He could taste the salt on his lips and feel his heart buzzing in his ears. The silence was deafening. He felt like he was drowning in the silence. Silence that kept reminding him that he was alone. Alone in the world. No one could understand me. But how could they, when he didn't even understand himself? He was too different to be understood. Too different to accept. Too different to suffice, too broken not to self-destruct. No one could help him. No one could comfort him. Those waves of despair had struck him again. And he was paying a high price for it.

Those waves were so dark, so gloomy, and so murky. It isolated him from the rest of the world and from the rest of the people. He felt like he was in the middle of an island with no one to talk to and no one to rescue him. He had once again ended up on an island in the middle of nowhere. His SOS were inaudible. No one could save him from this island and these waves, which were becoming more and more violent. Waves of despair dotted of salt on his face. Every drop of salt that smelt on his tongue was evidence of his weakness. Of what he really was. Broken.

This feeling of loneliness was expanding in his chest as if to suffocate or drown him. He swore heard the sound of waves and seagulls in the distance, but he knew he couldn't trust himself. Trust his fucked-up brain.

When he closed his eyes, all he could see was blue. At that moment, he wanted to escape from his body and no longer be him. To be able to exchange bodies with someone whole. Sometimes he would like to leave and never come back. Maybe on the other side was a beautiful island with beautiful beaches. Sometimes he would like to kiss her. The death.

He wasn't suicidal, or maybe he was, but the worst was yet to come. He wanted to feel nothing by mutilating himself alive with sharper objects, this despair and this loneliness were so heavy to bear that they sometimes prevented him from breathing. But guilt flooded him immediately as he thought of tearing apart parts of himself so selfishly. He wasn't selfish enough to put them through that.

Scratching until you bleed will do. It will come off easily, and it won't leave any ugly scars. However, he knew that his mind was still ugly. It was like millions of butterflies flew over his head. His thoughts were incoherent, he was aware of it, but he couldn't stop. His head and his body no longer responded to him.

His body must have sensed that something was wrong, his heart was pounding, as if he were already bracing himself for adrenaline and some danger to face. But the only danger was himself. He was his only danger.

There was no enemy in front of him, there was no one except the reflection of himself. He was his own enemy. There was no hero, either. Waiting for someone to deliver him from this long torture was useless. He had to be his own hero. But he feared he wasn't strong enough for that, because how could he be both his own enemy and his own hero? How could he be his own hero when he was his own enemy? How do you fight your spirit? How could you fight your sick brain? Should he fight himself? He already knew that his fight was lost in advance. He couldn't win against his mind, he couldn't win against his diseased brain.

He was so weak that his sobs escaped. They betrayed his apathetic body. He felt like he felt nothing and everything at the same time. It was confusing.

His aunt used to tell him that these waves engulfed him because he was not religious enough. So he prayed, he prayed every night, he prayed every day, he prayed every month. He prayed with tears, he prayed with a smile, he prayed on his knees, and he prayed in anger. But there was no response. As if he wasn't worth it. But maybe it was true. Maybe he wasn't worth it. Or maybe God didn't exist. He knew this last thought would horrify his aunt, at this thought a broken laugh escaped regardless of him from his traitorous mouth.

He couldn't stop laughing, but the more he laughed, the more tears surfaced. He went from one mood to another. Emotions were so complicated. So changing. His emotions changed like day and night. Each emotion was swallowed up in the waves to let another one appear. He went from tears to laughter. But her laughter did not change his tears, which continued to flow.

He didn't dare try to find out what he must have looked like here, lying stretched out on the sand in the middle of the island alone, laughing and crying while continuing to scratch his arms. The pain made him feel good. The pain helped him refocus a little on reality. He felt like the pain was also helping to distract him from the pain in his chest and from all the dark emotions taking over his body and mind. He found it ironic to use physical pain to stifle the pain in his chest. It seemed paradoxical to him to use pain to stop feeling pain. Still, it worked for him, and that was all that mattered.

These waves engulfed him entirely. They took him whole, even broken, like no one else had before. He refused to believe he was drowning.

He knew he was drowning, but he would like to believe that it was illusory. But reality still caught up with him to the sounds of the delirious waves he still heard. He was delirious. He almost forgot where he was. He could feel the salt water from the waves trying to choke him. But he knew that only his tears littered his mouth. He knew that the salty taste belonged to his tears and not the taste of the sea. His tears had a bitter taste. They were so bitter that they reminded him of citrus fruits. And he hated citrus fruits. So he tried to smother those gentle waves on his face, but it was quickly becoming a hurricane. And nobody liked hurricanes. So it was raining, and everyone was at home without knowing that he was drowning in the middle of an island.

Heartbroken, brain-twisted, emotionally wronged and frustrated—that's all he was. Solitude surrounded him like a great tower. Like a cold blanket in winter. He feared loneliness. He fled like the plague. He knew she had been the only one by his side, but for today, he wanted to run away from her.

He was drowning in his own mind. It was impossible for him to rise to the surface. To reality. But maybe he was already in reality, or maybe he was still delusional. He no longer knew. He was insane. Crazy in his mind. He didn't know how long it had been since he drowned; as a prisoner of his own mind, it could have been days, hours, months, or even years. Time was a concept his mind didn't seem to recognize in this delirious state.

Sleep and food were also foreign to him. It seemed like such distant memories. His eyes stung, telling him that it had been too many hours since he had slept, yet his brain refused to cooperate. His mind was racing; it was impossible for him to close his eyes. And the very thought of food sickened his stomach. He felt like he could stain that beautiful, pristine sandy beach with his vomit if he kept thinking about food. His stomach rumbled loudly, like a call for food, but nausea immediately invaded him at the thought. His body reminded him to survive by reminding him to sleep and eat, yet his mind refused to cooperate. As if his brain no longer wished to survive, as if he wished to let him die.

The people dressed in white who normally littered the beach were not there. They were the ones who ensured his survival. By forcing food down his throat. And forcing his body to rest by drugging it.

These people were ruthless, none of the waves could stop them. They did not hesitate to use violence if they deemed it necessary. These people ruled the island, they were the kings of the island. Respected and feared by all. He could still remember the burning in his throat after being strangled until his mind cooperated. He could even taste the salt and blood from that time they forced food through a tube deep in his throat. His throat still burned at the memory. That throat had been sore and burning after that, he could barely form words. And his neck hurt after every time he turned his head.

When the people dressed in white were there, usually other people would pop up around the beach. These people were like him. Delusional, prisoner of their own mind. The waves had reached them. People dressed in white were never touched by these waves. As if they were protected, untouchable. He felt envious and jealous. He wanted it so badly that the waves swallowed up these untouchable men too. He would like to see them as helpless and trapped by those waves, by their own minds, as he was. To let them know what it felt like to be him. To make them suffer for the harm they had done to him. He didn't care about being cruel, they didn't care about being cruel to him, so why should he care ?

However, people dressed in white and others hit by the waves did not seem present. Only he and the waves were present on the island.

The seagulls looked happy in the sun, strutting around there, flying carefree.

He scraped his skin until he no longer felt the grains of hot sand prick his skin, he scraped his skin until he no longer felt the taste of salt on his tongue, he scraped his skin until he no longer felt the heat of the sun warming his skin, he scratched his skin until he no longer heard the sound of waves and seagulls in the distance, he scratched his skin until he couldn't see any blue, he scratched his skin until he couldn't feel anything.

He scraped at his skin again and again until he felt a warm, viscous liquid running down his arms.

He kept scratching his skin again and again with his fingernails until it was all he could think about. 

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