It’s a long way down… Do you want to jump?

Yes

Omori looked down at his pale hands, which were trembling, though only slightly. Black grit lined the insides of his fingernails, a mixture of dried blood, dirt, and dead skin cells. Grayish patches of rash dotted his skin and he found himself wondering if Sunny would be happy. He looked up at the sky, a feeble attempt at some sort of answer. The dull, cloud-filled sky stared back down at him impassively.

…

“Forget.”

Omori took a small step towards the ledge. His body, or rather, Sunny’s body, felt as weak and frail as a blade of grass. A cold breeze, the slightest of pushes, a blink, and it would be done. His job would be done, he would finally be allowed rest, and Sunny…

Sunny…

Sunny would forget.

Omori closed his eyes and jumped.

----------------------------------------

Basil’s eyes shot open. Wrong. Wrong, all of it, so, so wrong. He gasped, choking on strings of spittle that sent him into a rough coughing fit. Heedless, he shot up from his bed, propping himself up with his tired arms which were suddenly bearing the weight of his body, screaming in agonizing protest. His heart drummed loudly in his chest, pounding against his ribcage with enough force to break bone. He tried to scream, tried to rend his vocal cords and claw at his throat with his fingers, fingers with jagged nails that were worn and uneven from constant nail-biting.

Three figures surrounded him. Dark, staring, incomprehensible. Flickering avatars of Something, with hunger and demand glowing boldly within their pupils. What did they want? What did they want?

“Basil, Basil, Basil, Basil, Basil...” They repeated in their monotonous chorus. Chanting, morphing into liquid and disfiguring the sound of his name until it was an unrecognizable garble of white noise that pierced his eardrums. They reached out to him with black tendrils, cold and barbed, pushing him back down to the bed. They hooked onto his flesh and sunk in deeply.

Basil tossed and turned in a silent tantrum, trying to scream but not quite having the willpower to do so. He heaved himself against the restraints, trying to force his body to pass through the deadly mass of limbs crushing his body. The bed below him groaned and Basil groaned with it, sharp, spotty pain lighting his nerves alight.

It was wrong. It was all wrong. His brain felt like it was melting, melding with his skull and burning from the inside out as every thought, feeling, and memory he ever retained exploded into an indecipherable mess of words and images, meaningless jumbles of flashing neurons tainted deeply by the raw stinging of pain washing over him. He burned and drowned and died until finally, something clear.

First, the sound. Sounds of sirens. Panicked shouting. Ringing phones.

And then it came into focus, a sprawling scene of gray concrete. Expansive and uniform in its position as the background, but imperfect in its design, with cracks and specks of random color splattered about. And in its center, the catalyst to his suffering, disgusting and horrible and red. So, so red. A lake of red, bold and thick and viscous and oozing and spreading everywhere, breaking off into thin streams that seeked to further taint the ground it traveled on.

And of course, the source for the affront to his eyes, a body. Face down, limbs stretched out and bent at their joints. The thin body had pale skin, almost unnaturally so when contrasted against the mass of messy black hair on their head. A hospital gown clung to their frame, a meager shield to the desecrated corpse’s dignity.

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Of course. Of course this was what happened.

Basil stopped struggling and finally let out a weak exhale paired with a crooked, wavering smile. A smile that could only appear in the face of complete and utter misery. At this, the figures surrounding him loosened their hellish grip on him and backed away, though reluctantly so. Basil didn’t care. He didn’t care about the numerous lacerations in his skin, didn’t care about the bloody stained bed sheets below him, didn’t care that he was in hell.

“Sunny’s dead.” Basil thought. “And it’s my fault. It’s all my fault.”

His numerous sins and failures weighed on him, threatening to crush him completely. He wanted to die, but couldn’t. There was no way out of this one. A complete sense of paralysis afflicted him from the neck down, leaving him unable to do anything except writhe at the complete and utter sense of exhaustion and self-loathing that overtook him.

“Basil, are you okay? Say something.”

And then it was over.

Basil blinked and sat up from his bed once more. This time he rose easily, tears in his skin gone and forgotten. Slowly, the black figures in front of him faded until more familiar faces took their place. Aubrey, Kel, and Hero all stood next to his bed with concerned, almost fearful looks plastered onto their faces. He hated it. He wanted to shrink under their gaze until he was invisible. But instead, he simply sat there, gaping like an idiot.

“Basil…” Hero started. “You-”

“Sunny. W-Where’s Sunny? Basil interrupted, unable to keep the wavering desperation out of his voice.

“Huh? Sunny?” Hero frowned. “Basil, do you remember what happened last night? We found you two in the morning, and, well… It wasn’t pretty.”

“Please. Please, where’s Sunny? Where’s Sunny?”

“Hey, chill out Basil!” Kel piped up. “Sunny’s like, just a few rooms down. He’s totally fine! Well, fine except for… uh…”

“Let me see him. I need to see Sunny. Now.” Basil started to get off his bed and thankfully, no one tried to hold him down this time. Something tugged at his scalp and all of the sudden, the light in the room was too harsh, too bright. He winced and blinked rapidly. “C-Can you bring me to his room? I need to see him. Please, it’s important.

His three (friends?) turned to look at each other, silent, questioning glances that expected one another to say something. After a moment of awkward silence, Hero finally cleared his throat. “Well, the doctor said that you weren’t very badly injured. So… If it’s just for a bit, I guess it’d be okay.”

“Thank you. I just need to see Sunny. Quickly.” Basil stood up, doing his best to quell the overwhelming sense of foreboding settling on him. Taking a shaky breath, he followed Hero out of the room. The echoes of their footfalls echoed through the empty hallway, sending harsh shivers through his body. He could feel the stares of Aubrey and Kel drilling holes into the back of his head as they followed behind him. With every step he took down the hall, it got harder and harder to breathe, becoming colder and colder.

The familiar presence of Something appeared. It materialized, wrapped around his body and tightened its hold on him, twisting and turning uncomfortably. No one commented on it.

An eternity passed until finally, Hero stopped. He opened a door and looked inside. A second. Two. Three. Then Basil felt something in him snap harshly, sending bounding reverberations through his body. It was the culmination of all of the anxiety, worries, and doubts building up inside of him for the past four years. His body jerked forward and pushed past Hero as he ran into the room to see exactly that he expected to see.

An empty bed with an overturned blanket. Along the walls of the room, various bouquets of flowers. Untouched. Dying. Dead.

“No… N-No, Sunny. Sunny, why?” Basil gasped as tears, boiling, began to form in his eyes. His knees gave way and he collapsed onto the blaringly cold floor as tremors overtook his body. He wrapped his arms around himself in an attempt to still his shakes, but the effort was fruitless. His teeth chattered and he looked around as the room vanished and was replaced with a bright, brutal red. “Why? You left me, again? Without saying anything? And… this time. This time, you’re... “

“You’re not coming back for me, are you Sunny?”

Something stretched itself over his body to provide a dull comfort. Sinister, foreboding, but comforting nonetheless.

“your fault your fault your fault it’s all your fault Sunny’s dead you’re useless so useless.” Something whispered in his ear. Its thorns embedded themselves into his skin. It hurt, but he didn’t care. He couldn’t do anything about it anyway. “Your fault but i don’t care i don’t care i’m here i’m always here and your fault sunny’s dead your fault i’m here i won’t leave you not ever useless useless useless.”

“I know.” Basil said. “I’m so sorry, Sunny.”