Ch 6.5
Descent into Madness
"Well, that can't be helped. Once they're gone, they aren't coming back. Just as the wind that passed by will never return. But that's ok, I have no doubt a new breeze will come your way." - Unknown
G&K HQ / S01
Dreams of inhuman flesh suffocated him. The pulsating and vile creations swallowed him whole every night. There was no fighting against it, there was no raging or crying capable of making it cease. As he was in life, he was in his dreams, dying.
Death was all around him in his dreams now. Though he knew it wasn't some punishment for past sins, it wasn't a specter coming to haunt him in his final days. It was the cancer, the growing mass in his brain. The things a growth could do the to human mind astounded part of him, and the other part only felt terrible dread.
In the past, he was rendered near-emotionless. But now, through a twist in fate, emotional sense came pouring back into him as if a dam had busted. He could hold them in, he could hide them away as he had done years before.
But as it turns out, grief has its limits.
Like a child, during the darkest parts of the night, he would find himself crying. Not sobbing or wailing like a widow, but just laying completely still in his bed, tears streaking down his cheeks. Then it would change to a sad mockery of laughter, though nothing funny had been said or happened. The past would flow from his head, and he would laugh at the terrible horrible things that had happened to him and others.
But none of these things were the worse.
They always came after. When the crying and laughing stopped. They came.
Ghost of the past. Specters. Memories given form. Call them what you want, it didn't matter.
Near physical manifestations of those he had lost, and those he knew now. They would watch him laying in bed, they would whisper terrible horrible things in his ears. Several times some, who even he had nearly forgotten, tried to kill him. They would choke him, as if forcing him to remember who they were.
The memory always came back to him, and when it did the stranglehold would cease, and the figures would move away, only for another to take its place in some form or action.
He saw his dead wife on many occasions, covered in blood. He would see Juan, Heilian, even AK47. He would watch as the figures would move objects in his room, complete interaction. When they left, and he woke up, the objects were where they had been moved.
He made the mistake of trying to record them once. He knew they weren't real, they couldn't be actually there. When the night had passed, he played back the video. It was him, staring at an empty bed, yelling at it, moving objects around.
It was him all along. Alone. No one else.
This compacted the sense of dread he started nearly every morning off.
The only out was the medication Persicaria provided to him. She wasn't a human doctor, but she had medication he needed access too. Wall knew that she knew, that he was dying and that the promises he kept making her, the underhanded deals and oaths were never going to come to fruition.
At least she had to know, she couldn't be that stupid. He kept a handle on himself, and put on a mask nearly no one could see through. But people had to know, it had to be obvious to some.
But if it did, no one asked the question. No one spoke a word. Not a single soul came up to him and checked on him.
Part of him wanted help, part of him wanted someone to notice and console him.
It wasn't an option though. The portions of manliness and insufferable war veteran forced him not to ask for such things. He would help anyone, any brother that needed help. But he couldn't ask for his own, he couldn't put that sort of pressure on someone else.
When the day came, when the sun broke, or his body forced him out of bed. He would take his medication, and the figures and emotional outpour would fade away into nothingness. He would be the same quasi-stoic human he had been for years. While things in the day kept him alert and active, they would wear him out and make him want to sleep. But then the night came again, and the cycle repeated.
This night was the worst. He saw his death, not brought upon by cancer. It was at the hands of his team, his dolls, a portion inside him called them his friends. He was sitting down in rubble, bleeding everywhere, his chest hurt and it was nearly impossible to breathe. IDW, M200, and AK47 stood in front of them.
None of them were crying, there was no laughing. Just disdain and confusion. He closed his eyes in the dream, and heard a gunshot. He felt it enter his body, his heart.
Then he woke up again, and the day repeated. Yet today was different, something overhead was watching him, looming over him. He felt faces from the beyond watching every step he took, and those faces held no smiles.