There's a trigger warning of abuse and self harm for this chapter, so be careful and if you don't feel comfortable reading then please don't. This is also a very dark chapter overall, so if you don't want to read it for whatever reason I'll be happy to give you a brief summary of what happens<3

Alex. Day Twenty Five - 4:46

I want to let him, but then again in the reality of it there could really be nothing worse.

I want to let him 'win', but I can't - I'm stubborn and he knows that too. He's cleverer than I thought, especially at first; I wasn't quite stupid enough to take someone on my own level of intelligence, and even with the array of shit I was taking then.

The worst thing was though that Jack wasn't just on the same level when it came to intelligence; he was always on the same level - he was me in another form and perhaps all I could have been if I hadn't gone down the wrong route in life, and it times like this that I drown myself in everything that went wrong.

And you've just got to love the bittersweet of it, because Jack is all I could have been and perhaps that why I both loathe and love him. I'm not sure as to whether that's for the better or for the worse; my mind's a mess right now - it always has been, and nothing, not even Jack can remedy that.

I'm lost within myself and perhaps that's the best place to be lost because nothing expect myself can hurt me here and that's comforting, but the comfort is nothing but naive and ignorant: because the thing I should be scared of the most is nothing other than myself.

I got myself here after all.

I'm the kind of person mothers are warning their little children about; I'm a monster, and Jack's lying to me now. I think maybe it isn't intentionally - I think maybe that I've blinded him too, but that's definitely my fault, because I've not just ruined myself - I've ruined him too.

There's no hope for sanity for either of us, and that's the only reason he's clinging onto me quite so tightly. On the other hand, I'm clinging on for dear life, because he's the only thing keeping me vaguely afloat - I need him more than either of us want to admit and that's sincerely my fault.

It just hurts that he can't let go; he didn't escape when I gave him the easy opportunity and that's entirely my fault - I've put him here - I've fucked this up and yet he stills looks up to me like I'm worth giving a damn about and I think that hurts more than any amount of bullets or hatred could.

He could pelt me with bullets until I bleed out and die and surely that still wouldn't hurt more than this does - the pure realisation of human emotion, and how that's just been lost for long.

I can barely remember what emotion, what feeling felt like anymore, and that's where this all went wrong; how I cut myself off from everything real and human and how I let the angels in.

I thought that was the best thing I'd ever done; making myself stronger, making myself harder, making myself impossible to beat, but that's not what life's about. That's not what anything's about. I'm just a childish coward to the extreme; all I've done is further isolated myself inside my own head and surely that's the worst place I could ever be.

All I've done is rendered myself incapable of ever being human again, and it took Jack to strike that out in me, to show me that there really was something else and all that I could have been right now, and I'd like to say that it wasn't my fault, but it really is.

It's always been my fault and there's really no way around that, except the tricking of my own mind and everyone around me, because what I've done to Jack is even more sickening than what I've done to the six others - Jack has to live with this fucked up head that my arrogance would say no psychologist could fix and he has to learn that I hold no answers by himself, because my childish behaviour has taught him to trust me like I'm the only one right.

I've ruined the prettiest of paintings, and it is my fault.

I don't want him to end up like me; cold, heartless, and alone, but it looks like he's going down that route and no one can stop him, because the only person he's listening to is me, and I'm the last person he should be.

Perhaps I should just hand the two of us in to the authorities, because his safety is worth so much more than a broken man's sanity.

I want someone good to save what good is still left untempered within his bones, and I, I need to be disposed of like garbage for the crime I have committed; the six murders do not account for the broken sanity of the world's most hopeful boy.

I think I'm so desperate to save because I just couldn't save myself, and he's the only thing I have left, and as little as I want to, and of course as little as he'll want to, I have to let him go, because that's the only way he can save himself, even if I end up alone.

Because right now in my newfound and somewhat sane mind that makes sense.

It's like my head's been plunged under into a freezing cold basin of sanity - it's refreshing but I think it's holy water too, because it's burning me right to my core. It is the right kind of burn though; it's antiseptic - it hurts but it's for the better.

The thing is though, I don't know when it will stop, when the cleansing will end, if I'll ever be free of my sins or whether they'll drag me down to hell with them, because angels were never real, they're just devils that stuck feathers to their wings.

Alex Gaskarth was never real, he was just a little boy who fucked up and was far too scared to admit it. He's Lexy who sits on the front porch steps in the cold waiting for his father to come home, even if only to catch him for only a minute, but the only thing he ever caught was good old fucking hypothermia.

-

Flashback - Alex - Age Seven

"You'll catch cold out there." Mother met my gaze, her eyes glassy and constantly tear stained, her nose reddened from crying, even though she'd always pass it off as a bug, but even at the age of seven, little Alex knew that knew that no one could constantly have a cold for seven years.

Mrs Gaskarth was a frail woman; not particularly skinny, but of an average build, however her body seemed to be slowly decaying and rotting away as if she were fifty instead of thirty. She had frown lines and her face was deep set with wrinkles like bark on old tree despite how many layers of powder she caked her face in. Her eyes were once a twinkling blue; noticeably more alive even in the black and white photos she kept locked away in her top drawer than they were now. Her eyes were a dull grey, all hints of blue having faded away by now. Her teeth, hidden inside thin and scabbed lips, were yellowed from excessive nicotine consumption and slightly stained with an oily discharge from her cheap and mostly colourless lip-gloss.

"How can you catch the cold?" I met her with a confused expression; my fluffy brows furrowed up at her as I ignored her warning and continued to button upon my jacket, convinced it'd protect me from the cold outside even with the several tears, which it wore as part of the material itself.

"It's an expression, darling." She let out a sigh, stepping across the threshold of the kitchen; her face momentarily illuminated with a sickeningly yellow light, originating from the bare light bulb on the ceiling. 

As her face was splashed across with yellow light, I could see past the surface; a scar, white and faded up amongst her wrinkles shining under the light. The thing is thought that it wasn't just a scar and even though mummy was clumsy, no one got quite that many scars, especially ones that big and almost geometrically applied to her contoured skin.

"Mummy, where did you get that scratch?" I pulled my arm upwards as much as the tight sleeves of a jacket two sizes too small would allow me to in the direction of her left cheek where the scar lay, now hidden into the dull grey of the low light.

"It's nothing, dear." She let out a sigh as she watched as I continued to button up my jacket a little more hesitantly than at first - I was thinking. "Do you not listen to me at all? I told you it's freezing outside."

"Where did you get it?" I looked up at her once more, insisting with a little more force than I had previously, but in my squeaky seven year old voice I very much doubted the effect was anything other than comedical.

"I don't know, honey." Her eyes drifted to the floor. "I must have fell over or something."

'Why won't you tell me?" I stomped me foot in frustration, jerking her head up with the maternal instinct that came with the threatening of a tantrum.

"Because, Alex, there's nothing to tell." She finished in a harsher tone, meeting my gaze for a brief moment before the eye contact disintegrated into nothingness. "It's past nine - you should be in bed." I seemed unfazed by her reminder of my bedtime, as any seven year old would. "There's school tomorrow. You were telling me about this presentation you had to do. If I were you, I'd get lots of sleep so I could ensure it'd be the best it could be." She forced her lips up into a small smile.

I shook my head. "I don't want to do the stupid presentation."

"Why not?" She stepped closer, leaning down in front of me so we were at the same height. "I thought you loved that kind of thing."

"Rian ditched my group for Zack's." I admitted, biting down my lip a little as I remembered the snide remark which my best friend had left me with as he ditched me for some kid who barely ever washed his hair and was rumoured to have a family of beetles living in his right ear. "I don't want to do it on my own."

"Do you want me to ring Rian's mummy and ask her about this?" She asked, pulling me into a hug. "Have you said anything nasty to Rian?"

"No." I shook my head firmly. "He said something nasty to me."

Her eyes widened. "I always thought he was such a nice boy. What did he say, Alex?"

"He called me a stupid big headed smarty pants with no friends." I couldn't meet her eyes as I repeated the words that had been so cruelly imprinted on my little mind.

"That's not true honey." She squeezed me tight enough so that I had difficulty breathing.

"It is though. I have no friends." 

"I'm going to talk to Rian's mummy." She pulled herself back up to full height.

"I don't want to be friends with Rian anymore." I admitted.

"Why not? You two have been friends since Pre School." I ignored her sympathies and shook my head in a horribly strong willed state of defiance.

"I just don't. He's mean." She let out a sigh, presumably trying not to smack her horribly stubborn seven year old son straight round the face.

"Look, Lexy just go to bed and I promise you that when you wake up in the morning this will all be sorted out." She held her pinkie finger out for me to shake, but it was an offer I very clearly and somewhat rudely declined, although I didn't reckon she'd be quite as upset as she was. "Alex!"

"When's daddy going to come home?"

"I don't know!" She snapped in response, growing angrier by the second. "If I knew I'd tell you so don't call me a damn liar!"

"Mummy-"

"You're waiting up for him aren't you?" She was screeching at me by now. "Let me save you the trouble - don't wait up for him - it's not worth it'; he's never going to come home."

I couldn't form any noise other than a sob, leaving my mother to look at what she'd done and turn briskly on her heels to walk back into the kitchen.

"Mummy-" I choked out, causing her to turn back momentarily.

"Alex." She mimicked, the light lapping over her face and illuminating the scar once more; I couldn't help but fixate upon it, and she couldn't help but notice. "You really want to know where that came from?" She barked at me.

I nodded, unsure if it was really what I wanted anymore, but by now I was far too scared of her to disagree.

"How about you ask that precious 'daddy' of yours."

-

Alex - 5:25

It very much looks like that by now sleep simply isn't going to come, and perhaps I'm far too content with that, because even if delving into the past I'd tried with everything I had to forget was painful, it was just something I had to do.

I felt for all the pain that I had caused, I deserve just a little for myself, and that pain wasn't exactly hard to access, especially in a mind so decayed and cobwebbed as mine.

There was the very simple fact, which I'd learned at such a young age, that daddy hit mummy and even though both physically and mentally damaging to me in everyway, it still wasn't fully to blame, because even the most fucked up of minds are in your control.

Daddy hit mummy, but I still never had to hit anyone. What I saw wasn't what I did; I wasn't like most children - I was excessively and even arrogantly smart from a young age. I learned from the things I saw - I learned from other's mistakes to avoid making my own, and honestly I thought I had a perfect run until now, now I've realised that everything that went right was ultimately a mistake from the start.

That fucking hurts.

It hurts like part of my conscious has been ripped straight from my body, like part of me is no longer than and like nothing's that real anymore.

Perhaps that's for the best: I could down some pills without a worry now, and then simply disappear into nothingness. I'd know exactly what and how much to take without causing too much of a mess and it would be entirely all too easy to not bother trying at all.

But that would of course just reinforce my cowardice, and that's the last thing I want right now. I just want this to end, and I want Jack to be okay, and perhaps the only way to do that is if I turn myself in.

If I just stride down to the police station, if I just push open the doors, and I'll ignore the receptionist about to start her shift telling me to get out because it's too early. I won't say anything, I'll point to my face pinned upon the wanted board and I'll count the seconds from when her head turns to look until the moment the guards are called in and I'm cuffed.

I won't struggle, but this is America, so they'll sedate me nevertheless. I wonder when I'll wake up; if it's in the holding cell, the transportation bus, in the prison, or whether I won't wake up at all. I wonder whether they'll just press the unforgiving barrel of a gun to my temples and let me slip away entirely, because this is America, after all.

I could just walk out now; I could let that happen with one simple decision - one final one, one right decision, or I could continue hiding within the safety of my cowardice.

I could leave right now. I'd leave Jack behind in goodwill of course, perhaps I'd explain. How I could put this into words I had no idea and it was simply careless to leave into the authorities to lie to him. He deserved an apology at the very least and I seriously doubted I stay alive long enough to give him one.

I always loved the smell of blood, and I always loved knives, I just never knew that I could get the same ecstatic release from myself as I could from other people.

I loved to make a mess, and this time making a mess in red was the best thing I could do and soon I had just enough for my head to throb and every aspect of my being to slowly drip from me. I took an aspirin, because I needed to walk to the station successfully, and then I wrote my apology.

You'd need more blood than one would expect for seven uppercase letters an apostrophe, but it was worth it, because Jack shouldn't wake up to an empty house, empty of answers, he should awake to 'I'M SORRY' written upon the wall in the blood of a man who'd spilled the blood of many.

It was perfect now, or as perfect as things were going to get and with the aspirin clouding my head, I suspected that they angels were choking too.

Now all that was left was to leave, and leave this all behind.

I'd wonder when Jack would wake up and how long it'd take for him to notice I was gone and then how many seconds from then would it take for him to notice the apology on the wall, and then what he'd say to Flyzik down the phone line and just how much Flyzik would freak out when he realised exactly what the fuck I'd done and then in turn just how destroyed Jack would be.

I would wonder about that, but it'd surely make me stay

So for the first time in my life, I said no with the right intentions.

of course I’m not too satisfied with myself, I’m not taking things very well, and I’m gonna blow up the whole thing, individual tanks of filled.. and a message maybe even stated explicitly

Hey guys:) I hope you don't hate me too much for this chapter, which by the way was completely unplanned and I just decided that I hadn't tortured you enough yet;) I look forward to your reactions;) Love you guys<3