|
3 POSTS
|
ʡ 110
|
|
Male
|
27 Cycles
|
|
Vampire-Jackal
|
JayTheBird
|
|
Jun 27 2026, 06:33 PM
MAGICKA LEVEL 100%
RESTORED TO 100%
[OOC Timeline Notes: Thread is backdated to during the 9th cycle of the hatched Prison Children (roughly during May of '25), where Khemi has been missing since the prior cycle at that point]
Content Warning
This post contains potentially sensitive material:
Intense Suicidal Thoughts + Urges and intense Depressive Thoughts Additionally, Content Includes: Graphic Suicidal Ideation mixed with intense Self-Hatred, Self-Blame, and Self-Worth sentiments
Hunger gnawed at his stomach, and Aleonis hated himself. His body should know just as his mind did that he was not deserving of fulfillment, that for him to satiate himself was a far worse fate that wasting away. To satiate himself meant taking what he wished to take least, required taking the very lifeblood from his siblings in order to keep on living.
His body should not crave it. His mind... He had previously held onto the thought that if he could give to his siblings what mattered, if he could help them and bring him joy, he could pay back the price of himself that he took from them.
Was it naivete that had allowed him to believe such? Or was he simply too selfish to acknowledge the truth of the matter until he was forced to? He knew the answer, but it did not matter compared to the truth that he took more than he could ever give.
It had started as childish naivete. He cared, and he had good intentions, so if he wanted to give even as he took, couldn't he? The straightforward logic of a child.
And as they all did their best to survive, he increasingly saw the truth, but he did not let himself acknowledge seeing it, because he didn't want to.
And now, he did acknowledge the truth, but he had spent so long finding excuses to stay selfish in the guise of good intentions every time he might face it, that he could not discern how to move forward, not when he could not tell how many of his thoughts were those pretty excuses made of selfishness he instinctively had learned to tell himself, if he knew anymore what it looked like to give without taking far more than he gave.
If he didn't exist at all, he couldn't hurt those he wished to hurt least, he knew.
But seeking death wasn't as simple as it should be, not even here where survival was the hard part. He was beginning to think it was his own selfishness that convinced him it was difficult, because he knew it could be easy, but he would not let it be easy once he thought on it.
Starvation would have been fitting. But his older sister, who had sacrificed herself for her younger siblings' sakes in so many ways already saw him starving, he who was straightforward to feed but all the more difficult for it, she would be distressed, would seek to feed him, and he...
He was weak and selfish and if it came to that, he would tell himself that he could not leave her distressed, and then he would take even more from her with his hunger greater. ...He had considered, that maybe he could explain it to her... Have her listen as he pointed out the painful truth...
...That painful truth that his comparatively straightforward to meet hunger needs were a worse thing to keep feeding than the complicated hungers of the rest of his siblings. That he was a worse thing to keep feeding than to not feed at all.
He can't explain, he decided. Because... he thinks, perhaps, his sister might already know. But like he did, he thinks if she does know, she doesn't want to believe it.
But it makes sense that she would realize.
She is the eldest of them, matured here before they even hatched, and she knew how to see what survival can cost. She would take the least of portions to give for his other littermates, especially back when they were entirely unpracticed in getting their own sustenance.
So him, whose hunger weakened the other's bodies in ways that added onto the way their own hunger weakened their bodies...
His siblings took turns feeding him, but... He thinks it was Shadow who first realized the costs of his hunger and did her best to mitigate the damage by thinking of such an idea, maybe.
Or maybe it was their father, who thought up the idea, but even if so, it is the same. Father is not the one who could put it into practice, physically gone more often than he is present. Shadow was here to take care of them, and father took care of them too, gone and then bringing what he could for his children when he was here.
Aleonis could explain to Shadow his reasons, could make himself understood precisely because she knows enough to understand, he thinks. And that is precisely why he can't.
She doesn't want to believe he's not worth caring for, if she's been doing so while seeing the costs. If even now, with Khemi... She never acted like she placed the blame towards Aleonis. She's always treated him as worthy of her care.
He's not, but she's put so much care towards him that if he makes her see what she doesn't want to believe is true... He knows that the more you try not to believe what you see, the worse it hurts when you can't look away. He could explain, but he can't, not if it means hurting her.
Where is the line between selflessness and selfishness, Aleonis wonders, because he feels like that reasoning is genuine truth just as much as he feels it is just another way he's convinced himself to stay a selfish parasite to his family.
Every single idea he has is selfishness validating itself with avoiding hurting his siblings.
If he let the monster that lurks get to him, they might feel they failed to keep him safe, if they found traces of remains. And he is the one who has failed them, and the thought that they might think otherwise is unbearable, he can't allow them to blame themself when he is to blame.
He hurts them but won't stop because he can't bear to hurt them.
Aleonis doesn't know what to do, what to think, and he's kept on going since Khemi... Only because he doesn't know how he might stop.
He wishes to stop existing.
He wishes for his siblings to all be safe and happy.
He wishes...
He wishes...
...He wishes that father was here.
He shouldn't, because father loves them, he cares for them, he soothes their hurts even if he can't solve them, and Aleonis doesn't deserve that.
...He wants it, though, and if he didn't already have such certainty in his own selfishness, this would be proof.
As it is, he already has an excess of proof to that truth of him. It doesn't stop him from hating himself all the more, using every piece of evidence to build upon his own self-loathing to greater heights.
@Bacchus
|
