Chương 53: I've been feeling...shifty lately

I need to sleep. I really need to sleep. My limbs feel like lead, they're sagging under my cloak as if the rain falling on me was heavier than it should have been, as if everything was sticking to me and dragging me down to the ground, I feel like I'm atlas, forever cursed to carry the weight of the world. Nonetheless. I don't droop down. I don't slouch. Nor do I show any weakness even after not sleeping for two days. That's why I'm cursed.

This pain resistance, this weird fucking thing, exhaustion is some sort of pain I guess? Because no matter how much I don't sleep, I just shrug it off. The first night. I thought I would fall asleep by myself. I was shifty, my breathing weird, even if I ddi my best to restrain it. I did my best, and I thought that the second my eyes closed, everything would be normal again, that this dumb feeling, this dumb horrible fucking feeling would go away, that it would all be a bad dream.

I started doubting in myself when I was still awake after staying still and imitating sleep for three hours. Still, this can happen. Sometimes. Insomnia is fine, and I believed I would fall asleep I knew I would. It's... something normal right? When you're too tired, you fall asleep, that's all, especially when you don't force yourself to stay up. So even if I had a single night of insomnia. I thought everything would be fine. NO, NO, NO, THAT'S A FUCKING LIE! But it's the truth actually. Why?

Because now I decided that all my thoughts that didn't agree with this are intrusive thoughts. And since I had a lot of free time while acting like I was sleeping. I decided to categorize everything that are intrusive thoughts: -I won't ever sleep again. That's a lie, that is a lie, that's a liieeeeeee, an intrusive thought. My body will drop down one day, I know it, I know it. -You want to live. I ignore those ones now. -Your father will sell you for a penny soon. It's... hard to say it's false....

-They will come and reduce the village into smithereens, you included, you'll feel your insides drip down on the ground. I don't really fear feeling my insides leave me, doubt it would hurt. -WEAKWEAKWEAKWEAKWEAKWEAKWEAKW-! -You can't do the flow again if you're restraining your breathing, hyperventilate, you need it. That's kind of a truth, but I don't like the thought tone, as if I was hiding from something or whatever. -A shado-! A shadow appears on the side of my vision. My head snaps. Fast.

Faster than necessary, I feel a muscle in my neck strain because of how fast I moved. I see nothing but the rain and the semi-empty weapon street. Shouldn't have reacted like that. Turning my head again, I focus my sight on my current goal. Ignoring the shadows around my vision. Those shadows started appearing last night. After not sleeping for two days. Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences. Apparently you can hallucinate if you don't have enough sleep?

That's annoying but whatever, I can deal with that, even if I don't want too. I really want to sleep. But I can't. I really can't, tried my best I told you. After I didn't slept on the first night, I thought I would fall asleep soon because of how tired I was. I didn't. So I tried something else. Training. Hard training. I exhausted myself and.... Didn't work. The next night, I couldn't sleep. Even with exhaustion infusing my limbs. That's when a theory reached me. Exhaustion is a sort of pain.

My pain resistance is over the moon. I can shrug off sleep. I'm gonna fucking die of sleep deprivation out of all things. The thought makes me want to laugh. But I don't. I school my face down, keeping it calm and not letting an edge of laughter coming out of me. I feel my abs tightening as I restrain myself, but a quick grounding on myself manages to keep me in the flow. I close my eyes, take the last bite of my snack to fuel my bursting belly and relax. Feeeeeeeel the flow around you.

Keep spreading it into the street, spread it everywhere, that's it. Licking my fingers covered in strawberry filling, I at least reassure myself by knowing I won't die of starvation anymore. Stealing is really easy nowadays. In any case. That's not my current problem, even if I thought it was. After all, the reason I can't sleep is because of paranoia. It's because the last time I heard my front door open, I found myself standing in my room. Alone.

Already on my feet and primed for a fight to the death like some kind of traumatized dog. MY BODY MOVED BY ITSELF! I swear it did. I was just here. Chilling. Trying to sleep, like always since those last two days. And then. Before I could even open my eyes I found myself on my feet, small fists clenched tight, my entire body coiled like some kind of spring, my eyes straight on my closed door as I heard my drunk father entering the living room.

I didn't really knew how to react to that, so I just sat down and tried to sleep again. Failed. Again. I just CAN'T sleep for some reason. I just can't, I tried everything, exhausting myself, staying in my bed for hours meditating, but NOTHING, NOTHING works. Whenever my eyes close. I-I-I- FUCK! SHIT HAPPENS ALRIGHT!? DON'T ASK ANYMORE! I take a deep breath, not even annoyed at my weird mental monologue. Instead. My eyes are on the glass window showing the inside of the shop I'm eyeing.

Still focused on that, on something I hope will let me sleep again. No. Not a drug. There isn't drugs around, and to be honest, I feel like my body could just shrug it off cause apparently pain resistance is crazier than I thought it would be. No. It's just.... I'm just a bit desperate, so... I started thinking, maybe, just maybe.... Maybe if I listen to those thoughts I'll be able to sleep? They're the ones that stop me.

Whenever I'm tucked under my blanket, shivering from unbound energy, as if I couldn't stop, as if I was under the threat of death and my body constantly fired up energy at me again and again and again telling me to move, do something, survive, that I'm not safe right now, that right now I'll die if I close my eyes and don't monitor everything around me, that I need the energy to move and change my life. They're the ones that stop me. Talking about my father.

About how the only reason he's not going too far is because Hatomo already whooped his ass once. Talking about my mother getting abused and barely able to keep us alive, about how even with that, I'm still starving, I'm still stunting my growth and my chance of ever growing stronger.

Talking about my grandfather, about how strong, how fast he is, about how he'll probably love a kid that can do magic in his army if he learned I could go invisible, about how he knows where I live and could come knock at any moment to abduct me and use me as a war weapon for the rest of my life. I hate those ones. But they aren't the worse. The worse ones are the ones talking about my weakness.

About how much I want to live, about how I like eating salty things, and how I love strawberries and how much I want to train magic. To have fun. To throw tsunamis around, fireballs around, jump high, have fun, do backflips, do random fucking funny stuff in my life, to enjoy it. And how I'll never go that far because we're in the middle of a war and I'm weak. Weak. Terribly weak. Horribly weak.

They talk about how weak I am, how I'm so weak anyone can just enter my room whenever I sleep and crush my neck while I sleep. How they don't even need me to be asleep, they can just see me in the street, grab me, and end my life on a whim. How everyone EVERYONE around me is stronger, how all of them just could crush my limbs like it's timber, how they would rejoi-! I blink. Seeing a person going closer to my target shop, he walks. A cloak on him, just enough to ignore the rain. He gets closer to the door.

The door with a jingle, with a bell that has been scaring me for a while. That has been making me worried that I wouldn't be able to sneak inside because of how loud the jingle is, that my invisibility isn't strong enough to do it. And I rip myself out of my intrusive thoughts as I start walking. Sliding on the ground, allowing my feet to do this weird rhythming shifting sound nobody can hear. Soon enough, I find myself behind the guy as he gets closer to the door of the shop, of the weapon shop.

This shop will help me. I'm sure of it. If ignoring the thoughts doesn't work... Listening to them will work right? Maybe listening to the one talking about my flesh. My disgusting weak flesh. Maybe listening to this one, to how this thought talk about how patheticly weak my body is could help? Because if my flesh is as weak as it says. I can just subtitute the flesh for something else right? Something sharp. Dangerous. Even in the hand of a two years old. One that can go invisible. It will help me sleep right?