There was a boy in a room. He rocked himself back and forth, crumbled into a ball in a small corner, surrounded by white walls smeared with blood. It looked like an animal had unsuccessfully attempted to claw their way out, raking their sharp nails across until its fingers bled. The blood was his. He didn’t remember doing it. He didn’t remember much of himself doing anything after his episodes, which were becoming more frequent.

Usually, they lasted a horrifying minute. A minute where he lost clomplete control of his mind, and visions came rushing to his head, burning his skull until he felt fire behind his eyes. But they had become longer now, and far more persistent. Where when it only occurred two times a month, it started happening every week, lasting for nearly a full hour before they finally sent someone in to calm him, sticking a needle into the side of his neck to quiet the racing thoughts.

It was no use. He saw everyhting in his dreams, too, while he slept. Putting him under left him trapped inside the prison his brain had simultaneously morphed into. But they wouldn’t care even if he were to tell them, which he would most definitely not do. He’d made that mistake once, and ever since, he vowed to never do it again. They didn’t really care about him. They certainly didn’t love him. If this was love he wanted nothing to do with it. Secretly, they only kept him because they needed him. He new that, no matter what lies they tried to tell him.

The boy of no more than nineteen also hadn’t the slightest idea as to what love should look like in the first place.

A sound came from the boy—a helpess sound, the sound of suffering. He was hot everywhere. So hot. He tore his shirt from his body, digging his nails into his skin trying to get it off.

_“Too young,” _the voice said, like it always did. _“Far, far too young—next!”_

_The sound of gunfire rang out. Pitiful, childlike screams followed. Blood was seared across a young boy’s vision. His hands began to tremble as he turned to see those his age on the floor. Motionless. Dead. _

His mind switched back to reality. He was crawling on his hands and knees, heaving. Crimson tears seeped from the corners of his his eyes. The whites around his pupils were replaced with a deep red that stung so badly he wanted to tear both out.

He had enough strength to look into the camera on the opposite corner of the room. It was facing him, the red light blinking on and off just under the lense.

They were watching him.

“Help me,” he said, his voice cracking all over. “I- I _know _you can do something.”

There visions came crashing back, suddenly, consuming his mind.

_“Hush, now,” a lady in a white lab coat said. “This shall only take a second.” The little boy was now sitting on a table in a white room. He was staring at his hands that had finally stopped shaking. He was completely numb. He felt everything all at once, and nothing at the same time, if such a thing could ever be possible. The lady who had walked away for a moment, had returned with a large needle in hand. It was thick and sharp and the young child was too weak to care. Nevertheless, when she plunged it into his skull, a high-pitched scream escaped him._

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He was screaming now, holding his head with both hands. He could feel the extreme pain of the needle being pushed through that child’s head. It was excruciating. Even worse that it felt so real. Too real. Like it had really happened, and wasn’t just in his mind.

The door to his room swung open. He stared, horrified as two men in white clothes from head to toe picked him up and held him down on his bed. “No! No, you don’t understand,” he whaled. “They don’t go away! They don’t leave, please don’t do this!”

A third person appeared within the room. Like all of them that entered, their faces were concealed by tempered glass. The third man raised a needle in the air.

“Please, don’t do this,” he begged. “K- Kill me! Just kill me, please!” Of course, they didn’t listen. They ever listened. They never spoke—not a single word, like they were ghosts. They tranquillized him in a matter of seconds. When they could see him becoming more quiet, slowly slipping away, they let go of him. The three men in white backed away. As his vision quickly blurred, and his limbs became numb, all he could see were three faceless people standing over him, their heads disappearing completely as he was consumed by the injection.

But, still, his dreams huanted him. He couldn’t move. He couldn’t wake. It was a merciless suffering with no escape.