Given Up

By Dead Promises

Song By Linkin Park

Once again, Foster's and the song are owned by someone else, and that someone else is not me, okay?

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Darkness.

It was almost ten o clock when the crickets began their nightly chirping near Foster's Home For Imaginary Friends.

No better place for abandoned friends to seek refuge when no other place was open.

"Just what I need, some fresh ice for my fresh drink." The small blob Bloo implied while holding up his glass of root beer as though to propose a toast while Eduardo dropped a couple of ice cubes on it.

Bloo, Eduardo, Wilt, and Coco were all enjoying themselves as they sat comfortably on bean bag chairs inside the arcade room while watching television.

There was not a more sincere way of celebrating Bloo's cruel yet amusing achievement to himself's and almost other's accomplishment.

Wilt, however, being the nice and somewhat sympathetic friend he was, had to rip the cover off Bloo's enjoyment book as he added something to ruin the moment he was sharing with them.

"I just hope Mac didn't take it too hard."

Concerned as always, nothing seemed to stop Wilt from gazing at the window where outside of it the wind blew it's misty air towards the trees as though he were looking at something else.

Bloo looked at Wilt with a raised eyebrow while he quickly replied "Wilt, get a grip, will you? I've done this to Mac before you even knew me! How can he possibly feel that way?"

exploited carelessness was all Wilt found in that.

"I'm sorry, but I'm just saying! We did lie to him and make him feel bad before he even fell for it you know? How can I just forget about something like that without even apologizing?" Wilt almost snapped.

What was it to Bloo that Wilt even tried to shower his feelings with the smallest of pity from almost using an aggressive tone?

Bloo took a sip of his root beer and nearly languidly replied "Relax, okay? I'm sure he already forgot about it. He always does! Okay? I'm like his best friend and all, he knows how I can be at times!"

Although Bloo had cleared it up for him, Wilt still found the situation to be a bit selfish from merely assuming Mac was not feeling anyway bad what so ever.

Nevertheless did he agree with Bloo.

"I guess you have a point" Wilt said, almost hopelessly.

"You said it pal! Not me!" Replied Bloo joyously while he and Wilt exchanged root beer toasts by having them touch each other.

As they sipped the cups, quickly did all the remorse for going along with Bloo just go down their throats along with the drink.

Such negligence overshadowed them like a bundle of maggots overate their carcass to eat away what once had life.

Until nothing was left but the bones.

Meanwhile, somewhere afar from the blocks that separated the distance between Foster's, an apartment abided there.

Inside it, was a room that was appropriated for no one more than a boy who had nothing happy to think about at all.

Sleeping was not even something he took into thought from the position he was sitting in a corner of his small room.

Completely curled up in a ball with his knees completely folded as his arms covered his face although it was facing downward.

Starring at nothing but darkness as he breathed heavily with every second that passed.

At this very moment, Mac was hoping not even his Mom would see him in this state of unwanted despair from what he had just gone through a few hours ago.

Although he asked himself at times when coming to believe it were true from simply hypothesizing out of all the incomes in the past that made it obvious:

Would she have cared anyway?

-

Waking to sweat again

Another day's been laid to waste

In my disgrace

Stuck in my head again

Feels like I'll never leave this place

There's no escape

-

Deep within Mac, resided a feeling of unstoppable discomfort that just grew with every minute he thought about it.

More than just discomfort, but of doubt and a small plight of intimate sadness from failing to remove the previous feelings he had on his mind.

Feelings of everything that Mac kept on trying to remove.

But he should have know it was no longer possible when he had tried doing that for almost years at his point.

Although he was smart for his own age, he knew there was no way of challenging those feelings when they would just stay the same no matter what he did to himself.

All those days he had hoped this was not going to happen again.

For an unknown reason, he raised his head and seconds later, spread his palms to look at them as though he were holding something invisible.

-

I'm my own worst enemy

-

Although even he didn't know either why the reason was unapparent, his eyes slowly closed while his lip quivered.

The tears he had held back for a long time ran down his face, falling into his hand.

Afterwards, the mystery to him doing this came out from hiding when he slowly uttered a simple word that to him could have meant more than a hundred.

"Dad."

-

I've given up...

I'm sick of living

Is there nothing you can say?

Take this all away

I'm suffocating!

Tell me what the fuck is wrong with me!

-

There came the moment he thought about what had happened a few years ago.

Mac was only four and a half when his Dad told him he had to go fight in a war.

Although Mac knew not much about subjects such as history which talked about how men sacrificed themselves for their country, he knew it clear he was leaving.

The last thing he saw of him was his large back as he boarded the jet with all the other considered-to-be fathers that too were never coming back.

What was this memory to Mac anyhow when it just brought up the reason to why he was stained with the marks of grief to begin with?

After waiting for almost a year, he became lonely.

His brother, Terrance never paid attention to him even once, and when he did, he perhaps mistook him for a punching bag.

Thus became the reason to why Bloo came to his life.

To scare away all the loneliness that kept on dominating him and to have someone defend him from people like Terrance who selfishness knew no bounds.

He felt comfortable with Bloo around.

But upon realizing Bloo had a mind of its own, everything Mac thought of him took a turn towards a one way path that lead to a dead end with no turning back.

All Bloo seemed to be concerned about was having his own satisfaction, even if it meant doing something unregrettable since his existence became noticeable.

Such as crushing Mac's dignity through countless surprise parties he never saw coming.

Then came the time he began doubting if Bloo was trustworthy material.

When it first came to him in thinking such thing, there was also thoughts about him being an impatient jerk who just didn't have the guts to believe Bloo would change through time.

Three years passed, nothing changed.

Of course, Mac saw it coming this time.

But it was the stupid reason that made him allow Bloo to fool him once again which he tried not to think about.

Instead, he wrote it down on paper.

-

I don't know what to take

Thought I was focused but I'm scared

I'm not prepared

I hyperventilate.

Looking for help somehow somewhere

And you don't care

-

After he did that, there was nothing left to do but to mail that letter to just one person that he admired to have not kept this boundless secret to himself.

Everything he had written on it could not be any more true than he thought it could ever be.

Then Mac realized there was something missing.

He tried to deny it by acting as though it never existed since the day he snuck it into his apartment when no one would have guessed.

But it was there.

Buried within the unlighted darkness of a pale cupboard inside his wardrobe.

There always came days in which he might have needed to keep that one small object that despite its size, could easily murder someone from the inside, while they writhed in pain on the outside:

An arsenic pill.

-

I'm my own worst enemy

-

As he stood up, Mac stroke a long gaze that would have lasted longer than what kept running on through his mind.

He remember earlier today, he had planned of throwing that pill away after coming home from school.

And from Foster's.

There was actually a chance of definite hope joyously showering him all over in beginning to believe that the pill was nothing but a strong personification of the wasteland that he kept hard on trying to know no longer existed as his past.

Now he looked at what he knew lied behind all the wood from that wardrobe as some kind of heaven.

-

I've given up...

I'm sick of living

Is there nothing you can say?

Take this all away

I'm suffocating!

Tell me what the fuck is

Wrong with me!

-

Mac had lost it.

He was using up his determination on something that as an eight year old like him would now, really was not worth it as much as living.

But what could stop him?

It was more than out of the brink obvious that if he took it, he'd be hurting everyone he knew loved him when he really thought about it.

Yet if he just threw it out as though it never came to him, nothing would be capable of stopping all the loud ranting in his mind he could not only be incapable to get rid of, but also be unable to ignore the incurable craving for vengeance he knew would never be satisfied.

Thus never leave.

What made this more challenging to Mac in denying the decision was of course being able to see into something that deep down, never had a meaning even if he chose to take it until it went off like all the other candles that held it's caliber:

Life.

Mac closed his eyes at a point in taking all of this into pointless concern.

After a good minute's pass, he made his way into the bathroom.

Once inside, his eyes fixed on the faucet as he turned the knob to let water out that of which he could drink without swallowing by taking in some with his hand.

After his mouth was filled with water, he made his way back into his room.

Lucky Terrance and his and Mac's Mom were at the Movies enjoying themselves to the world premier of Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest.

Their suspicion was lethal to Mac's current task.

But it would never surpass the strength of how somewhat regretful Mac almost felt at the moment.

Inside his room, he quietly lied on the bed as though ready to take a sleep.

A sleep that was going to last forever.

Mac was almost becoming impatient.

He could no longer hesitate while not knowing what he was really doing when he thought about it for too long.

Almost inadvertently, he opened his mouth very slowly, sucked the pill inside, and swallowed as though it was bigger than it appeared.

-

GOD!

-

Now there was nothing else to do but wait.

When it happened, he would know.

Depending on the size of one's digestive system, the pill would first work it's way into the stomach.

Once dissolved, the substance known as arsenic would release itself and make its way into the bloodstream.

Killing every last blood cell as it stings the nervous system slowly until it reaches every single part of one's body.

This was how kids in Mac's school described the feeling.

Mac was not like the other kids in his school who traded beliefs for logic.

No one who knew how it was like to be extinguished by such chemical would be capable of telling others before their time was finished.

But at least Mac wouldn't have to wonder anymore.

-

Put me out of my misery

Put me out of my misery

Put me out of my...

Put me out of my fucking misery!

-

This was it.

There really was no changing minds once you've passed the point of no return.

All that was left for Mac to do was try to think about the happiest memory he had ever been able to allow occur.

It was no use.

All he had in his mind was the same word:

"SURPRISE!"

After all, there was no other good reason his life was about to end.

In spite of all the days they spent being nice to him, none of them were on his side when it came to being against Bloo's pointless surprise parties.

This really made Mac's eyes tighten closed once again in trying to hold back more tears.

Although Bloo was always behind all of the madness, the others were still to blame.

They never cared the least bit to even know how Mac might have felt when they played along with Bloo by betraying him for the sake of humor.

Not Frankie, Wilt, Coco, Eduardo, Mister Herriman, Madam Foster, or anyone else he didn't bother to remember.

He knew however, they would start to repent and apologize once he was gone for good.

It was not long until Mac began to have difficulty breathing.

His stomach was starting to ache to an almost strong point in belief some depraved creature were attempting to make its way out.

Twenty to fifteen seconds was all he had left to shudder away even the slightest good time he could take.

Just as he tried and failed to once more, Mac heard him say it as though he were standing right beside him:

"One Step Ahead"

His brain was without a doubt starting to shut down now that he was suffering from even hearing hallucinations such as that one.

In spite of being just a hallucination, Mac, however, managed to smile a bit and say one more thing within all the hyperventilating and drowsiness:

"Of who now?"

Once he said that, he gave one final gasp of air.

Faster than whatever could leave his mind, utter darkness roamed his entire view when his eyes were still open.

Afterwards, complete silence upon the pill having done its duty.

His entire self, motionless, spineless.

Lifeless.

Nothing left of Mac but his dead body.

-

I've given up...

I'm sick of living

Is there nothing you can say?

Take this all away

I'm suffocating!

Tell me what the fuck is

Wrong with me!

-

Meanwhile, outside of the apartment, the mailbox that contained Mac's letter inside an envelope had not been closed properly.

Allowing a wind strong enough that it could easily knock down perhaps a stack of books off their balance to blow the envelope away from the box.

The envelope drifted like a feather almost half a mile away to a street known as Wilson Way.

The wind perhaps made the envelope seem light when its strength was near to unsurpassable.

Once the wind failed to oppose its weakness, the envelope gently fell to the ground like the petal of a flower.

Not everything that was to be sent to a specifics somewhere always make it.

The letter was at this far fated to be found by a certain yellow mischievous and sinister friend who knew nothing about what had gone on that very night.

Bendy.

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That's pretty much it.

Yeah, I think I'll take a break from this and go back to humor.

Thanks for reading! (IF you did read it and not just this bottom part!)