During the day it was possible to pretend that everything was okay.
To pretend that the memories of hell weren't constantly there, always at the edges of my mind.
That the previously tolerable pains that were unavoidable in this life weren't now augmented by the phantom pains of remembered tortures.
And the rest. Worse than the torture. The horrors that I didn't want to admit to myself, let alone confide in anyone else.
But at night… At night, when the exhaustion finally took hold. It was then that all my carefully crafted mental defences crumbled.
It was then that the pain became unescapable.
Nightmares were filled with fire and knives. Burning flesh and tearing skin. Screams that no-one could hear.
And the judgement. The inescapable and unrelenting and… deserved judgement of every single soul who suffered by my hand.
It was hard to keep it together when falling asleep meant falling back into the hell that had infiltrated the depths of my mind. Waking up shaking as I fought to find reality again each and every day.
Even harder to see that Sammy knew it. Of course he knew I wasn't okay. Sometimes I didn't know why I was trying to hide it. We had always known each other better than anyone else…sometimes better than we knew ourselves.
But I couldn't tell him.
I couldn't put the burden on his shoulders of knowing I remembered every day, every second of my years in hell.
Couldn't admit that not only was I not strong enough to live without my little brother, I wasn't strong enough to do my time. That I had failed to resist the demons of hell. That I had become no better than the things we hunted.
That I didn't deserve to have been saved.
And yet. Maybe it would help him to understand.
To understand why he couldn't use his powers.
To understand that I didn't hate what he was doing because I thought I was better than him.
He had always been better than me. And I couldn't let him become that monster that I had.
I had gone to hell to save my little brother. I was not going to let him destroy himself.
Hey everybody! So this rather dark chapter is the result of my own restless nights lately, please let me know what you think!