Chapter Text
— he came on the night when the insane called the names of the dead, and the storm shattered in the sky, announcing his arrival —
The bullet buries deep into his chest.
It might have been his heart. Or maybe not. As he falls to the ground and his eyes turn black, he thinks it doesn't even really matter anymore. Nothing matters anymore. Nothing ever did.
Your eyelids are heavy when you try to open them after you are dead. Did you know that? Damon thought many times about what it would be like after his death. Actually, the word 'many' doesn't really cover the persistence with which Damon played with the concept of death in his mind, but curiously enough, he had never thought about the heaviness of the eyelids once you try to open them after death.
Maybe because the dead don't open their eyes.
Damon forces his eyes fully open. There is a metal roof above him. No hell. No eternal darkness or wooden body of a casket. Nothing like that. Just a simple, rusty metal roof of a warehouse, Damon is more than familiar with.
His body aches with a devastating pain; his chest feels the worst. With every breath he takes, he feels like the oxygen is entering his body through the small hole in his chest instead of his nose. And yet, all of this feels like an out-of-body experience; all of it hurts, but it's like his body isn't even his. It's not only his eyelids that were hard to move; his whole body might as well weigh a ton because moving it seems impossible.
What the fuck have they done to him?!
The metal door creaks somewhere behind him, letting in a cold wind that reaches him in seconds, attacking him from every side. Damon shivers, his brain finally catching up with how cold his body is. By now, he is starting to think that he actually was fucking dead, but someone royally fucked up and voilá, Damon is back to wreak havoc on this lovely Earth, bitches!
So, is he now a zombie? Killer Zombie... Good nickname? Nah, boring. What about Vampire from the Underworld? Hmm... juicy, but nah... He thinks he is just going to stick with his name. Damon is perfect. Too close to the creatures he has in his head all the time, all the fucking time. Demon. Demon. Demon. Demon. Demon. Demon. Demon. Demon. Demon. Demon. Demon. Demon. Demon. Demon. Demon. Demon. Demon. Demon. Demon. Demon. Demon. Demon. Demon. Demon. Demon. Demon. Demon. Demon. Demon. Demon. Demon. Demon. Death. Death. Death. Death. Death. Death. Death. Death. Death. Death. Death. Death. Death. Death. Death. Death. Death. Death. Death. Death. Death. Dea—
Slow, but confident footsteps fill the silence of the warehouse. The rhythm of them, the heaviness with which the sole of each shoe lands on the ground, tells Damon exactly whose face he is about to see in a couple of seconds.
His face contorts into a freaky grimace, "Kinn, Kinn, Anakinn... did you fucking shoot me?"
The shoes stop next to Damon's head. They couldn't even put him on a fucking table or something. No, instead, he is lying on the filthy ground that is definitely stained with dirt, dried blood, and god knows what else. Well, if the roles were reversed—which they fucking should have been—he would treat Kinn the same, but still... how about treating him like the best Theerapanyakul he undisputedly is?!
Kinn is going to regret this! One day, he is going to fucking regret this!
Kinn has his hands in the pockets of his black suit trousers. His wristwatch keeps ticking tick-tock-tick-tack-tick-tock-tick-tack-tick-tock-tick-tack-tick-tock-tick. They are driving Damon crazy! Kinn says there's no way Damon can hear them, but Damon does. Damon hears everything. Even things he shouldn't. Even things that should be long buried.
Kinn is playing with a cigarette between his teeth, looking at Damon silently. It irritates the living hell out of Damon. He uses all his strength to push himself on his elbows and growls at his fuck-ass brother, "you fucking shot me!"
Kinn finally takes the cigarette out of his mouth and says, "should I have waited for you to shoot me first, you brat?!"
Damon smirked, "that'd be so very kind of you."
"I don't think you've realised in what kind of shit you are in this time, Damon," Kinn says, his voice stable, with a lower pitch just like it always is, but Damon knows better. Kinn is anything but calm. Damon tends to get on his nerves a lot. Well, feelings are mutual, dear brother.
Damon noticed how Kinn's hand trembled when he took out the cigarette from his mouth, he sees how Kinn's chest is heaving with heavy breathing. Damon might have been the one shot, but Kinn is the one letting his emotions toy with him right now. Isn't it ironic?
Damon's grin stretches even wider, "oh, no, I haven't realised that wanting to kill you and that other freaky brother of mine would get me in tiny, little trouble... who would have thought?"
"Tiny, little trouble?" Kinn scoffs, taking a drag of his cigarette, hoping for the nicotine to calm him a little, before he opens his mouth again. "What do you think is going to happen now, Damon? Do you think I'm going to let you walk out of this warehouse as if nothing had happened? What do you think of me? I'm not the crazy one here!"
"Yeah, yeah," Damon rolls his eyes. "I'm the crazy one, we know. But," Damon narrows his eyes, looking deep into Kinn's soul, "I'm the one with a fucking bullet in my chest. You almost killed me. Heck, I think you did for a moment!"
Kinn groans and crouches down beside Damon. "I know you are nuts, but you aren't fucking stupid, Damon. Think! If you had a bullet in your chest, would you be able to be such a brat to me right now?"
Damon frowns. Something fishy is going on here. This is not only about getting rid of him. Or at least not getting rid of him by killing him. Damon should have known—Kinn is too soft-hearted for that.
"It wasn't a real bullet. The wound isn't deep at all. The moment it got into your body, it dissolved into a drug that slowed your heartbeat enough for you to look dead. Sadly, now you are back to normal. So, no, I didn't kill you. I wouldn't kill my own brother, unlike you."
"And how do you know I would? I haven't done it yet," Damon shrugs innocently.
"Don't bullshit me, Damon! You haven't given me any other choice. You have to disappear," Kinn snaps, the rage in his eyes telling Damon everything he needs to know.
Kinn means it.
And Damon knows he has to ask the question he hasn't asked yet, "where is my brother?"
"Right in front of you," Kinn says nonchalantly as if he doesn't know damn fucking well who is Damon asking for.
"Don't try to be funny! Where is Kim?"
"Why? You think he is going to help you?"
"Where is he?!" Damon raises his voice. Kim was there with him when he was shot. Kim wouldn't let Kinn just take him like that. Kim would protect him. Kim is the only person in the world Damon trusts. He wouldn't... he can't be in this with Kinn... not Kim, not his own fucking twin, goddamit!
"At home," Kinn shrugs. "Maybe crying over you. Maybe painting. God knows what that boy is up to."
"He was there with me when you fucking shot me! Are you telling me he doesn't care at all?! Am I supposed to believe that?"
Darkness.
Darkness.
Darkness. Reaching for him with its beautifully terrifying claws, just like he knew it once would. Everyone in his life has betrayed him. Kim has been the only one who didn't. Or maybe he did... Hard to believe he didn't when he isn't here right now by Damon's side like he always used to be.
"Believe whatever you want, Damon," Kinn sighs as if he is getting tired of this conversation. "It's not like it matters what you think anymore. You need to disappear. I mean it. And I have just the perfect place for you. I'm sure you are going to love it. The place is full of the likes of you."
⁺‧₊˚ ཐི⋆♱⋆ཋྀ ˚₊‧⁺
"Time of death: 2:30 AM," Anawin announces to a shaking nurse standing next to him; a clipboard with a pen in her trembling hands, the moment another blinding lightning cuts the night sky in half.
Poor Jane. She is new here. Fresh out of medical school. Started only last month, and the death has already found her around here. Anawin isn't surprised in the slightest by her reaction. He gets it. Part of him even wishes that he still could have a reaction like that, but it's too late for him. His mind is too corrupted already. By the chaos, madness, darkness, fear, despair, the fragility of the human mind, and everything in between. He has seen it all. He has witnessed the consequences of it all. It has been three years since he has been working as a psychiatrist at the Srithanya Hospital. For some, that's a lifetime at a place like this; for others, just a blink of an eye. For Anawin, it has been three years. Simple as that.
Three years of befriending the worst of the worst, trying to understand the darkness far darker than the majority of humankind can even imagine. He no longer shivers when he hears cries for help in the middle of the night bouncing off the walls, which are almost a hundred years old. He doesn't flinch when the floor creaks there, the door shuts there, and fingernails scrape somewhere else. Nightmares of mutilated bodies and bathtubs filled with carmine blood don't haunt him anymore. He is no longer fazed by the strange behaviour and even stranger words coming out of patients' fucked up minds.
Maybe in three years, Jane will be like him.
Or maybe her moral compass will never stray in the wrong direction. In the direction where somehow she would understand the insane. Understand them more than the life outside of this hospital.
The patient number 3471 lies in the pool of his blood. Wrists gnawed open... yes, gnawed. Three years ago, Anawin would probably marvel at how this patient could bite into his wrists so hard that he managed to bite through his veins, so much that he bled out to death before anyone found him. It was against human instinct to do such a thing to yourself with your own teeth. You wouldn't go and try to bite your own finger off, and even if you tried, your self-preservation would stop you from actually doing it. It's much easier for humans to cut their wrists with a knife, broken shards of glass or harm themselves in any other way with something that isn't part of their body.
But in the case of patient number 3471, the sick mind did its final work, and it did it beautifully. Anawin has to admit that there's something grotesquely beautiful at the sight in front of him. It melts in with the hauntingly tragic atmosphere of it all. Anawin warned the head doctor of the hospital that patient number 3471 was showing frequent signs of suicidal behaviour, but he supposes the warning came too late.
The patient was at his last breath when terrified Jane called for Anawin. Anawin barely stepped into room number 4 when the patient gave up his last breath to the world, and with a smile full of real joy, left it all behind.
Anawin doesn't have many words to say besides 'I told you so,' but he is going to say that the next time he sees the head doctor, whenever that might be.
Tearing his eyes away from the body, he slowly assesses the rest of the room. It doesn't look any different from any other day. White, small, shrouded in darkness. The light isn't on. It didn't even cross their mind to turn it on. The storm that is raging outside, with the lightnings fighting for dominance, are enough to illuminate the ghastly scene in front of them. Isn't it strange how the soul of this room just disappeared forever, and yet, everything looks just the same? The world goes on. Nothing inside this room mourns its long-lasting inhabitant. And in the blink of an eye, this room will move on, and a new patient will get to live his miserable life in it. And Anawin... Anawin will be watching. Just like he always does.
He turns on his heel, looking at the clipboard in Jane's hands, "have you written down what I said?"
"Yes, doctor," Jane replies, her words barely above a whisper.
"Jane," Anawin sighs, and brushes off an invisible dust of his lab coat before looking at Jane again, "this is a madhouse... yes, it is, don't look at me like that. If you want to survive here, you have to be tough. You can't let anyone walk over you, use you, or god knows what else. I know that this, what you see now, isn't pretty, but trust me, it will get only worse. So, get used to it as soon as you can, and for the love of god, speak louder. I am young, but I'm also constantly attacked by the screams of hundreds of crazy patients around here. How do you expect me to hear you among all of that?"
The lightning strikes outside the window, illuminating Jane's soft cheeks that turned rosy after being scolded by Anawin. She quickly bows, clutching the clipboard to her chest, "I will, Doctor Kittisawat. I'm sorry."
Anawin smiles, "see? I heard that loud and clear. Now, call the coroner and cleaning staff. This room needs to be ready for the new patient tomorrow morning!"
"Already?" Jane asks, surprised.
"Already," Anawin repeats and leaves room 4 with a deep frown. He got a notice of a new patient arriving just this morning. Damon Theerapanyakul. Mafia family. Apparently, a real psycho. Not Anawin's own words—that's what he got in the email. However, not like the words 'real psycho' made him blink an eye or anything. After all, that is what he has been dealing with all this time. That's why he has chosen to be a psychiatrist. And besides, who else besides real psychos would this hospital ever welcome?
The only strange thing is this whole mafia relation. Damon's own family is throwing him here. Not a doctor, not a specialist... just his own family. Reason: he wants to kill them. But, Anawin chuckles, don't we all want to kill our family at least once in our lives? Well, apparently a mafia family doesn't take threats like that lightly. Who could have thought?
Anawin rubs his stiffened neck as he walks through the dark corridors of the hospital, ignoring the cries and any other loud noises he hears echoing everywhere around him. One attempted suicide and one successful suicide is enough for one night shift. He can't wait to get to his office, type an email to the head doctor to report to him what an entertaining shift this has been, and then rest on his very comfortable couch... even more comfortable after a shift like that.
Another lightning illuminates the hospital corridors, followed by a chill-inducing thunder. The storm is right here. Anawin looks outside—it has been like this since the early evening, and it feels like the storm has been directly above them all this time.
Another lightning.
Another thunder.
The creaking of the front door.
Anawin turns that way.
At least eight men clothed in expensive suits are standing in front of him. Two of them are dragging a half-conscious man with them. His head hangs low, dark brown hair falling into his face. Anawin knows who it is. There is only one new patient they were supposed to receive.
But they were supposed to bring him in the morning.
"Do you all know what time it is?" Anawin asks, glaring at who are clearly mafia men standing in front of him.
"Apologies for such a late-night visit, doctor, but the patient is in urgent need of psychiatric help," one of the men grins, and yanks Damon's hair, forcing him to look at Anawin.
When their eyes meet, the brightest lighting of the night strikes the sky and illuminates Damon's face. Eyes dark like black holes of the universe look right at Anawin, and Anawin swears there's a faint smirk that tugs on Damon's lips before the lights in the entire hospital go black.
— he brings a darkness so loud in its silence —
To be continued...