Craving a Mind

CW: Violence, self-harm, mental health

Hurt. Sick. Pain. I can barely see. Every minute, I hunch over to sink my teeth into something. Something that makes me feel…alive. Good. The screams, the nightmares, the hazy memories—they are all one decaying dream now. Until I look at the open sky, I am going back in time. You have a lot on your mind? Hah! I’d say don’t make me laugh, but as you can tell, I’m already dead inside.

Back then, I had places to go—school halls that smelled like cleaner and sweat, a boy who held my hand like he meant it, small dreams I kept stretching toward. He used to feed me his candy bars at lunch period and make me laugh. Like every kid, I experienced bullying. I can’t remember what happened exactly. I just remember the anger and confusion like I do now. And I loved everything about the sky: the birds, the unpredictable weather, the clean freedom. Anything to be out there. Not inside, where I was stuck with immense cabin fever in this wretched outbreak. The more books I read about the outside world, the more I was struck with wanderlust. The bullies were bound to die first in the upcoming apocalypse. I was going to survive.

You idiot. If you saw the future of yourself standing with your undead brother and father.

“It will spread faster in the hot, open air, Ayah,” my father said as he yanked the mask on my face after he closed the curtains. He never could get it on my head right, but like his tight hugs, I could feel the love behind it. Ayah…yes, that was my name. I think.

“We can’t afford to get infected!” My mother cried after dragging me and my crying brother from the front door the day the announcement was made, and the newscaster was attacked. There was smoke and there was a loud bang sound close to us. I think it was a crash. It was loud enough to bang against my eardrums.

We had all sat together in the basement as we heard the noises in our yard. “We have all we need right here.” I held my collie close to me as he struggled to stay still. The fake strength in my parents’ tones. Ugh…just hearing all that truth made my stomach twist in a queasy manner. Would it kill them to lose their grip for once? Would it kill them to be wrong for once?

Three months after the outbreak, I was left with just my dad and my younger brother. Everyone else was blurred into absence. My boyfriend didn’t make it. My family members didn’t make it. My dog didn’t make it. Our neighbors didn’t make it. To this day, I can’t remember their faces clearly. We fled by jeep with whatever we had to a safe haven, and there was more room for us since there weren’t many of us left in our humble community.

So much space, yet so little room for emotions.

We had rules. A rage monster was considered a threat and a symptom. No slowing the team down, or risk getting eaten. We learned how to ration food, how to sleep lightly, how to keep our voices low. It didn’t matter how sorry we were for our wrongdoings. It didn’t matter how scared we were. It didn’t matter how angry we were. It didn’t matter if anyone decided to jump out of windows. It didn’t matter how much we wanted to die. Survival doesn’t care who gets hurt as long as we are alive. The more I felt like screaming, the more that fact gagged me with a washcloth, to bottle it up.

Everyone’s hopes and dreams for their futures died along with the undead. Someone was bound to die or get infected at some point. We lived only to die.

No. Don’t think that. Don’t you dare.

Don’t let this negativity get into your head. Think positive. Think grateful. Think strong.

Other than I’m positive we’re all going to get eaten.

No, stop it. STOP.

Adrien’s here. Daddy’s here. They’re alive. You’re alive. You’re being fed — barely — but fed. You’re getting stronger every day.

You become whatever the crowd needs you to be — water, air, thin ice — whatever keeps the peace. Everyone said I was strong. Everyone leaned on me like I was an anchor, or a wall, or something solid enough to keep them standing.

“You have wisdom,” they told me.

“You hold us together.”

“We’d fall apart without you.”

You learned quickly to smile even when you don’t mean to, nod at the right times during meetings. You play a leftover banged up cello to lull the young ones to sleep. Your heart and the beat.

No pressure. Just don’t break.

Whatever keeps you useful. Survive. We’ll get through this. You’ll get through this.

“Ayah, why are we here?” Adrien had asked.

I didn’t answer right away. We watched two men drag a body across the floor and shove it out the window. It hit the fire with a sound I felt in my teeth.

“I don’t know,” I said finally.

He looked up at me like I’d just confirmed something he already knew. “Then why are we still doing this?”

I pulled him closer. His hair was greasy under my fingers. He smelled like smoke and old food.

“I—” My voice cracked. I cleared my throat and tried again. “We just… go. Day to day. That’s it.”

“That’s stupid,” he said. Not angry. Just tired.

“Yeah,” I said. “It kind of is.”

He was quiet for a second. “So, we might die anyway.”

I tightened my grip on him. “Maybe.”

He flinched like I’d hit him, and panic surged hot in my chest.

“But maybe not,” I said quickly. “And I—I don’t want you to be alone if it happens.”

He leaned into me then, like his body decided before his brain could argue.

“Okay,” he whispered.

I brushed his hair harder than I meant to. I didn’t stop.

As long as I don’t let them see everything, I’ll have accomplished something. As long as I don’t let them see how I shred myself when I’m alone. As long as I don’t let them see the ugly habits, the desperate prayers, the weakness I hide behind my dirty lying teeth.

As long as they don’t see the marks.

Because if they see the unusual bruising on my shoulders and legs — those dark blooms under the skin — who knows what they’ll do?

Even if it kills you, smiles are strength in a broken world. It builds others up.

So, keep smiling.

Don’t burden them with your illnesses.

Hours passed. Then days blurred. The infection spread anyway — not through the air like they feared, but through us, through touch and proximity and bad luck, through the tiny cracks in our routines. I felt my dreams thinning out like smoke.

I became bedridden. I didn’t let anyone see my scars. I stared out the window for so long my eyes ached and the glass felt like a second skin. Chickadees hopped along the sill and chattered to each other like the world wasn’t ending.

I hated them.

No — I envied them.

The world was falling apart and they still had freedom. The virus didn’t touch animals.

Lucky.

To be free in the air.

I don’t remember much after that. Not cleanly. Not in order.

I remember anger.

Anger at myself for not being good enough. Anger at my family for keeping me inside. Anger at the world for being unfair. Anger at my adversaries for not seeing my brilliance.

And anger at God.

“What purpose do you have for us?” I shouted. I shouted until my throat scraped raw, until the ceiling stayed blank and silent and indifferent.

Then my body stopped feeling like mine.

I lost control like a dropped thread — one second I was upright, the next I was tearing through the halls. My feet slammed the floor too hard. My hands were clumsy, greedy things. I smelled panic before I saw it.

The looks on their faces.

The horror.

More anger.

The more I saw, the more something inside me shut down, like a door bolting itself from the inside. Heartbreak turned into emptiness. Emptiness turned into need.

My brain was rotting faster than what screen-time would do.

And I had to feed it.

Not meat. Not bone. Not the soft animal parts.

Something else.

Something bright.

Information.

Thoughts.

Memories.

The way they soaked up knowledge like sponges… I needed more of it. I couldn’t read — my head hurt too much, letters sliding off the page like oil — but my hunger didn’t care what I could handle. My hunger didn’t care about pain. I wanted to feel myself again.

I needed more.

Ba-bump.

More.

Ba-bump.

MORE.

Ba-bump-ba-bump-ba-bump…

Fine. Fine! I’ll show them. I’ll show everyone.

You want me calm? You want me sweet? You want me smiling?

Ba-bu-ba-bu-ba-bu-ba-bu-ba-bump…

Here is everything.

The hideous side.

The sad side.

The starving side.

The side I kept locked away because I was terrified of this exact reaction — the blood, the screams, the walking corpses I used to recognize, the mirror that refused to give me my old face back.

I’m a ghost in my own body.

I can’t deal with this anymore.

Groaning, I drifted out into the city like a mistake that wouldn’t stop moving. Rain dampened my hair. The sky was a bruise. The wind tasted metallic, like pennies and rot. I could only look up at the storm the way you look up at something holy — from a distance, from below, from a place that doesn’t deserve it.

At least I finally fit in.

But at the cost of my soul.

The storm raged inside me. Untreated illness. Untreated hunger. Untreated everything.

The only movies I watched anymore were my own faded memories — scenes I hated and still replayed, over and over, because pain was familiar and familiar meant safe.

I wanted to rip my hair out and eat it.

I was still hungry.

I didn’t care anymore.

Then I saw them — kids in fancy gear with lights stitched into their suits, moving like they were heroes in a story that still believed in heroes. They marched with snipers in the flames like they’d been trained for this, like they’d practiced aiming at bodies that used to have identities.

It made me furious.

Dumb kids. Bright toys. Brave costumes.

I wonder what I can gather if I get close.

Just a little closer.

Just one thought. One memory. One taste of what they know.

Let me—

The cute boy by the neck—

A shot cracked the air.

A hard, clean sound. Final. Unarguable.

Rejected.

My body dropped.

And it was finally lights out.

My entire life, I learned so many things — some late, some too late.

If only I had looked for what was beautiful instead of counting what was wrong.

Because the world still had beauty. Even then.

Now it just feels good to finally breathe.

The air is clean. Not just empty, but alive with colors mankind never figured out how to name. Everything sways to music like it’s built into the bones of the universe. The light doesn’t burn. The fruit tastes like guilt-free sweetness. My hair rides with the gentle breeze, and my heart beats in time with worship, with rhythm, with peace.

I have my body back.

I have my mind back.

And there they are — my family, my friends — dancing like nothing ever happened, laughing like the world never ended, like love is the only thing that survived the ashes. From the ashes grows a garden.