FicWad

“Feel the pain wash over me”

Mikey POV

Sitting alone in the tiny bathroom I reach for the razor, the only thing that seems to understand me right now. My band don't. They can't understand how this place is trying to destroy me. They can't understand how terrified I am every minute of every day in this dreadful place. The only outlet I have for my pain and terror is this sharp piece of metal against my skin. It doesn't hurt anymore. None of it hurts anymore. All the insults thrown my way hit me but bounce off like bullets. I know what they're saying is true. I know that I'm a bad person and deserve to be punished. I have no talent as a musician, Ray and Frank have pretty much drilled that into me over the past couple of weeks. I know that, a brain damaged primate could do my job. It hurts... it hurts to know that I'll never live up to anyone's expectations, Gerard, Grandma, Mom, Dad, so many people I'm disappointing. I'm not as intelligent, good looking or as successful as Gerard. I don't envy him. Gerard deserves all the best things in life, just because I've failed it doesn't mean Gerard can't succeed. I need to get back up and continue for his sake, I can't be the one to destroy his dream. But here I am self mutilating until I look like a reject from some fucked up horror movie. It won't be now that I feel the pain, it will be later on when the numbness has worn away and I am left with a body that I barely recognise as my own. Having to hide the whole thing from my bandmates but worst of all my older brother. I know he'd want to help me overcome whatever this whole fucked up thing is but I honestly don't think he'd know where to begin and besides he has enough to deal with without me adding to his list of worries. It was my fault he started to drink and fell into a deep depression, I should have supported him more but I didn't. I'm such a selfish dick. I deserve everything I get.

At night is the worst. I can't find comfort, not even in my dreams. My dreams are haunted by visions, visions of people I love dying in the most horrific ways. I hear voices too, voices of people telling me what my beloved bandmates and family really think of me. Do I believe this madness? Right now I truly do not know what is fantasy and what is reality. I'm teetering on the edge of insanity. Gerard's words haunted me. “The 5 Of Us Are Dying” he said. What if he was right and this place was trying to kill us all off. If that was the case it was succeeding. Look at me, I'm laid here staring up at the ceiling, covered in my own dried blood and god knows what else. I'm past caring. I probably smell like a week old kipper, but I couldn't care less. I can't be bothered anymore. I have no-one to get me through. Alicia is thousands of miles away, I need her. I need her so fucking bad. She's the only person who can put a stop to this madness. She could make Gerard see that this place is destroying me. He's so blind right now, all he cares about is making the record. He doesn't care about what it's doing to me, the stress and strain of life on the road. I can't cope anymore. Grandma's death. Dad's heart-attack. Gerard's drinking. Demands from the fans. The list goes on. I'm not what anyone wants me to be. So many fucking demands and I'm not good enough, talented enough or clever enough. I need to leave this world, leave all of it behind but I know I'm not going to make it out alive. This place has an ability to crush you into pieces and make you doubt yourself and those around you. There is no point in speaking to the guys because now I cannot tell what is truth and what is lies.

I don't think I can take this pain anymore. I don't think I can live this life any longer. I need someone to save me but I don't know who. Who can I trust? Gerard? No. I have to face this alone, I can't keep running to my big brother when things go wrong. I'm so scared. I need someone to save me. I need to know there's an end, whatever the end may be.
“The end is coming”
This is Daisy. She comes every night at this time to haunt me in every sense of the word. She watches me sleep, watches my every move. Whatever I do in this place she seems to hang over me, watching over my shoulder, judging me. The others have seen her too, but I hear her. It's like she hates me and only me. She knows things that no-one else knows about me, she knows about Grandma and my Dad and Gerard's depression. She taunts me. Says it's my fault. She says I could have stopped it. She's right. If I had been there for Grandma maybe she would still be here now, but no I had to swan off on tour. The night we returned home she'd died. Alone. I should have been there at the end. After everything Grandma has done for us. I should have been there. I owe her and am forever in her debt until the day I die. This day may come faster than I first anticipated. I won't make it out of this place alive. I will be tormented into insanity and take my own life to escape from this madness. That's the selfish way out. What would Gerard do without me?
“He doesn't care about you Mikey, you're just his stupid little brother. You're nothing to him!”
“That's not true!” I scream back. “Gerard loves me!”
I fall to the floor, hands clasped over my ears trying to block out the sound of her cruel taunts. This is how my older brother finds me 3 hours later. Rocking and crying. Distraught.

I'm ashamed. Gerard can't see me like this. I try to break away from him but he won't let me go. I fight to break free. Gerard is too strong for me. Do I want his pity? No. Not right now.
“Poor poor little Mikey, he doesn't care about you. He wished you were never born”
I hear her whispering in my ear again.
“Shut the fuck up!” I yell, curling my hands into fists and hitting outwards. “That's not fucking true!, Gerard loves me!” I scream the last part like a mantra, trying to convince myself of that fact as well as her.
“Woah woah woah Mikes”
“Get off me!” I yell, feeling hands grip tightly onto my forearms. “Let go of me!” “God damn you!”
I bit. I scratch. I kick. Anything to get those hands off me.
“Mikey relax dude it's me, Gerard”
It sure does sound like my brother. But she can master every voice. She can manipulate my mind.
“Mikey? It's Gerard, I'm here dude”
I feel a hand stroking at the nape of my neck, it must be Gerard! This is like our secret language, he always strokes there when I'm feeling scared or tired or whatever.
I relax into his touch willingly. I need him. I need him to make this stop. I need him to kill my fears and phobias. I hear him speaking but don't hear his words. It's muffled, white noise.
“Mikey look at me”
I can't. I can't look into his eyes and lie to him. I can't tell him I'm okay and everything's fine. Because it's not. I can't tell him the truth either. How do I tell about what I hear, what I see? How do I tell him that every night my dreams are haunted? How do I tell him a house is trying to destroy me? How do I tell my big brother that I want die?
I just can't tell him something like that. It would destroy him. I cannot do that to the person closest to me in the world.

I curl into a tight ball, hoping to disappear into the mattress, hoping to fall asleep and not wake up. I won't be so lucky. I won't be able to sleep. I'm exhausted, physically and mentally. I ache. I hurt. And I want to leave this place even if it's just in my dreams. I want to be normal. Live a normal life. I'll never know the meaning of the word. I'm not normal. Never have been and never will be. I'm killing myself. I'm not capable of any of this. I'm not a hero. I'm a loser. I can't even save myself. I couldn't save my Grandma. I couldn't save my Dad and I couldn't save Gerard. I'm useless. I'm a hypocrite telling these kids not to cut when I resort to it myself. “This band will save your life” I remember Frank saying that, right now it's ironic, the band is the very thing that's destroying my life. My band-mates too wrapped up in themselves and this stupid fucking record to realise I need their help. I used to be the one to solve all their problems, their spiritual advisor. Now I have no-one. Shows how much I mean to them. I'm too quiet for them to even notice me. Do they even care about me? I don't even want to think about the answer. Why am I even in this band?
“They hate you Mikey. They're laughing at you. Everyone hates you”
I hide my head under my pillow and scream until no sound comes out. No-one will care. No-one is coming. No-one notices I'm slipping off the edge. I could disappear and they would never notice. I am disappearing and all they want is more. It's nearly time for me to wake up and I haven't slept. Again. I lose track of time. I don't know what night and day is. They just blur into one. In this place you can never tell if it's light out. Nothing is light in here. It's full of darkness and depression from the second you walk in, you feel all the positive feelings sucked from you, they're replaced with feelings of doubt, doom and dread.