Stained

I wake up to the pungent scent of mothballs and stale urine. My room is dark, and I can’t see past my face. Is it early or late? Time is a frivolous concept when you’re already one foot in the grave.  I’m an unwilling participant on a merry-go-round of monotony.

The air is deathly silent—an auditory expansion on pins and needles—pinned to my back by my growing pains. Growing old still hasn’t grown on me. A young man trapped in a necrotic corpse. I’ve been given a map of varicose veins that can’t even get me to the toilet. X marks the wet spot.
It's odd laying in your own bile, an empowering yet simultaneously crippling feeling.

It’s not without its benefits. Being alone is an introvert’s wet dream, or it would be for not the voices in my head. Gnawing at the soft tissue in the back of my skull with chipped teeth. Hammering away with the dissonance of an out of tune piano. I’m constantly at war with my heart, mind, and my mind’s mind. Flashbacks that make the worst trauma go down like sweet tea on a hot summer’s day.

The sound of footsteps echoes the hall outside of my room. They’re faint but looming near. Nonchalantly clicking ruby slippers through the river Styx. The only part of my anatomy that hasn’t shit the bed so to speak, my hearing.

The shadow of a pale face presses against the glass door to my room. My eyes don’t recognize faces anymore. They seamlessly morph into a blur that Picasso would be proud of. They must be here to see if larvae are crawling on my skin yet, which sounds delightful to be honest. I always wanted to be in a horror film.

They enter my room in slow motion. The echo of their heels piercing my ears. The figure towers above as it makes it way toward my pool of putrid waste and shame.

“Are we ready to die today?”

They ask coyly.

Myself and the 10 other people in my head debate the question with the curiosity of a child at an ice cream truck. I find this laughable, I’m literally cracking myself up, or someone is…I think? The figure grows impatient, showing a perplexing demeanor toward my hysterics. Do I really want to leave my piss palace? Here I’m both King, Queen and Knight. Hell, I might as well be the whole damn chessboard. Sir Shits A Lot, first of his name. Eat your heart out Robin Hood.

You know what fuck it, pull the…