They always come back, that’s something I learned pretty early on. No matter how much I try and wish they always come back. The nightmares. The memories I would rather forget.

It’s always the same dream. I always wake up with a scream, shaking all over. Flashes of blood everywhere and shuddering screams of pain, blood covering the once perfect face of the only man that ever made me smile still fresh on my mind like it was still happening. I can see the shaking body in the corner too, barely moving and too weak to do anything. Too weak for anything.

It’s always the same…and it hurts more and more every time.

It has been two weeks since the last time I had a nightmare. I should have known it wouldn’t last long, I should have not brought my hopes up that I maybe finally made it stop. I should have known better.  I should have known better then to still be slightly surprised when I woke up covered in sweat and shaking all over as I lived through all that hell again in my mind. It felt so real it hurt. The screams seemed to be echoing in the room as if they were really here and not just a memory in my head.

I stayed up all night then, trying to calm down, to push down the craving, the need. I knew I need to at least try. I always need to try. And I always do until my thoughts are taken over by it. Until the need is so strong it’s hard to breathe, until I feel physical pain from it.

It took five days this time for it to happen just that. Five days of waking up with a scream and being a shaking mess. Five sleepless nights and starving days because I cant keep anything down. Five days of hell. But I still kept fighting it. I kept fighting it until I couldn’t anymore. Until it was just too much and all my resolve and rational thoughts were taken over by my needs and thoughts of red.

People say that everyone can have control over then actions and cravings as long as they have the will to. Those people obviously haven’t seen me at two am after days and days of repeated nightmares. Haven’t seen the eyes of a haunted man. And currently outside, walking down the streets in search, that’s exactly how I feel. Haunted. Cursed.

That’s the only explanation there can be fore these needs and thoughts, these wishes… I need to be cursed. Those are the only thoughts I have when I’m thinking rationally, when I can think and not just remember. 

Not like right now. Right now it’s the complete opposite. There is not a rational thought in my mind as my heart beats so hard it is echoing in my ears, hurting in my chest. Rationality means nothing now. There is only need. Need for suffering. A need to see someone else suffering that isn’t me, to see that spark of hope and life die out in their eyes, be replaced with pain, with nothing. Just like mine did years ago. I need to see what I see in the mirror every day in someone else. I need to be the one who makes it happen.

That moment of power, the adrenalin pumping through your veins right before you see that spark of life die out in someone and knowing you’re the one who made it like that…It’s the best feeling there is. It’s the only time I know anything but pain.

It’s something I live for. Something I can’t live without. It’s the only way for the nightmares to go away for at least a little bit. Even a few days is an accomplishment because to keep remembering is too much, it hurts too much.

The memory of the look on his face right before a knife in the chest from a stranger took him away from me… Remembering it all, all the blood, all the screams of pain is not something I would ever want to remember. But my own mind is against me. It makes me remember. Remember again and again just how weak I am.

Well not anymore. I’m not weak anymore.

I’m stronger now. I have a way to be strong. Walking down an abandoned street with a knife hidden inside my jacket as I look for my next victim I finally feel strong. Because maybe if I show I’m strong enough he comes back. Maybe it turns out this was all just a bad dream. Something I can wake up from and feel him lying beside me in bed, flashing me a lazy morning smile and pecking my lips ones just like he used to. Maybe this is all just a dream, a nightmare. Maybe that boy shaking in the corner, surrounded by blood was strong enough after all. Strong enough to save someone he loves.

It’s too late now though. I can’t bring back time but I can still show I’m strong enough. I need to show I’m strong enough.

My eyes fall on a girl in front of me, a girl with long blond hair, and the monster inside me smiles. There is a smirk on my lips as I approach her with steady steps. And still later on as I’m covered in blood that’s not mine the smile is still there. Because I’m strong enough.

I’m strong.

See Luhan, I’m strong.

“Please come back.” The whisper is lost in the night, just like my mind and heart were long ago as that spark disappeared in his eyes.