Head Full of Hyenas
Posted originally on the Archive of Our Own at /works/22549762.
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Category: Gen
Additional Tags: Eating Disorders, Anorexia, Hearing Voices, Confused Narrator, this is dark, as is typical with my writing, POV Second Person, Could Be Canon, but also, Mental Breakdown, Implied/Referenced Character Death
You truly can't remember when you first heard it, can you? This voice has been in your head for so long, and, by now, you've accepted it as a part of you. You welcome its wrathful words.
It tells you you're fat. You believe it.
It tells you you're worthless. You believe it.
Shouldn't you know better? You're not stupid, by any means; you should know this is not normal. So, why are you still in denial?
It's feeding you lies, you know. Oh, but you don't know, do you? This disease entrapped you when you were but a gullible child; it indoctrinated you into this lifestyle at such a young age. You were a vulnerable little boy, already starved of one thing: attention. So you, in all your juvenile ignorance, sought attention in the most dangerous way.
Lie after lie after lie, you feast yourself upon them, but naught else. No, naught else. Naught you think likely to get in the way of your 'progress'.
You call it progress. I call it suicide. Yet, you don't have a death wish, do you? At least, not yet.
Is it not cruel? The way it taunts you, mocks you, and deceives you. You shouldn't believe a single word it utters. Yet, you do. Alas, indeed, you do. You think it knows best, for it cares for you. You deem it the voice of reason, telling yourself it's a generous guardian to guide you through this perilous pursuit for perfection.
There is nothing that can pry you from its death grip, is there? I fear you are too far gone, Darling. Much like your impalpable 'friend', you turn to a lifestyle of lies. Your mother, bless her, notices, despite the baggy clothes you disguise yourself underneath, your attenuated frame. She feeds you up, and won't let you leave the table until you clean your plate. It screams at you as you satisfy her wishes, yet you keep your composure and finish your food. She seems happy - relieved, even - and doesn't think anything of how quickly you sprint to the bathroom, remaining ignorant of your little ritual.
One weekend, you're home alone with Sayu. On the television plays some drab programme featuring the most superficial celebrities in the entirety of Japan, whose lithe limbs you fixate upon as you watch with her, ignoring the gnawing sensation in your stomach. You deny feeling hungry when she offers you a snack, though you haven't eaten in almost five days. You've gotten cleverer; by now, you're pretending to go out to eat with friends, when all you really do is aimlessly walk around town for hours on end in a fatuous attempt to shed those last few pounds. By the fourth day, you're weakened, for this is the longest you've survived without sustenance. You're much too weak to exert yourself, so you spend most your day on your arse. It comes as no surprise, really, that when you take to your feet to head off to your bedroom, you faint right before your little sister's unworldly eyes. When you come to, she's on the phone to your mother. In a fit of misdirected anger, you snatch the device from Sayu's hand, hang up, and have a good shout, intimidating and beguiling her into silence on your malfeasant maladie's orders. When your mother confronts you, you laugh her concerns off, telling her you just stood up too fast.
And your father?
Well, he's mostly absent, of course. As always. But one evening, when he's home, he comments on your weight loss. You claim you haven't been feeling well recently and tell him not to worry, and he doesn't press the issue further, seeming satisfied when he sees you eating dinner.
Your condition isn't invisible, sweet child, despite your best efforts to conceal it. Those callouses of yours reveal that much. Try though they may, no one can save you, not when you keep denying these problems' existence. Each day, you grow weaker, colder, and paler. Your eyes play tricks on you, insofar that some days you refuse to even gaze upon your reflection.
You just keep layering up, hiding behind a flimsy façade. You block everything out until the voice is all you know.
Haziness engulfs you. Your grades drop. Your teachers force you into counselling, yet you don't speak, so they let you go, eventually, branding you a lost cause. Most days, you tune yourself out, enveloped in ennui as you wistfully gaze upon the world outside, wishing you could be out there burning energy instead of cooped up in this crumby classroom.
When you see it fall, you wonder if you're hallucinating again - what with how parched you are - or if it's just low blood sugars blotching your vision. What is it that possesses you to take a closer look, I wonder? Mere curiosity? Do you see that short walk as an opportunity to purge more calories? Or is it something beyond your control? Some sort of otherworldly force that possesses you, stringing you along like the marionette you've become?
Alas, I suppose that much matters not. This notebook is far from your saving grace.
It won't be long now. One of these days, your brutalised body is going to give in. Which organ will fail first? Perhaps the heart? How ironic would that be? You know, Dear, you cannot be perfect. And you certainly cannot become a god. Why must you covet non-existent titles?
The voice tells you, day after day, that you can reach perfection. You believe it.
You convince yourself that with this newfound power, you can be more than perfect. You can become a god. It laughs at you.
Then, on one bitter, dreary night, it tells you you're a murderer. That's when you, after years of torment, finally come apart at the seams.
And who knows what becomes of you next?