A sound filled Ben's head like some machine beneath the water, pumping and beating and whirring... He covered his ears, crawling backwards until he bumped against the headboard. He pulled his knees to his chest and thumped his head against the wood, gritting his teeth. The noise continued, vibrating in his skull, reverberating and thudding and never-ending. Breathing, in an out, and it wasn't his own - it was muted as though behind a mask. It was mechanical. It sang a bitter song in time with the heartbeat, an endless repeating loop, music made by a machine's life and nothing more -
The teenager took a shuddering breath, and another, and they continued their quaking as though his lungs themselves were trembling - driving him mad.
Lost, and constantly circling and could someone lose themselves in the night - his nails dug at his flesh, blood dripping down his temples. He wished for silence, and he wished for nothing at all. But perhaps nothing would drive him mad, too. Perhaps the voices were right. No, they were wrong, they were wrong. His uncle said one thing, and the whispers said another. How long was it to continue? He had never asked for any of this. I never asked...
He made a sound like a strangled growl, the entire room beginning to shake - from the door to the lit candles. If he only released the rage, then things would be better, they would be better... But that was the Voice talking, and It had never been right before. It never mattered how angry he became or how it was released, the end was always the same - trapped, a cage. Dizzy and muted and spinning and then silence, the silence that crushes your chest and presses into your mind and traps your soul in an eternity of empty ruin...
Pains in agonies and Hell in Hades.