Sure to Shine

Eric wished he had died.

He knew that as he sat there, upright in bed, hearing the clock ticking somewhere to the left of him. He couldn’t see it, but he knew it must be somewhere around four in the morning. He had been counting to sixty slowly since three, and he had nearly reached the sixtieth count.

He wanted to sleep, but he couldn’t. He hadn’t slept in days. He hadn’t had a decent sleep since a week or so before the shooting, and now it was coming on a week and a half afterwards. The guilt was overwhelming.

"Fifty-nine, sixty," Eric whispered to himself. He took a deep breath. "One, two, three …"

He had to keep his brain active. Every time he let his thoughts wander, he started thinking about the fourteen people he’d murdered. He couldn’t bear to think about that, and as long as he was stuck in this loony bin there was nothing he could do about it.

Of course, Eric hadn’t told the therapists he was suicidal. That would only get him extra watches and make it all harder. But he didn’t want help anyway. He just wanted the crushing guilt to end.

Every day, he faced the same thing. Meetings with therapists, psychologists, psychiatrists, and so many damn investigators. Every day he had to describe what had happened, that it hadn’t been him, that he had tried to stop Skylar. Eric understood now that he and Skylar shared the same body, but he was adamant that they were different people. For days he’d tried to antagonise Skylar into appearing, but the sneaky little bastard had made himself scarce over the past week and a half. Eric hadn’t heard a breath out of him. It was very frustrating. Eric knew what the media were saying: that he was a scheming, conniving little shit who was only trying to get out of what he had done. Eric just wanted to prove them all wrong. He hoped, somehow, he would be taken seriously.

Of course, the fact that Skylar had been in charge at the time did nothing to help ease Eric’s guilt. At the end of the day, he knew that it had been him who had walked in with the gun, if only in body. Eric knew he should have gone to the police. Skylar, of course, wouldn’t have killed him. That would have meant killing himself. Skylar wouldn’t have done that, that would have compromised his plans for the shooting, but Eric now realised that at the time he had been too much of an idiot to realise that he and Skylar had been the same person all along.

Eric jumped as he thought he heard movement on the other side of the room. Knowing that he had been hallucinating a perfectly solid person for months had made him doubt himself more than ever, but he was pretty sure this time.

He didn’t turn on the lamp: that would just alert the nurses. Instead, he crept over to the window and pulled the curtains open, letting in the little strip of silvery moonlight fall over the room. The light was cold, and made him shiver ever so slightly.

The room was bare, as he wasn’t allowed much. This was just a standard rule for all patients, in case they tried to harm themselves. Most things were bolted to the floor as well. Eric found the brightly coloured painting nailed to the walls a little pointless, given the drab nature of the rest of the place.

Everything, at the moment, looked like it was in a black and white film, thanks to the silvery grey of the moon. Eric looked over towards the small bathroom. Somebody was there, and it didn’t take a genius to work out that it was Skylar. Eric didn’t say anything, he simply glared.

"Not going to try and get anyone?" Skylar eventually asked, ever so softly.

"What’s the point?" Eric hissed back. "You’ll only vanish, like the coward you obviously are."

"Says you, Mr. I-Want-To-Kill-Myself," Skylar snorted.

"This wasn’t my fault," Eric glared. "You’re the one who’s caused me all this guilt."

"So, what are you going to do about it?"

"What can I do about it?" Eric muttered. "I should have just shot myself and ended it all in the first place."

"I don’t think you would have had the nerve," Skylar shrugged. "So why not do it now?"

"Do it now?" Eric snorted. "That’s near impossible. How the Hell would I do it now?"

"See, if you really wanted to, you would improvise," Skylar winked. "Why not smash the clock and slit your wrists with the sharp shards of plastic? Or if you were really desperate, you could just bite through your veins. It’s been done before."

"Oh, I get it," Eric rolled his eyes. "I guess you’re now my subconscious who’s giving me all this ideas, eh?"

"Ah, so you’re not an idiot after all, eh?"

"Shut the fuck up, Skylar, I’m so fed up of you."

"I’d imagine you would be."

"Why are you here? Just to torment me further?"

"Nah, I figured you were going to make a move to end it all tonight so I thought I might as well come along and make sure you kill us properly."

"Oh!" Eric said, and then he gave a strange chuckle. "Killing you as well, I forgot. This will make everything so much more fun."

"Whatever," Skylar shrugged, sitting down on the chair. He waved his arm. "Continue."

Eric sighed angrily and went and sat on the bed, glaring at his alter-ego. Skylar gave a small smirk, and Eric rolled his eyes before standing up and pulling the sheets off the bed.

"They always think that you need a height to hang yourself," Eric chuckled. "But you don’t."

"Nice idea, I didn’t think of that one," Skylar said casually from the chair.

Eric twisted them and tied them around the end of the bed, to the frame. He did so in a corner where two pieces of the frame met, so there would be extra support. He was silent as he worked, feeling Skylar’s eyes calmly watching him.

Sitting back on the bed, Eric casually wrapped the sheets around his neck, feeling as though he were in a trance. He wasn’t scared. He didn’t feel any nerves or guilt over what killing himself would do to his friends and family. In his eyes, he had hurt them enough. His heart was beating furiously, but this was only because of the excitement. In a few minutes, it would all be over. He would be free. He would never have to see their faces, hear their screams, ever again.

He tightened the sheets, and, without so much as another thought, allowed himself to fall heavily off of the bed. He had calculated his knots correctly, and the shortened sheet tightened just before he hit the floor, leaving him supported off the ground, with no way to untie himself. The knot had been pulled too tight.

Instinctively, Eric tried to pull the sheets away, but caught himself, and stopped. He didn’t want to live. He was happy with this decision.

Eric has always managed to hold his breath the longest out of his friends, but gradually the pressure in his head became unbearable, and for the first time, a flicker of fear went across his mind. What if there was a Hell? He would be going there, surely. What if it was nothingness? Just deep, never-ending nothingness? Surely that would be preferable to an eternity of damnation?

Eventually, the feeling passed, and Eric slumped there, everything starting to go black. He didn’t feel the need to breathe anymore. He felt calm. For the first time in weeks, he felt himself. He felt free.

Skylar softly moved over to Eric’s side and crouched down.

"Well done," he whispered. "I didn’t think you’d have the balls."

Eric slowly moved his eyes to Skylar’s face. The other young man looked just as vivid, and there was something in his eyes that Eric didn’t like.

"You remember the day we first met?" Skylar asked softly. "You said you wanted to travel? You wanted to leave this shitty forced-upon life and be your own person? You nearly succeeded. You did things no kid would have the balls to do. But now look at you. You’re going to die. Not even in a heroic way – I mean, if you killed yourself on the day, in the midst of battle and all that … but no. You’re going to go down as another loser who just couldn’t fucking hack it. Well done. I hope you enjoy yourself, wherever you’re going."

Skylar’s face was the last thing Eric saw before his vision failed, and everything went black.
Eric remembered it being dark for a very long time, before, quite suddenly, he could hear voices. They sounded tinny and far away, but gradually they came back, stronger, more distinctive.

"Come on, Eric," someone said, a female, and Eric felt her slap his cheek.

No! Eric thought to himself frantically. He couldn’t be alive. Fuck! Why won’t they just let me go?

Of course, they wouldn’t let him go. They would leave him there to suffer, just that little bit longer, while they poked and prodded and asked all their stupid questions. It had been so peaceful, just for a little while.

Eric, although he didn’t want to, found his eyelids fluttering open. The ceiling above him looked more distant, blurry, all out-of-focus. So did the faces swimming above him. They were like dark shadows, moving around, and their mouths made no sense to him.

He tried to make a sound, any sound, but his throat was burning, and the agony stopped Eric from trying any longer. He made do with what he thought was a sufficient glower from the floor. In the background, he thought he could see a shadowy figure of about Skylar’s build, but his vision was swimming so much that he couldn’t be completely sure.

"Come on, Eric," one of the nurses said again. "Can you hear me? Look at me, Eric."

Eric reluctantly dragged his eyes along to meet the nurses’, and instinctively blinked in annoyance as she shone a small torch into his eyes. He groaned, painfully, and turned his head away, beginning to cough. His throat felt totally raw, much like it did when he’d had a cold and had slept with his mouth open all night. He forced himself to swallow, wincing as the movement caused his throat to sting in protest.

He was tired. He tried to get away with closing his eyes again, but the nurses were adamant that he shouldn’t. He groaned again as one of them gently shook him, and reached up, trying to bat her away.

"You’ve got to stay awake, Eric. You need to be checked out by the doctors."

Eric only glared. It seemed that all he did was get poked and prodded and interrogated by doctors. He gave a soft sigh, staring up at the ceiling. For a few blissful minutes, he thought he was going to be free from all this.

"Looks like you failed," came Skylar’s amused voice from next to him. Not caring any longer what the nurses around him thought, Eric turned and glared at Skylar.

"Shut your face, Skylar," he croaked, and Skylar glanced at the nurses, rolled his eyes, gave Eric a quick smirk, and then he vanished.

Eric looked back up at the ceiling and sighed again. He couldn’t believe that he was going to have to put up with more of this, and he didn’t know whether he could so much as bear the thought.