Trauma

A single, solitary seagull flies over a lone, abandoned island — above the head of Eugene, its only inhabitant.

The blue ocean stretches around the sandy shores, and the air carries the scent of untouched greenery, though only faintly, only at first.

The further he walks, climbing over hills and jagged rocks, the more the smell changes — something rotten, something that doesn’t belong to the rest of the island.

It lies at its very center, ruining everything: the beauty, the illusion of purity.

Hell placed in the middle of paradise.

Eugene steps inside willingly, once again.

As he moves through the empty, dark corridors, the voices of tormented souls seem to seep through the suffocating silence. He cannot bear it. Under his breath, he repeats the purpose of his visit — to free them.

It is only natural that they call out to him. There is no one else here.

At least, that is how it feels.

When he crosses the threshold of a room — the one where he knows he will find pure alcohol, perhaps even the substances they once fed him — the crushing sense of emptiness suddenly loosens its grip.

He hears a quiet exhale, the soft scrape of a shoe against the floor, and then that familiar, tempting scent of alcohol and cigar smoke.

On a worn, couch-like piece of furniture sits Camil — a man he knows from this place.

“You came back,” Eugene says, hesitantly, stepping closer.

“So did you,” Camil replies, lifting a half-filled glass of amber liquor to his lips, though he does not drink until Eugene finally sits down across from him.

“What brought you here?” Eugene asks, as if trying to determine whether their reasons are the same.

“Perhaps… contemplation,” Camil answers, almost lightly. A faint smile appears as he takes a slow sip of a liquid that helps you forget. “And the scent of what we used to have in abundance. Or rather — what our ‘doctors’ had. Our ‘saviors.’”

“More like angels of death,” Eugene mutters, shaking his head as he meets his gaze.

Their eyes lock for a moment — the same exhaustion in both, the same shadows deepening beneath them with time.

“This place…” Eugene exhales, his jaw tightening slightly. “It hollowed something out of me.”

Camil nods.

“Almost,” he adds quietly.

“Too close,” Eugene continues. “I keep thinking about who I was before… and what was drained out of me here. I nearly disappeared into it. Into myself. I nearly stopped recognizing anything — anyone. You saw me back then, but you didn’t know me before. I wasn’t like that. Not angry. Not this… lost.”

He glances around the room, at the stripped walls, at the tools that seem emptied of any humanity, before looking back at Camil.

“I don’t recognize that version of me,” he says more quietly. “And I don’t think I ever will. I can’t forgive what this place made me into… or what I became for others while I was here.”

He looks down at his hands, fingers tightening against the fabric of his trousers, as if grounding himself in something real.

For a moment, even his own voice feels unfamiliar.

Camil speaks only after a few breaths.

“I know,” he says. “I stopped recognizing myself too.”

He takes another sip.

“There was a moment when I realized I wanted to be better. A better person. But here…” He exhales softly. “That wasn’t possible.”

A faint, almost distant smile appears.

“But not every day was unbearable. I met you, after all. And I was grateful for that. I finally met someone who was like me… stuck in the same kind of mess. It wasn’t always so bad. I got used to it, at least in part because of you.”

Eugene watches him, something unsettled in his expression.

Camil speaks of it too lightly, as if the edges have been dulled. His hand trembles slightly as he lifts the glass again, and his gaze is unfocused, distant, not entirely present. He does not look like someone who has truly left this place behind.

Eugene straightens slightly. This is the moment.

“I want to destroy it,” he says, a faint smile appearing, edged with something sharp and unresolved. “Burn it down. Tear it apart. So we can finally live normally. Both of us.”

Camil studies him for a moment.

“You think that would change anything?” he asks.

“What do we have left to lose?” Eugene replies, leaning forward. “Don’t you want to see it burn? I do.”

He pulls a gun and a lighter from his pocket and places them on the table between them.

“It’s not much,” he adds. “But it will be enough to tear this place apart.”

Camil stares at the objects for a moment, as if searching for something within them.

“I have to admit, I’ve thought about it too,” he says finally. “Letting go of all of this… maybe that’s one way.”

Eugene smiles, something electric rising within him — a strange sense of purpose, of movement, something he has not felt in a long time.

To destroy.

For the first time, the word does not feel wrong.

The destruction spreads quickly.

A wall in the main hall, once smooth and carefully maintained — though stained in places, if one looked closely enough — is now riddled with holes, torn apart deliberately, openly, without restraint.

Eugene cannot stop laughing.

Each burst of laughter drowns out the sharp cracks of gunfire echoing through the building. Camil stands nearby, covering his ears at times, though he occasionally glances at Eugene with a small, almost proud smile.

Eugene notices.

And so he does more.

He fires again, throws objects against the walls, crushes them underfoot. Papers scatter into the air like startled birds, while wooden chairs and desks slam against the walls and splinter apart.

The sounds, the sights, the smell — all of it is as horrifying as it is intoxicating.

Camil watches, drinking as he goes, his vision growing hazy. Eugene pushes further, louder, harder, as if needing to be seen, to be acknowledged.

Camil does notice. He even flinches slightly when a bunk bed crashes to the ground with a sudden, violent noise.

Eugene laughs under his breath, tearing open a pillow and letting the feathers spill into the air, tilting his head back and closing his eyes as they fall around him.

Eventually, exhaustion begins to settle in.

Eugene’s hands are covered in blood, while shards of glass press into Camil’s feet. Both of them sit in the archives, breathing heavily, wiping sweat from their temples.

“These are the records,” Camil murmurs, looking around the room. “All the patients. You thinking what I’m thinking?”

Eugene nods.

“Yeah. Just give me a moment.”

They sit in silence for a while longer.

Camil is right. There is no more complete way to destroy this place than to burn every record, every trace of what happened here. Once the last scrap of paper turns to ash, it will be as if no one had ever been here.

As if he had never been here. He could start again. Clean.

If he reduces himself only to the present, if he refuses to carry anything from before, then perhaps he can become someone else entirely — someone without history, without weight, without damage.

If he smiles widely enough, no one will ever suspect anything beneath it.

If he insists on it long enough, perhaps even he will believe it.

After all, don’t we choose what we identify with? The past, or the future? Pain, or what comes after it?

Camil stands first.

He pours the rest of the whiskey over the scattered files, soaking the paper, then extends his hand toward Eugene.

Without hesitation, Eugene places the lighter into it.

Smoke begins to fill the floor.

They light cigarettes, take a few final drags, and toss them into the growing flames before making their way out, laughing loudly — like children who have just vandalized something sacred.

Coughing, trying to clear the smoke from their lungs, they run downstairs.

Eugene hears Camil’s footsteps behind him and wonders who they might become once they leave this place behind. They met when both of them were shaped by it, soaked through with it. He is not sure who Camil is without it.

“I have one request,” Camil says quietly.

“What is it?” Eugene asks, slowing slightly.

“Would it bother you… if I still remembered this place?”

Eugene frowns.

“What do you mean?”

“If you asked me what color the walls were… or which beds we slept in… I would know. Exactly.”

Eugene grips the door handle firmly.

“We’ll forget,” he says. “Eventually. Or we can help it along. We can start making things up. You’ll say the walls were green, I’ll say they were red. We’ll confuse ourselves until none of it feels certain anymore.”

“You think that would work?” Camil asks.

“Don’t you?”

Camil hesitates.

“I think I still remember it too clearly,” he admits. “Let me go back for a moment. I want to look at the smoke. That’s how I want to remember it.”

Eugene tightens his grip on the handle. They are so close to leaving, and yet Camil does not move.

After a moment, Eugene nods.

He wants to look at the flames too.

The smoke is thick now, almost unbearable.

Eugene follows, pressing his sleeve against his face, glancing back once to make sure the exit is still there.

Camil stops in front of the burning room. Nothing is visible anymore — no colors, no shapes, only a dense mass of smoke.

“Let’s go,” Eugene urges, his voice strained. “I really don’t want to stay here.”

Camil stands still, his back turned.

“If I left,” he says slowly, “I think I would still sit by the radiator every night. I would still stare at the windows. And I think I would still see the bars.”

“That’s gone,” Eugene insists, more sharply now. “We destroyed it. It stays here, not with us. There are no bars anymore.”

A pause.

“Go,” Camil says quietly. “It’s getting dangerous. The smoke… it’s making me dizzy.”

Eugene steps closer, but stops at the threshold. He wants to reach for him, to pull him back, but Camil keeps walking, deeper into the room, until his figure begins to dissolve into the smoke.

“What are you doing?” Eugene calls out, wiping at his stinging eyes. “We’re leaving together!”

“We said we would destroy this place,” Camil replies, his voice faint through the fire.

“We already did!”

A brief silence.

Then, Camil hangs his head.

“Not yet.”

And he walks into the flames.