whatnot, the doctors never specified when Rune would wake, or if ever, considering his body shut down.

While his parents cried and tried to get him to wake, Rune found himself in a deep familiar slumber.

He found himself talking and hugging Phoenix again, just like in his other dreams.

***

"Even when all seems lost, just remember my name."
- Phoenix Star