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He doesn’t belong here. It’s scratched in his joints, and they creak whenever he moves. The constant remainder keeps him tense, shoulders up, eyes never resting, pulse always racing. He feels all this like a distant, half-forgotten dream, like none of it is real. This body obeys his will, but it is not his. He doesn’t know how he got trapped in here. He just knows it hurts to breathe, it hurts to be.
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But what alternative is there? To cease, to give in, to lay down all armor and resistance, to let them--to let the despair and anxiety control his death as well as his life? Fuck that. He’d rather endure an eternity of this existence than succumb. He’d rather chase an illusion of a better life than embrace that ultimate failure.
He’s never known when to quit. Maybe there’s something in that. Something’s got to be better than nothing.
