Aubrey sat in a chair just outside of Basil’s hospital room, anxiously staring down at the floor as her leg bounced up and down restlessly. Even when she asked, the doctor (what was his name again? whatever, who cares) just shook his head and told her to wait outside. With everything that’s happened, it didn’t feel safe to let the frail boy out of her sight. What if he tried something while the doctor was distracted? Anything could go wrong.

“Come on, stupid geezer. Open the door already.” Aubrey shot a quick glare to the locked door, as if pure frustration alone would open it. Alas, nothing came of it except a quick mix of anger to go with her feeling of helplessness. All she could do was sit there and hope Basil didn’t try to off himself again.

Why did this type of stuff keep happening to her? Why were all of her closest friends so damned determined to kill themselves? One after another it went, it seemed. Well, she wasn’t going to let the chain continue. As soon as Basil got out of that room, she was not going to let him out of her sight ever again. Not only that, but she was going to be prepared. She was caught off-guard by his blunt (and successful) attempt to stab himself, and she hated herself for it. Just minutes prior she had told him that she wanted to help him. So why did she just let him do that in front of her? Was she that dim-witted?

Still, that lingering shadow of doubt cast itself over her. It tainted the facade of bravado, of determination, and laid in front of it a singular fact that she couldn’t bring herself to accept. That she couldn’t keep watch forever. Not even close. There would be a moment where Basil would be alone again, and she couldn’t help that. And if he seized the opportunity? And if she happened to walk into his room and find a body?

“Don’t think about it. Stop. STOP.”

Her mind wandered anyway, creating a sickeningly realistic scenario in which she found his corpse. How would Basil do it? Would he try to stab himself again? Slash away at himself until he struck a vital artery and every drop of blood drained from his body. Or maybe he would hang himself. Do as Mari did and find a spot away from the rest of the world, a spot where he was truly alone before ending it all.

“stopstopstopstopstopstop”

Basil knew how to tie knots; in fact, he was very good at it. She remembered watching in awe as he almost effortlessly tied together a flower crown with one hand when they were kids, as if a spectator to a particularly impressive magic trick. She almost found herself jealous at the ease he tied them together while she held a tangled mess in her hands. Wouldn’t it make sense then? She couldn’t stop him. If he really wanted to, he could just sneak away, or wait until she was forced to leave him alone. It would be so easy then. Just quickly find a spot in the woods, and… No more Basil. Just a limply hanging corpse waiting to be stumbled upon.

“STOPSTOPSTOPSTOP”

The door clicked open.

She sprung from her seat and found herself face to face with the doctor, a middle aged and balding man who looked at her with mild surprise, eyes wide yet somehow blank through the lens of his horn-rimmed glasses. He blinked a few times before clearing his throat and speaking. “Ah. Miss, I know you’re very concerned about your friend, so-”

“Let me see him. Is he okay? Will he recover? He didn’t lose too much blood, did he?”

“Settle down. Your friend… Basil, was it? Basil will recover, but… There are other pressing concerns that I must speak to you about.” He adjusted his glasses and looked down on a brown clipboard, which seemed old and battered enough to have come from prehistoric times. “Basil, is, ah… Incredibly underweight. Signs of malnourishment as well. He weighs only thirty-six kilograms… about eighty pounds.”

“W-What?” Aubrey blinked once, unsure if she heard that right. Eighty pounds? She knew Basil hadn’t been eating as much as he should be; that much, she could guess. The way his cheeks seemed to be slightly sunken, how almost all of his clothing had begun to get baggy… She supposed the signs were there, as far back as before Sunny started going outside again. It was just that for some reason, she never thought about it too much. Perhaps it was the fact that even when they were kids, he had a tendency to skip meals. Or maybe it was that certain other things needed to be addressed first.

“Yes. Even for a person of small stature such as himself, he is worryingly underweight.” The doctor said, glancing back into the room. “There is a very strong possibility that he has some sort of eating disorder, though we would have to perform a more nuanced checkup. Your friend has declined that however, expressing the sentiment of wanting to leave as soon as possible… As he is eighteen and an adult, he has the right to refuse medical treatment. However, I strongly, strongly suggest that he stay for a while longer. Perhaps you can convince him? It’s for his own good.”

“Eighteen?” Aubrey thought as she stared at him uncomprehendingly, mouth open in a slight gape. “That’s not right… Basil’s sixteen. His birthday isn’t even coming up. Did Basil lie about his age? Why? And this guy seriously fell for it?”

“R-Right!” She stammered, just before the silence was beginning to get awkward. She walked past the inquisitive stare of the doctor, trying her best to not seem suspicious. “Convince him to stay. Yeah. I’ll get to that.”

As she entered the room and closed the door behind her, she found Basil laying in a hospital bed, looking as small and fragile as a puppy out in the rain. A wave of deja vu hit her as she did a double take. Was this the exact same room that Basil had been taken to? On that day that Sunny… She shook her head. No, all of the rooms were probably alike. Carbon copies of one another, built for the sake of consistency and with that unimpressive blandness that encompassed each room, not out of lazy design, but rather a serene calmness that was both comforting and worrying at the same time. A sanitized chamber that did it’s best to invoke a sense of NEUTRAL in its patients.

“Basil.” She sighed in relief and held a hand to her chest. Finally, the crashing waves of anxiety had begun to recede. She wouldn’t be drowning today, no thanks. With much less urgency now, she walked up to his bedside and pulled up a small wooden chair, sitting down next to him. Everything suddenly felt okay again, like they would actually make it through this. What was she worried about again? It seemed so unimportant now. Basil was okay, and that’s all that mattered, right? “Thank fuck that you’re okay. Did that quack out there treat you alright?”

Basil sat up and gave her a fully-fledged smile. “Hey Aubrey! Yeah, everything went alright. He said that my condition was stable, and that it wasn’t ‘life-threatening’. To be honest, I was just kinda bored. I mean, all I could do was sit here and stare at the walls. Most of the stuff just blended together, really. Anyway, we can leave now, right? I really just want to get back home.”

“O-Oh.” Aubrey frowned. Again, Basil was back to being all happy and carefree. She found herself hating this side of him more and more as time passed. Why? Why did he have to pretend? He should know by now that she would accept him, accept his negative emotions. She just wanted to help. Being shut out like this by a friendly facade, it was disheartening. As if they hadn’t really made any progress at all. As if they were just doing the same things over and over again, and expecting things to get better.

“What if he really is happy? What if he’s not pretending?” A cynical voice whispered in Aubrey’s mind. “It could be you, you know. Who do you think you are, barging into his life and forcing yourself on him like this? You’re a bully, a ruthless psycho who tortured him for years. Nothing but a bottomless well of negative energy. You’re the one making him so miserable.”

“Shut up, me.”

“What?”

She shook her head. “Nevermind. Basil, did you… tell him that you were eighteen?”

“Hah, busted.” He scratched the back of his head, grinning cheekily. White bandages were wrapped tightly around his arm, looking brand new next to the old, dirty gauze still hugging his palms. Small tears in the worn fabric were visible, and she couldn’t help but wonder if they were from his nails. “Yeah… If I told him that I was a minor, he would have wanted to call Polly, or maybe even my parents. He was a bit skeptical at first but I convinced him, and even then he wanted me to stay longer. To monitor my health or whatever. Anyway, thankfully no one who treated me last time saw me, so I’m safe.”

“He also told me that you were super underweight and, like, malnourished.” Before he could respond, Aubrey reached over and pinched the hem of his shirt, lifting it up to be greeted with a prominent set of ribs poking out from tightly stretched and incredibly pale skin. Wincing, she let go. “Yikes. I guess that part’s definitely true.”

“Aw, it’s nothing… I’m fine.” Basil looked away. “I just don’t get hungry that often.”

“Still though, you should eat something so that you don’t look like a literal skeleton. When was the last time you ate anyway?”

“...”

“Basil?” She prodded, only to be met with harrowing silence. Realization dawned upon her as she took in the frail boy laying in front of her. “God damn it. Basil, when was the last time you ate? ”

“Can we talk about this later?”

“But-”

“Later. Not here. At home.” Basil spun to face her, this time with a deadly calm in his eyes. “Come on, I’ve rested enough so that I’m not gonna die or anything. Let’s just check out.”

“... Fine.”

“Red.”

“red red red red red red red red red red red red red red…”

All that he could see was red.

Basil was walking, though he wasn’t entirely sure where he was going, or why. Something walked in front of him, a slick tendril grasping his wrist tightly enough for it to be uncomfortable, but only just. On its head, a bloody bow sat. Somehow, he was sure that it was his own blood. Of course, that was what all of this red was about, wasn’t it? He was bleeding. Dying.

“red red red red red red red red red red…”

He was getting sick of the color red.

Behind him, he heard the sound of faint laughter. Turning around, he found himself facing Sunny. Or was it the stranger? The two looked alike, and neither one talked very much, so they might as well be the same person at this point. Either way, the one-eyed boy trailed behind them at a distance, smiling as he twirled a knife around in his hands.

It wasn’t in a menacing way or anything, rather just fidgeting he was doing to give his hands something to do. It was entrancing, in a way. Basil found himself staring at those quick and agile fingers, moving to spin the blade of the knife around in the palm of his hand. The silver gleam of the knife was shiny enough that Basil could see himself through the reflection, and even Something still leading him forwards. And of course, the red. Who could forget the red? Everything around him was red. The sky, the ground beneath him, the walls, all of it was red.

Sunny stabbed himself in the stomach. Thankfully, nothing red appeared. Not a single drop of blood appeared as the raven-haired boy fell to his knees with his hands still gripping the knife, now embedded in himself. Basil blinked, and then he was gone. As if he was never there to begin with. Maybe he was never there to begin with.

“Please, just stop already. Let it all out, let everything come to a stop. I’ve had enough.”

To wish was to cry upon deaf ears. Basil knew that, and yet he still decided to wish. For what? For a world where Sunny never jumped off that hospital roof? For a world where Sunny never came out in the first place, and just moved away quietly? For a world where Basil never came up with that terrible plan to hang Mari? Or maybe, maybe, a world where Basil woke up before Sunny. A world where he ran to find Sunny laying in his hospital bed.

What a joy that would have been! Stop the plasma, stop the red, it corrupts from the inside out. A dozen nooses to hang you and your friends with, walls of blood and walls of red. Walls that shift upon themselves and fold to contain the memories you suppress, to allow the veil of normalcy to save you from yourself. Basil nodded. One night, he would drift. Then, he wouldn’t wake. Would not let himself wake. He would let the blood of his wounds water the flowers around him, and then maybe they would finally start to grow. Was that what it took?

Basil tried to avert his gaze as Sunny stared at him from his one singular eye. He had done that. He had stabbed his eye out, had crippled his best friend for the rest of his life. And yet, he found himself unable to break away. Something was coming. He could feel it.

Sunny smiled. There, the most important person in Basil’s life, so weak and exhausted and hurt and wrapped in bandages and lying in a hospital bed, Sunny smiled.

He was beautiful.

Basil couldn’t breathe.

All at once, he understood. He didn’t want to, but he did. Sunny forgave him, didn’t he? Despite everything he’s done, Sunny’s forgiving him. A part of him wanted to reject it; he wasn’t good enough for forgiveness, an irredeemable psychopath who turned his best friend’s life into a living hell. But another, much stronger part of him wanted to accept it. To finally crumple and let Sunny hug him and to hug him back and to cry into his shirt and to feel so happy but so sad at the same time at the fact that he knew that once and for all, everything is going to be okay.

Everything is going to be okay.

He turned around and saw the concerned looks on his friend’s faces. They had questions, but remained respectful of their space. He was glad.

He turned back around and saw Sunny sitting up, yawning and scratching his head as if he’d gotten up from a nap rather than a spell of unconsciousness following a disastrous fight. Blinking groggily a few times, Sunny looked at Basil, then to his friends standing behind. A pang of anxiety struck his previously peaceful countenance and Basil found himself scared again. No, this nightmare wasn’t quite over, was it? Something was wrong.

Something was wrong.

So wrong.

Sunny looked at him and shook his head.

Basil felt his heart stop.

He was going to tell them, wasn’t he?

The secret. Something. Mari. The stairs.

No.

Basil stopped walking. Around him, the red began to dissipate. He wasn’t sure whether or not that was a good thing.

In front of him, Something…

In front of him, Aubrey stopped and turned around with a look of concern on her face. She wasn’t wearing her bow, of course. It was probably still covered in dried blood after all. “Basil? Why’d you stop? Come on, we’re almost home.”

“H-Huh?” Basil looked around. They were at the park, as lively and noisy as usual. He could see some kids talking to each other near the slide; it looked like they were arguing about something. Probably the deflated dodgeball that lay next to their feet, which looked about as pathetic as he felt right now. “Home? Oh… Sorry. Y-Yeah, let’s go.”

Again, she gave him that look. The look that he couldn’t find any meaning in, a look that was so blankly curious and worried that it made his anxiety palpable. It made him feel like he’d done something wrong again. Terrible.

She opened her mouth to say something, but was interrupted by a sudden and very loud scream.

“HEEEEEY! AUBREY! BASIL!”

Out of literally nowhere, Kel materialized next to him, gracing him with a smack on the back that had about enough force to break his spine. Aubrey cursed and jumped back, flinching as Kel’s obnoxiously bright face suddenly barged into their vicinity. “You two! I haven’t seen you guys in ages! What’s up? How’re things?”

“Wh- Kel! Jeez, where the hell did you come from?” Aubrey scowled. “You nearly gave me a heart attack.”

“Heh, sorry! I was just playing at the basketball court when I saw you guys! And at first I wasn’t even sure if it was you cuz like yeah, you have that pink hair and everything but you guys were kind of far away and with the sunset, it kinda looked like maybe it could have just been blonde hair? And also you don’t have that bow you always have on and I was like, ‘Oh Aubrey always wears that so no way it’s her’ but then I was like, ‘But doesn’t that guy next to him look like Basil?’”

“Kel-”

“But you’re wearing that weird pajama outfit and like I’ve literally never seen you wearing anything like that before plus your hair was kinda long so like maybe you weren't even a guy at all so I still wasn’t sure but I was still kinda suspicious so I stopped playing for a bit to take a closer look and then I saw that it really was you guys so-”

“KEL!” Aubrey snapped. “What do you want?”

“Eh? Sheesh, calm down, Aubs.” Kel frowned.

“Don’t call me that.”

“I was just checking up on you guys! It’s been like a week since we’ve talked. I don’t want all of us to drift away again like last time, so… I just wanted to say hi, you know?” Kel looked away and in an instant, all traces of bravado vanished, leaving behind apprehension, strangely enough. “Like, are you two doing okay with everything? I’m worried, y’know?”

Aubrey seemed to calm down a little, exhaling. “I’m… doing okay, I guess. But Basil-”

“Fine! I’m doing f-fine, haha…” Basil smiled nervously and put his hands behind his back, hiding his bandages from Kel. The last thing he wanted was to have even more people start worrying about him and his stupid mistakes. “H-How about you? Have you been… erm, I mean… A-Anything going on?”

“Eh, I’ve been better, I guess.” Kel shrugged. “Hero’s being rude and not answering any of my calls. I guess he’s still working through some stuff. Literally! Last time we talked, I heard that he picked up two part-time jobs. He’s gonna drop dead from exhaustion if he keeps this up.”

“Hero...” Aubrey sighed. “I hope he’s doing alright. Being a workaholic can’t be a very healthy coping mechanism.”

“Oh! Waitwaitwait, there is something cool coming up!” Kel piped up excitedly, eyes sparkling. “One of the guys from my basketball team is hosting a party and he said that I can invite other people! You two should totally come! It’ll be fun, plus we haven’t hung out in a while! Isn’t this the perfect opportunity?”

“Party?” Aubrey paused hesitantly. Would it even be right to party so soon? It almost seemed disrespectful to hang out together and have fun at this point. “I don’t know if I’d be up for something like that…”

“Aw, come on. Basil? Come on, you know you want to.” Kel spun to face him, puppy-dog eyes already set in place. “It’ll be soooooo much better with you guys over there, I know it. Pleaseeeeeeee? Just this once?”

“Okay.” Basil said simply. He couldn’t find it in himself to refuse him, especially not when it seemed so important. Hadn’t he had enough of disappointing his friends? He had to do something right for once.

“Aw… Well, it was worth a shot.” Kel blinked. “Wait, what? Did you…”

“Um… Y-Yeah. Yeah, I’ll go.”

“Seriously? Awesome!” Kel cheered happily and held up a hand for Basil to high-five. For a second, Basil could only stare at the open palm, completely unsure of what he should do. A moment passed before Kel rolled his eyes and grabbed Basil’s arm and high-fived himself with it.

Yelping, Basil quickly withdrew his hand and hid it behind his back again. Thankfully, Kel didn’t even seem to notice that anything was wrong, only giving them a wide grin as he walked back to the basketball court. “I’ll text you guys the details! The guys are probably getting tired of waiting for me, so I’m gonna dip for now. See you two at the party!”

“W-Wait, I didn’t even agree to go!” Aubrey shouted. “Ugh. That bone-head. Basil, why’d you even agree to go? Now you’ve got me roped into this.”

“H-Huh? Oh, I’m so sorry! I-I wasn’t even thinking, really.” Basil stammered.

“Ugh. It’s whatever, let’s just go to his stupid party. I wouldn’t have let you go alone anyway. I doubt that I can trust Kel to keep you safe.” Aubrey pulled out her phone, which was buzzing incessantly. “Great. He’s already spamming me with messages. Does he seriously have to send walls of text one word at a time?”

Basil laughed nervously. Already, he was beginning to regret agreeing to go. But what could he do?

There was no other choice.