Axel didn't know what was wrong with him.
He'd gone to the town today. He bought food, because his supply chest was empty and he didn't have the energy to hunt. He bought more clothes, because his only pair of jeans was ripped and all his other shirts were dirty.
And, for reasons he wasn't sure of, he bought a plush dog he found awfully cute in one of the shops.
On one hand, what he felt was his pride was ruined. He was horribly embarrassed, hiding the stuffed toy deep in his inventory after lying, unprompted, that it was his friend's birthday.
On the other hand, though, it was a very cute dog.
And Axel wanted to hug something other than his pillows.
Axel didn't know what was wrong with him.
He'd spent days lying in his bed, pacing around the dining table, his head heavy, with what felt like rainclouds pouring incessantly down on raging seas, darkness taking everything over, even when harsh lightning flashed in the sky.
He hated the melodrama, but that was the closest he could see it.
This wasn't even the first time he'd felt like that. This wasn't the first time he found himself unable to get out of bed, or commit to his plans, or bail out on hangouts with his (only) friends.
He found himself starving on, to his surprise, the second consecutive day.
It felt like hours had passed.
Hours upon hours of staying curled up in his bed, spooning the biggest pillow he had, staring of into space and listening to nothing but the droning silence of his house and whatever went on outside his home.
It was very rare to hear anything outside his home.
It took starving to get him to leave his house.
Of all things.
Axel didn't know what was wrong with him.
When he thinks he spent days, he really only spent what amounted weekend, doing absolutely nothing of any worth.
Two days had felt like months.
Months of seeing his house as the only existing reality.
Months of drifting between emptiness and despair.
Months of believing that his friends didn't like him, that they couldn't stand his terrible humor and were glad at his absense; that they didn't want to be friends with a person who wanted to be a griefer, somebody who did nothing but annoy and destroy.
Months of believing that he was worthless as a person, that nobody cared about the idiot who insisted on building his house in a fucking mountain to avoid other griefers, of all things, because he was a sentimental piece of shit who wanted to keep the only thing he put effort on intact. This, when in reality they might not even bother trying to rob from somebody who had nothing.
Months of believing that he would never amount to anything. That he would never be able to be a proper griefer, or win a single building competition, or leave his mark on the world and be remembered after his inevitable death.
How could he, when his world stopped at the front door?
Axel didn't know what was wrong with him.
When he left his house to buy basic supplies, it felt like he was stepping into a whole other reality.
He spends two days with his mood seeped in bullshit, and the next thing he knows, he forgets that the rest of the world even existed. Seeing living beings, feeling something else besides stuffy air and dusty walls, smelling something other than dirty laundry and gun powder, walking on grass, going somewhere, and not just aimlessly in circles on wood and stone; it was a relieving, and yet off-putting experience.
He doesn't think it should have been, but that's what it was.
He hated that.
Axel didn't know what was wrong with him.
As he steps back inside, he feels at home, and he drops his stuff off on the kitchen counter, takes the plush toy out, and walks straight for his room. He collapses on his bed, hugs the dog and buries his face in its fake fur. He might have lifted his head to change out of his outside clothes, or kick the jukebox into playing some random song while berating himself for not stopping by the records shop, or maybe just deciding to stare at something else besides darkness.
The bullshit followed him to the town and back; and now, when he returns to his bed after opening the door to leave it ajar, he feels like he'd been hit by speeding minecarts.
He was a hypocrite.
He was lazy.
He was an asshole.
He was nothing.
Axel was nothing.
Nothing.
No one.
Worthless.
Nothing.
At some point in the night, while he was stuffing the groceries in the supply chest, he amused the idea that things would be better if he weren't here at all.
He soon found himself stumbling not far from the kitchen curling up on the hallway's floor.
He wanted nothing more than to cry.
Axel didn't know what was wrong with him.
But Olivia called it depression.