He wakes up, in that forsaken stupid m[REDACTED] sewer surrounded by his most familiar doors and the now, greenish-brown goo on the floor. Not happy.

.- -.-. .-. --- .--. .... --- -... .. .-

He isn't wet, no, but clearly a few moments ago he was absolutely drenched in blood, not his own, or maybe it was. But that's not important, he should be used to whatever this hades offers.

A more important fact was the picture in his hand…the bottom left corner of a picture,

It was..

It was a face, an unfamiliar part of a face. It was distorted, with a cut off text writing “My besty frend”...yeah, it was his distinguishable messy handwriting he had clear memory of from 1st grade..something he couldn't remember was the face on this picture, a stranger, but why was this his best friend? This boy…this boy had blonde hair, and spring green eyes, from what he could see through the texta.. His face was scribbled with marine texta, seemingly trying to cross him out, wipe his life away–or at least on the picture

The name part got completely ripped off. Who did this anyways? Sounded like a weird fever dream, afterall, this place seems like a fever dream anyways.. He swiftly tucks the piece of picture into the pockets of his overwashed baby blue jeans, looking up and staring into the misty hallways that somehow got visibly darker without him noticing.

This is urgent.

There is no choice [e]

Get. out. Of. here.

Is all his mind could think of, he doesn't know why, but he needs to now, this urge just keeps..bothering, and his mind is playing “There is no choice” is all he has in his mind, the sentence taking up all his storage, bursting to become a truth, desperately trying to escape

This isn't a fever dream, this is a fever nightmare and there's no way out of this.

Is this destiny, was it always determined from the beginning? He doesn't know. “Oh god that sounded cringe” he whispers to himself, attempting to light the atmosphere up.

he can do nothing but continue.

And he walks slowly and much rather calmly, even though he almost drowned in blood a few minutes ago, to the next door.

This is labelled in big bold and scratched writing. He recognizes this one, instead of the tiny [f]one on thalassophobia, it was his handwriting..he hates people talking and going so fast, the more scrawny his handwriting gets due to the pressure to take everything down, to record. And this looks like it was written in a rush. Thats…thats..just creepy.

And on this door, it wrote:

Athazagoraphobia

Creak

Oh god he hates this creak, it reminded him of the school doors, the creaks were loud whenever anyone opened it and goddamn it was annoying. He can actually deal with the sound, but the memories that come with it, he can't remember but it was bad.

[g]

Skyler opens the door.

It was a white void, a pure white void of nothing but a few limestone steps and some moss. The dirt and stones made a big comparison between the void..ouch. Better not stare at it for so long, his eyes might get sore.

At the end of the small stepping stones was a garden gnome statue thing, it was in stone and had some moss devouring it as well, with a picture book next to it as well as a small patch of white multi petal and lered..rose of some kind. It was innocent, white and pure. It was angelic, young and pretty.

Skyler steps onto the stone, it was sturdy, but still was kind of..floating? And that was when he noticed, this isn't some void, this was some kind of glowing white liquid so white it's just like an infinite void. He turns back to look at the door, there was just a door there, nothing connecting to it, just..the door. Kind of reminds him of a game?

His reflection on the liquid glowing surface was a younger version of himself, around first grade.. With his cheeky naive big smile, just looking down at his older self. Well, this was more than magic and weird, but at this point, this isn't shocking.

He steps..and steps…on these little cute stepping stones.

“Well, this room is much less than a torture.”

He thought to himself. At least compared to what he had to visit in the previous 2, it was a bit better.

It was..calming..not really, but at least it wasn't panicking

He reaches the desk. It was the same desk he’d found the pictures and flashlight on.[h]

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It was no longer mouldy, but still old and used, with crayons all over, with pencil drawings of stickmans. In the reflection of the water, it was new, clean and unused- the stickman was still there though.

The photo album sits on the desk, nice and silent, just like it was. Looks like he just has to take this and g-

Clusters and webs of string and bone claws extend and surface from the sea of white, gripping him and forcing him into lace, strings wrapping around his joints, ouch, that hurt,..the strings were tight and knotted, he freezes for a few seconds, brain overloaded as the threads

[i]

Fix him right then and there, his hand only half an inch from the purple photo album.

The strands slowly turned red and…fiber-y? It was much more soft, but it didn't stop curling.

Transformation complete, he was now a human puppet and DEVOID of any ability to move.

The strings tighten and strain, forcing his hand to grab the book, grabbing some of his fingers,

It was a normal photo album with some of his family, him, and..that blonde boy again, with his beautiful eyes, looking at the camera and making a silly face, laughing and smiling with Skyler by his side. They were building a huge sand castle on the beach, and judging by how the boy was tugging on Skyler’s neck and both of them were laughing, they were pretty damn close.

The thing is, Skyler has NO memory of this boy, he doesn't even know what this boy is, and..his name? No, forget that, he doesn't even recognise[j] his face. Only having a faint memory of his spring green clear and happy eyes.

At least they were happy.

He didn't want to think of growing up himself, he never did.

The comics were lies he once believed that told that “you can grow up into a tennager that you want!”. That's a lie. He’s nothing that he wants. But now isn't the time to talk about this huh?

The strings of what seems like blood vessels now strangles his fingers, forcing him grab a blue[k] pen, and violently moving itself, the tip of the pen smearing all over the picture.

Skyler’s body fought against it, in vain. His body and mind were both battling to the death to not scribble out these..pictures. He has no idea why, but subconsciously he just knows that these pictures were very, very, very important to him.-he can't destroy these.

Even if he and that boy have probably met. Or maybe he just has no memory of him.

Still, nothing worked, he was panicking as his own hands scribbled out this boy’s face, leaving extra hard marks on his eyes, blacking these out frantically like it would protect him or some nonsense like that.

With each stroke that landed quickly on the picture, the white sea of..whatever that was, was blooming more and more of those white roses..until it covered the whole place,extending into the distance. His pen was like a pianist, landing every note, and the flowers..were applauding. These..stupid, flowers.

These stupid Susan Williams-Ellis flowers. The name just popped into his mind as the flowers applauded and cheered for his painful performance.

He learnt this name with his friend..who? He’s not sure.did he even have a friend? And..all he knew was that …this name was important to him.

The branches of the flowers crawl up his legs, the roots of these roses fix and trap his feet to place, wrapping them as the thorns pierce his skin, tinting the flowers below blood scarlet and dripping off the ground, being enveloped by the overwhelming white of this room. The pain was sudden and in waves shooting through his legs as they got pierced. But even all that was just almost as much in his head and heart is experiencing, the blue texta colouring the book blue.

The blood vessels wrap his body, stains all over..it controls his hands, it chooses for him, to rip the pictures, and a sharp pain in his head occurred in his head, as if he was having a panic attack, yet even if he was being controlled, his appearance did not change at all, just his neutral face. He wants to scream and run away from this mess but both his body and the rope won't move, it was surely just 3 minutes for the vessels to make him rip all the pictures into pieces, [l]

The pain in his head and heart can only be described as a rope trying to tie around him so hard that it was cutting him in half every time he ripped one in half..and then quarters..and then eighths..until it was nothing but threads of memories he wasn't sure was even real.

That was scary, and his face wont show anything but neutral cold expression, body only twitching a bit.

He doesn't know what was happening. Why did he even care so much?

He doesn't know who this random boy is, he doesn't even have anything to do and has zero impressions of this boy so why was he hurting anyways?

This space didn't make sense, it shouldn't anyways, this is all..a fever dream..and when he wakes he’ll be safe in his yellow bed in the attic and he’ll make breakfast himself then go to school to see…no one. He doesn't have any friends. Not that he could remember anyways.

And then all of a sudden the blood vessels all retract down into the ground of white glowing liquid, leaving Skyler there just confused. The pain went away but the flowers didn't. He remembers the name now..these were Susan-Williams-Ellis roses, and they were his friend’s favourite flowers. Wait. he had friends?

And then, the flowers waved and waved at him, the further the flowers went, the more blue their petals were, fading into arctic blue. The stems were spring green, waving in the non-existent wind.

“Yes.”

He suddenly says to himself

He does have a friend. He actually remembers him having a friend. He doesn't know anything about their friendship and the other but he knows he has a friend. He’s not alone, he never was. He just..somehow forgot about this person.

He went from questioning if he had one, saying no to the question and remembering.’

He must've forgotten something important, huh.

The flowers smell really nice. It smells like the sun, and a faint scent of some brand of specific washing detergent along with what he could only describe as… ‘positivity’. Like something that's always the sunny side up.

And then came the thick smell of a hospital. He knows that smell off by heart and where it comes from..he visits the hospital very very often, but he can't remember anymore, like this place thing is feeding on his memories, and it it will eat him whole and devour all of his individuality and make him less than a human and little more than a shell.

The hospital fumes got stronger, it was the smell of disinfectant.[m]

And the stench of alcohol, which he really didn't like subconsciously[n].. And of hypnotics..he doesn't even know why knows what that smells lik[o]e.

And this was a hypnotic. He feels all his energy slowly drain out of his body, and his legs go soft..without the string tying hanging and him like a puppet, he falls and stutters, falling into this white void of a grave.

He falls and falls, head down for what felt like whatever. Even without the weird ropes, he still can't express much, or this space is almost calming…except it's not now, even if he managed to withstand whatever that was with the flowers, here he is now, falling into a sea of hands. Human hands with marks on them, with childish drawings. They were all broken in some way and squirming around,blood and bones falling out like raindrops from the sky, being held only by some worn out tissue, the smell made him want to hurl.

He falls..into the sea of red, the red sticky blood clinging onto his skin, sinew clattering with the bones as they pierce into his skin, digging into his flesh. Maybe he’ll be one of the hands in this sea.

A young voice in his head- or rather this space- whispered to his in a strained voice, like its voice chords were being cut into half, pulled and pushed, stabbed and tortured, yet it was still calm.

“Goodnight”

A single pure angelic white-blue Rosa-Susan-Williams-Ellis flower lands on his chest, which was being almost ripped in half, he bets that these hands without bodies will have a fancy feast…just not sure if he is enough to feed all these…things.

His eyes plunge into darkness.