Two updates in one day, yay! Sorry for slacking on everything.

I know I've stopped putting warnings here, because if you're still reading by now, you're probably not phased by such things. But this one… it's dark, it's disturbing and really gets into the mind of someone deeply disturbed. I managed to upset myself writing this, and just… it's quite explicit but not in a gory way, so be warned!

...

"The graph's not meant to be that slow," Luca commented, tilting his head towards the ECG next to his bed. The squiggles and beeps didn't seem to match a regular heartbeat, though he swore the thing used to be slower.

Adriaan was pacing up and down the ward, unable to hear them through his cloud of thought as he pondered his failures as a brother. No one else on the ward paid them attention.

"I think it's broken," he added, and on the other side of him, Anri sighed.

"Or maybe you're just really ill," she slumped further in her chair.

Luca scowled. "I'm not. Honestly."

It was just a diet. A few measure taken to ensure he'd lose a few pounds. Or stone. It was a hobby, setting new targets for himself. X kilograms in Y weeks. He loved maths as it was, and this was maths he could get behind. He'd never run out of targets. It was beautiful! It was his little hobby to get some control in his life. Luca could claw back perfection and he'd be fine. His life would be good again.

It was his life now.

He was hungry, yes, but that was simply a sign of his continued strength. He'd been telling himself that for years now. The cave in his stomach was a sign that it was working, that he was going in the right direction. Sometimes it was too much and he'd have to lie in bed- too weak to get up- running his fingers over his bones, to remind himself of his progress. Pointed fingertips traced over each rib, relishing in those neat, smooth arches. He'd wrap his forefinger and thumb around his wrist until they could finally touch. His collar and hip bones, oh they were the best! So prominent with their grooves and angles; they stuck out of his skin quite splendidly, but not splendid enough. Never enough.

Still, he certainly couldn't have done those things three years ago, when he was broken and everything had fallen apart. He'd been helpless then, but now he was the master of his own body.

Why couldn't they see that?

"Luca, you nearly died," Anri whispered, "we thought you were gone."

"That's… you're exaggerating." Luca wrinkled his nose.

Maybe he wasn't entirely happy, he'll admit that much. Okay, he wasn't at all happy. Why would he be though? He was starving and still looked wrong in the mirror- too fat and flabby-, and after what happened… well, he'd never be truly happy again. Maybe the less of him there was, the less his skin would crawl like bugs and maggots were covering it. If his stomach was empty, it couldn't lurch and threaten to spill over every little reminder. If he could control his life, he might just be able to forget what little he could have done to prevent what happened.

Even as he felt a cold sweat break, Anri was speaking up.

"Adriaan thinks your attack had something to do with it."

"I know next to nothing about heart failure," he struggled to force his trembling voice to form words, and his fingers slipped and slid in his palms as he tried to clench his fists, "but it has nothing to do with what happened."

Anri leaned in closer. "Do you honestly think you'd be kept in the psychiatric ward over heart failure?"

"There's nothing wrong with me! I'm not," Luca shook his head, "I'm not mad!"

"No one's saying you are. Just ill." Anri sighed, staring at the floor miserably. Why must her little brother suffer this way? And why was his mind telling him there was nothing wrong as it slowly killed him?

And why was she so powerless to help him?

"That's just a nice way of putting it," Luca snapped. "You think I'm insane and dangerous so you won't let me come home."

Anri flinched. "You know what? You are dangerous. You're a danger to yourself and the doctors will be keeping you here until they can find out why you almost starved yourself into suicide."

Luca winced, distracting himself by staring at his fingernails. He could still feel the dirt under them, from where he'd tried to crawl away, clawing at the ground until he was raw, though it had done absolutely nothing to save him.

"Suicide was never my attention." Not his main one, at any rate. "And how could I try to kill myself with something I don't understand and didn't know I could get?"

"So you'll admit you don't understand your eating disorder?"

"I don't… I haven't got that."

Anri was wrong. There was no need to use such a term on him when it wasn't even relevant.

But on another level, a tiny, almost subconscious pocket in his mind knew his sister was wrong for a whole different reason. He understood his mind very well, no matter how he refused to believe he was ill. Only Luca knew the his life had been for the last three years. Anri, and Adriaan, hadn't been in his mind as he made excuse after excuse not to eat and tortured himself with his starvation until he really was mad. They hadn't been there when he was attacked, only there to pick up the pieces. Well some job they'd done. He'd had to pick himself up, just like he'd always done.

And he had!

So why was he here?

Oh Luca could figure that out. He was mad. Wrong. Broken beyond repair. Tainted. Ugly. What had happened to his control?

He glanced down at his hands again, ugly and ruined with dry, scarred knuckles and that colour. That colour that wouldn't go away no matter how much he washed and showered. The most expensive soaps in the world couldn't get rid of that horrible discoloured red. He cleaned and cleaned but it did no good.

And now he had heart failure for the rest of his life. He'd not planned it but he'd have to live with it. Yet more of his life spiralling horribly out of control. He had absolutely no authority over his body anymore. That was what his life was to be, taking medication to make sure he didn't keel over and die, though he no longer saw the point in trying to help himself.

"I felt powerless after… what happened." He finally admitted it. He wasn't in control of his own life.

"I can imagine," Anri replied sympathetically, taking his hand in hers, careful to be gentle."

Imagine. That was all she could do on the matter, thankfully. He'd never wish such a fate on his family, or anyone, for that matter.

"I'm getting a coffee, anyone else want one?" Adriaan announced suddenly as he wandered over, and Anri wondered how much he knew, and if he was trying to give them space to talk. Surely by now even Adriaan must know his imposing air wasn't helping Luca recover, no matter the man's good intentions.

"Black, no sugar please," Luca smiled weakly, and the sight tore at his brother's heart.

"Two sugars," Anri added flatly.

A clang from outside caught their attentions, and Adriaan's frown deepened. What now?

"Hang on, I'll check it out." He wandered over to the doorway, and had barely poked his head round the corner when he was pulled forward, disappearing from sight.

"Adriaan!" squeaked Anri, jumping up and running after him, faltering at his shouts and the snarls of whatever had dragged him away. "No don't worry! I'm coming!"

"Ann no." Luca could only watch as she was pulled from sight too. "Come back," his raspy voice was long beyond forming a shout.

"Anri, Adriaan, where did you go?" he pulled himself up to a sitting position, cramming his freezing feet into slippers before going to investigate himself. What the hell was going on here? Where were his brother and sister being taken?

"Hello?" he peered around the edge of the doorway, only to find Adriaan and Anri were now dead, Adriaan now in pieces as a pair of monsters ripped into him. Anri barely had time to mouth the words 'run' before her eyes glassed over and she slumped in the arms of the thing gripping her, biting into her skull like she was an apple.

That was it. Luca screamed like he'd never done before, not even the darkest moments of his life could've elected such a noise.

"No!" he cried, "oh God no! What have you done to them?"

All he managed to do was catch the attention of all three monsters, and they glared at him hungrily, dropping their victims as they began to move towards him.

"No, oh no no no," he sobbed, hoping with all his might this was just another nightmare. "You're not real. You're not real!"

But even he couldn't be that naive.

There was nothing else for it. Luca lunged towards the doorway, leaning heavily against it as he bellowed out a warning to the other patients.

"Run!" he screamed, "everybody get out of here quick before you die!"

And with that, he began backing away, unsure if he had the strength to break into a run. The monsters weren't moving at anything faster than a hobble anyway.

"Easy," he tried, "come on, you don't want to eat me. You've filled up on my fucking family already you fucking bastard cunts." He wish he had the strength to tear them apart. So that's what it felt like to want power over someone…

He wasn't sure why he was still trying to save himself, he noted as he continued moving away. His whole body seemed to be working on automatic now, seeing as he was so damn useless at keeping himself alive.

As he came to that conclusion, Luca slipped in a puddle of blood and fell to the floor with a yelp. The monster nearest to him loomed over him, snarling and drooling as he scrambled away. By some miracle, Luca pulled himself to his feet and burst into a shamble of a run, barely keeping ahead of his adversaries.

"Please," he whispered, "someone help me."

...

I think this might possibly be my best chapter.