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It was an unsurprising predicament.
Squee never seemed to be able to get sleep at night. Before, when he was younger, the course of events tended to be that he would go to sleep after tossing and turning for awhile, and then wake up due to a vivid nightmare. But ever since his stay at the hospital—one that had been prolonged for as long as humanly possible—Squee rarely found himself able to sleep at all.
He paced back and forth in his small room, holding clumps of his thick raven hair in between his fingers. Insomnia came with a tidal wave of unpleasant side effects, but one of his least favorites was probably these late night episodes. Psychosis, or something like that. He muttered under his breath, incoherent fragments of sentences along the lines of people out to hurt him and never being alone anymore. He couldn’t lock his door at night, despite what all his internal dialogue might have suggested. No, no, everything around his room had to be unlocked, at all times. Squee had a sinking feeling that if it wasn’t, the outcome would be worse.
“But that doesn’t even make sense!” He argued, conversation transferring from an internal one to an external monologue, “Johnny hasn’t visited me in weeks now…” He remembered, "But I’ll never know when he’ll show up,” He swiftly turned sharply on his heel and paced to the other side of the room, stopping in front of his window, opened so a cool spring breeze could drift in and rustle his hair. Nny’s visits were always on a whim and unpredictable, when Squee was even aware of them. Sometimes he came in through the window, disturbing Squee while he read or wrote, but other times Squee was only aware of Johnny’s pop-ins because of medicine gone from the cabinet.
With a sigh, the boy stepped away from his window and fell onto his twin sized bed. It settled on him after a moment of thinking how miserable his life looked to an outsider. And after turning the glass vile of stuffed animal fur around in his hand for a minute or two, Squee realized how much he was imitating Johnny.
What was shocking was the fact that he hadn’t realized sooner.
The eyebags, the pacing, the incoherent muttering were all traits Squee remembered vividly about the lean man from when he was young. Nny in his earlier memories seemed more like a monster under the bed, and Squee rarely looked at him much anymore to have an accurate picture in his head of him. All he pictured was a tall figure, looming over him with a wide grin and frantic eyes. The strangest part was that mixed within the ocean of terror Nny created within Squee was that there was an undercurrent of… Comfort. If he could call it that. It wasn’t comfort in a familial sense, Squee had read enough stories to become aware of that. Fictional stories, where the dad and the son are happy and love each other and they hug everything out in the end. Stories where it would be unimaginable for the Father to feel anything but love for his offspring. The comfort Nny created wasn’t like that.
Was there a way to describe what he felt? Squee gripped the vial in his hands so tightly his knuckles turned a pearly white. Nny wasn’t comfort, nor was he an enemy. He was simply… something. Everything else in Squee’s life had been more like drifting figures, nothing permanent or stable enough to form a connection to. Squee could count off the number of times his parents had told him they loved him on one hand, because that number was zero. Of course, it was the same story with Nny, but when Squee imagined Nny in his mind at least there was a face to put to it. With his parents, he imagined them more as faceless shadows, simple demons that existed to monitor his life and make sure he never had too much fun. Nny and Shmee, those were the people Squee had to fill the void of guidance and solidness.
What a joke.
“Am I interrupting anything?”
What irony! Squee glanced over his shoulder silently. He rarely greeted Nny when he visited—too paralyzed with fear, or something—But this time it wasn’t terror that silenced him, it was just emptiness. He didn’t have anything to say.
Nny crawled through the open window, flicking away splatters of blood from his tan skin and standing up to his full height. His hair had nearly grown back completely, painting Nny as the same deranged serial killer he was before disappearing for a few weeks that one time. Squee remembered those weeks as being strangely quiet and desolate. That didn’t mean he was particularly happy when Nny returned into his life during the hospital.
Squee didn’t like thinking about the hospital. But now that the memories were in his mind, he couldn’t help but frown and slowly start to rock back and forth.
“So, how have you been hanging, Squee?” Nny asked, smiling uncomfortably. He took a good gander at Squee’s room, admiring the new drawings that had been put up since the last time he visited, “You’re getting good at these!” He commented, gesturing to a morbid watercolor painting of menacing figures. “Almost as good as I was, back in the day!” Nny boasted.
“Back before you became a psychopathic serial killer?” Squee questioned sarcastically. He buried his head in between his knees and kept it there. He enjoyed the feeling of being able to shut everything around him out.
Nny tilted his head and regarded the boy with keen interest. “Not used to hearing you say anything that’s more than…” He held out his fingers and studied them, “Two or three words!” He chirped. Something about a man dripping and oozing blood while being so annoyingly chipper should have been more terrifying than it was familiar.
“People change, I guess.” Squee muttered in reply.
“Did the hospital help you?” Nny inquired, in a tone that seemed genuine. Unfortunately, the question only made Squee’s entire body heat up.
“No,” Was all he spat in response, even though a much more scathing rant was clawing at the back of his throat, “No, it didn’t,” He repeated. If anything, Squee would argue that his weeks spent in the hospital only made him worse. All he saw behind his eyes when he closed them was human experimentation, shitty doctors, and padded walls. At least with his old nightmares, he had the benefit of a layer of otherworldly-ness, the fear was far away from him and there was the comfort that it couldn’t possibly happen to somebody as normal as him. But with his recent blend of nighttime entertainment, that terror was more real, because there was always the chance that his parents would get bored of him again, and send him back for who knows how long. Or, even better, they didn’t want to pay for the costs of it and just threw him out to the street anyway, leaving him to his own devices. Of course, who could he voice these thoughts to? There was Pepito, but he didn’t really understand Squee’s human problems. Plus, Squee would hate ruining a perfectly fine friendship with his weird shit. Which left Nny, who was about as helpful as a decaying rat when it came to soundly advice.
He felt the bed shrink and weigh down next to him, Nny had sat down. “What’s going on, Squee?” He asked, strangely humanely.
“What isn’t?” Squee laughed bitterly, “I can’t believe I’m doing this. Talking to you, of all people…” He shook his head, “Oh my god, what’s wrong with me?” He choked out.
“What’re you saying? Are you implying that I’m less than human?” Nny accused, volume heightening and posture stiffening dangerously. Squee flinched back, eyes widening and any shred of relaxation shedding away. He felt like a little kid again, paralyzed from the knowledge his death was more imminent than he thought. However, Nny flinched too, clenching his fists and taking a deep breath. “Sorry, sorry,” He mumbled, “I didn’t mean to spook you, not intentionally.”
“It’s h-hard not to…” Squee replied.
“Are you thinking about your parents?” Nny questioned, “The man at the mall? Your teachers? The doctors?” He listed, “Just remember what I told you about them, Squee, those people are just monsters who are trying to get to you. Don’t let them win, OK? I don’t want to see you turn out like me,” Nny warned.
Squee bit his lip. “If those people are just monsters, what does that make you?” He retaliated, “Because you’re just as scary as they are, believe it or not. Sorry, I’m sorry, Sorry.” He hissed at himself, curling tighter into his small ball like he was trying to make himself disappear. Nny didn’t have to go and bring up all those people like that, because now Squee’s small swarm of thoughts was turning into a tornado of unwanted memories. “I shouldn’t have said that, I’m sorry. Just kill me then, just go ahead and kill me,” He spat out.
Nny furrowed his brows quizzically, “No one has ever asked me to do that before,” He rubbed his chin, “How interesting. You continue to surprise me, Squee!” He chuckled.
Squee remained frozen silent, stuck in his own head. “What have you done to me?” He questioned, eyes wettening with fat tears. He didn’t like crying. “How do I make this stop?” He held out his shaking hands, trembling all over his body.
For once, Nny fell silent. There was no long winded explanation, just silence while he stared at Squee, deep in thought. “I don’t have an answer to that one,” He said truthfully, “The best I can tell you is to never stop writing. Whatever spark that compels you to do all this—” He gestured to Squee’s walls of art—”Hold onto it for dear life. That’s your life-saver, ok? Don’t sell your creativity away, never stop writing. Get any evil that tells you to hurt people out.” It was a strangely down to earth moment for Nny, one that made him seem less like a disconnected monster. He almost seemed human.
“I want a normal life, Nny. I can’t get that because of you,” Squee spoke slowly and quietly, “You ruined me. Everyone around me has ruined me.”
“I know, and I’m sorry. Sometimes that’s just how life is to people, but you’re a strong little squee, aren’t you? You survived all that, yeah?” Nny reasoned, “So logically, you can survive anything else thrown at you! Hell, I think if I started pulling your eyes out, you wouldn’t even flinch! Haha!” He laughed maniacally.
Squee whimpered.
“Sorry, wrong thing to say?” Nny smiled awkwardly.
“I don’t want anything else thrown at me,” Squee emphasized, “Nny, I want you to leave me alone. I think that you mean well, in your own fucked up kind of way… But you’re not doing anything good for me. Just please, get out of my life. I’m tired of you being in my nightmares, I don’t need you when I’m awake, either,” Squee rambled, “So if you’re really trying to do something good for me, you’ll just leave me alone. ” His rambling turned to begging. He barrely was aware of his tears anymore, they just simply flowed down his cheeks in fat globs.
Nny stared back, slack jawed. He didn’t combat the statement, didn’t turn angry, didn’t try to kill the child with a knife or torture him right then and there. He simply slowly got up, went to the window, and closed it behind him once he was gone.
And just like that, the world went a little quieter. Squee wondered if cutting off one of the few people who actually talked to him was such a good idea. But Nny was one of the things he could have control over, he wanted that control. He sighed once more and laid his head against his worn pillow, hugging himself closely. Solitude didn’t have to be so bad, and it wasn’t like he was completely alone—Pepito didn’t live far.
Maybe there was still hope for him.