Outcast ✧ Phan

Sixteen

dis·cov·er
verb
find (something or someone) unexpectedly or in the course of a search.

To say Dan Howell had been going through hell would not be something said under over exaggeration.

Alright. Maybe a little over exaggerated. But still, with the death of his best friend chaining on him like a weight on a prisoner's leg, an abusive father constantly pulling him this way and that, and the growing sharpness of cold reality spitting depression on his shoes, it wasn't exactly heaven either.

So how about saying he had been through an almost hell. To the point where the hungry flames were just snipping his edges, roasting him through like a cabobbed fish over a campfire. Slow and painful, in a way not even experts in torture could strive to achieve.

And it, seemingly to Dan, was getting no better.

Dan was in his first year of highschool; a newly discovered basement to his pain. He, being the twiggy, my chemical romance loving shit he was, had been thrown at the older kids like a steak to bloodhounds--and they ate him up. Couldn't get enough, actually. They stepped on him, bullied him raw.

Dan didn't care. He didn't even try to stop all the insults, all the shoving, the fighting. He knew he deserved it, for what he had done to his family, to Louise.

Slowly, he was deflating like a balloon; draining like the blood that painted his pale wrists; dying like the remaining spirit inside him.

All the pain was a rather decent distraction. Something he felt he needed, to help peel his interest away from his own sick head, his abnormalities.

And without Louise, Dan didn't see much of a point anymore. What was the point? Why should he bother at dragging his limp soul through life any longer? In all honestly, the only thing that really had stopped him from settling into the same fate as his mum had was a lack of courage. He was afraid, and it sucked like hell; not being able to just let go because of stupid human emotions was just a burden.

Why do I have to be human? Dan found himself thinking as he traveled down the school hallway. Is there not a way to surgically remove emotions?

Students chattered idly, making way to the lunchroom. A few side glanced at Dan, voices dropping considerably when passing. He dipped his head so that his straightened hair fell into his face. He started ironing it last month; a lot of people found it to be a ripe new topic of teasing, but he held it as more appealing than the childish curls that he wore beforehand.

Dan was probably the only one walking alone, outside a pair or cluster of friends. He didn't care, though, it was his own fault in the first place. He had promised himself to not make any more friends. He swore to cut off all, even the slightest, opportunities of threading into a bond. Too dangerous; for himself and all others.

Dan wasn't hungry (not like he ever was anymore), so he slowed his pace. On the rare occasions health reached its limits with his determination to not eat, he would go into the cafeteria like everyone else. But most of the time he wandered the halls and lingered in the bathrooms or empty classrooms. It was a big school, so he enjoyed exploring the corridors, it made him feel almost as if he were a kid again. Before kindergarten, at least.

And being a kid again meant being happy again. Almost.

Dan took his usual detour down the opposite hallway from the double doors to the lunchroom. As always, nobody noticed him slinking away from the happy croud.