Utter silence. That's what Tom heard. He had been hearing nothing but a hushed ringing and silence for about 3 hours now. No music, no friends, no videos. Silence. And it made him want to cry.

He wasn't alone however, everyone was just sleeping. And he was awake. At 3 in the morning. He felt filthy. He felt disappointed. But most of all, sadness. He had dire chores to get done. He had been pending on them for a while, and seemingly had no intent to stop.

Why? He had just been arguing with Tord a mere 5 hours ago. He had been taking Edd's harsh verbal scolds 4 hours ago. He had been taking Matt's worried glances 3 and a half hours ago. He had been taking Tord's inevitable physical abuse 3 hours ago. And he had been accepting excruciating silence for 3 hours like it was some sort of sick gift.

He found his gaze hooked onto a particularly dark bruise on the back of his hand. He couldn't pry his eye sockets off it even if he wanted to. Did he deserve it? Was it all true? Everything Tord tells him?

Edd never takes Tom's side anymore, because Tord always knows how to manipulate the situation to put the blame on Tom. And Edd believes it every time, even if the ill actions were by originally from Tord, and Tom was trying to defend himself. Matt never helps, he's always on the sidelines, watching. Even if Matt knows Tord's lying, he says nothing to Edd.

Maybe Matt wants everything Tord says to be true. The despondency radiating from Tom felt like a flood bursting out of his chest. Yet everyone had life rafts, and could avoid drowning in Tom's pessimism.

Tom stopped caring a while ago though. His insomnia overwhelmed him and his sadness made him wanna cry whenever Tord and him fought. He stopped taking care of himself because of the mixture of those two. He stopped taking showers, and now Edd was only giving him slight concerned attention.

Or maybe he wasn't, Tom wasn't out of his room enough to know. Though, perhaps concern was a bit of a sugar coated term, it was more like complaints about how disgusting Tom looked, and how he smelled weird. Of course Edd wouldn't say that directly, but it was obvious he implied it.

Matt just refrained from staying within a 5 meter radius of Tom, not wanting to dirty himself down. Tord, of course, just grew an irrepressible grin whenever he noticed this, said grin wilting overtime as he got bored of Tom's pains.

Tom now had 4 hours to wait till Edd got up instead of the previous 5. Who knew pitying yourself ate up so much time? Definitely not Tom.