All in my Mind

XXI.

Before I tell you what happened next, I want to tell you what I did to them. I know this isn't exactly chronological and I know I left you hanging with literal fucking gunshots earlier, but just assume that something happened in the middle there. An entire year passed. A very bad year. That much I can tell you.

This will have to be a bare bones version for now. You can have the details later when I'm more up for it. Right now you just need to know that I never meant for any of it to happen. Everybody says that, but I mean it. I really, really mean it.

There was a fire. Maybe I've said or implied that before, but if I haven't then now you know. I started a fire. It was a really big fire.

My mom and my sister had both left and I was home alone, except for I wasn't really alone because the dog was there. That was something else that happened that year. My mom got a dog for me. It was like a pity gift, but I think she also thought it would help. I'm not sure that it actually helped though. Well it helped in the short term, and it helped that the dog never barked. He only barked when he had a reason. I don't know what I would have done if it was a barker. I would have hated it. His name was Hoggle by the way. I think I've mentioned that.

I'm getting off topic. This isn't about the dog.

Anyways, I was alone except for Hoggle. And the demons. I thought they were demons at the time anyways. It was my two regular accomplices; the boy and the girl. They were both there and I knew they weren't real because the dog wasn't barking at them, but it didn't matter because I was so fucking cold.

That's the big reason for it all by the way. There's nothing super secret or nuanced about it. I was just cold. Freezing actually. It was the type of cold that eats away at everything you are. The type of cold that seeps into your skin and no amount of shivering helps. My bones were ice. My insides were covered in frost. My very soul was slowly solidifying the way puddles do at 3 am in the winter.

This wasn't a real cold. It was definitely just in my head. I was vaguely aware of that, just like I was vaguely aware that demons weren't real, and that I was feeling way too close to my dad in the moment, but those things I knew changed absolutely nothing for me.

I was also off my meds. I already had meds back then by the way, although I was misdiagnosed and more sedated than medicated. Like I said, it had been a really big year.

So it was September, and I was sort of alone, and I was cold, and there were demons there.

Then I started a fire.

I closed the vent and opened the grate on the fire place and I let it spill out. I was more conscious than I would like to admit. I knew it was going to spread, but I didn't stop. The girl was so encouraging and the boy was so pathetically unhelpful in slowing me down.

When the fire got too big, Hoggle finally barked. I remember crying hysterically because he wouldn't stop barking. I remember the boy telling me to put him outside, so I did.  Then the girl told me to go to bed, so I also did that.

I have no idea how Hoggle ended up back inside the house. I just remember him laying down with me a short while before I heard sirens. He refused to leave after that.

So now that you know that context:  Standing there with my mom and my sister in that little room was uncomfortable. I was unfortunately burdened with the knowledge that I'd burned their fucking house down. I don't think there's a way to feel comfortable after you do something like that to someone. It really doesn't matter how much time passes.

At least they were smiling. I'd noted that right before I'd turned around. I was now facing O'Conner, who'd conveniently blocked the doorway. I don't know if she was actually trying to block me from leaving, but the worms in my brain told me she definitely was. Nurse Taylor was nowhere in sight.