I think that what really gets me is that nobody gets me.

I mean, I know exactly what I'm trying to say, and I usually manage to blurt out the correct words, but nobody really understands. Being an eternal optimist, I choose to believe that people don't want to understand, instead of that they're all just idiots.

Remember this dude?

You know what's worse than screams?

He stays down there almost all of the time lately. Down in the dungeon of my mind. The doors are not locked. He's free to come and go as he pleases. But he seems to prefer it down there. Or, at least, he prefers the darkness to the light.

His screams were so loud. They cut straight through me.

I feel for him. I really do. After all, I wouldn't be here if it weren't for him. Faced with that which neither of us could survive alone, the two of us together somehow pulled through. An unbeatable team bound, for a while at least, by parallel goals.

To endure. To live. To persevere. To exist.

To wait.

His screams were so piercing, but at least they showed strength. A will to keep trying, to keep fighting. His screams reminded me of those long-ago days and nights when we screamed together in horrible harmony.

You know what's worse than screams?

All I hear now is soft sobbing. And it keeps getting softer.

See? Crystal clear, I think.

Well, that asshole grew himself a pair of balls or something. He started venturing into the open, becoming more and more bold. Rambling on and on and on about his damn feelings and desires and hopes and expectations.

He damn near ruined everything, the fucker. For both of us.

Fuck that.

I had to do something. So, the other night after he got drunk, I dragged his sorry ass down to the dungeon. I threw him into his cell, and then I locked the fucking door.

Maybe I should have just shot him in the head, put him out of our misery, but I didn't. Some weird sense of loyalty overcame me at the last minute. Some leftover feeling of brotherhood, perhaps, or maybe just plain old pity.

That poor wretched stupid asshole.

He'll probably rot in that cell.

Better him than me, though.