Total Drama: Liberation of the Slaughtered

((Chapter Two: Abyssal Obsoltion))

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((Authors Note: Sometimes... I'm alone. Sometimes I'm not. Sometimes i'm alone... i'm alone.... **Sad cat face**))

Cody had found himself consumed by the world wrapped in darkness and mystery quickly.The darkened hues and mixing sounds all being dulled out by the lifeless haze that was his troubled mindscape. Crashing memories of the past mixed with the melancholid dull haze of the present. 

Trauma and regret and lingering confusion or anger all mixed together in jumbled shades. 

Cody could hardly tell whether he was coming or going, mentally. The time he spent suspended in his mind of downpouring emotions, and deficient substance. 

It felt like falling. Falling, but sitting on a couch both at once. There was no sense of rest or ease. Not matter how much he moved or... tried not to move. Maybe that was the term for it. 

Every little movement from his fingers felt like static. The static that almost felt like you were being stabbed in the center of the affected limb- rather than the soft, tickly, sort of uncomfortable feeling. 

He couldn't tell. 

Just as he tried to block everything out again, within his darkened psyche- he somehow seemed to feel... movement. A presence. Someone that wasn't just himself, there- staring at him. 

Though, from where, he had not the slightest clue. 

It was almost like that feeling that he got whenever he looked out the window- from when they were all on that blood soaked, stupid, stupid island.

Watching... waiting... observing.. maybe. 

Though, despite the discomfort, he didn't feel one thing he remembered quite well. He never felt the malice that accompanied such feelings. Which struck him as somewhat odd, considering just how often these feelings showed up together. 

How peculiar indeed. 

He couldn't tell of this was a sort of strange lucid dream- which was something he had only heard of one time. Or if it was some sort of smaller paranoia attack threatening to consume him if he took his chances at moving or waking up. 

It was like suffocating. 

Intoxicating and the benign morbid relaxation pulled him to try and fall deeper into sleep. 

Though, before he did, he looked around one more time in his barely illuminated mind scape. The walls only lit up with ... a small light in the distance... and.. a familiar face...? 

Cody could consciously feel himself blinking... or what seemed to be the sensation of blinking. Trying his hardest to make sure that his mind wasn't playing with him. That he wasn't seeing things. 

He could see him in the distance... ! 

Noah...! 

Running. 

Cody started running to him, or at least that's what it felt like he was doing in his mind. It didn't matter how or why, or even if he could run mentally. It didn't matter if it was possible All he knew was that the figure of Noah was getting closer and closer and closer yet. 

He could nearly feel him.

Cody could see his dark brown hair and his red and blue shirt and his light cinnamon skin..!

But- the closer he got... the less he was progressing. Where running felt like running- it suddenly decelerated, no matter how fast his legs moved. Running became a canter, and a canter became a jog. Before jogging decelerated into a hopeless, progress-lacking walk. 

This sensation only pulled at his mind cruelly. Reminding him that what he wanted was so far away. No matter how close it just might have been. It it were close to him at all for achievement. 

"Godammit! Dammit... ! Let me move...!" the feeling of freefalling idly soon turned into a feeling of sinking. 

One that threatened to pull his head under crashing waves of water with the density of tar. 

He couldn't move or scream or speak. All he could do was gag at the sensation. This disgusting, awful, lonely feeling. 

Cody looked back up at the opposite-facing figure of Noah and it all became ... clear. At least in his mind. 

This wasn't Noah. Maybe.. this is what his mind was trying to do to understand what Noah had went through- before he found his body. 

Sinking in water and wanting, yearning- begging for help when there was no one there so save you. There was no one there to save Noah from his fate. 

No matter how much time passed... Cody still couldn't forgive Duncan for that. Even if he didn't hate the other man..... anymore. 

He was beyond the point of hate. 

He was too empathetic to hate someone that was just as much a victim as he was. Especially when he still didn't have it as bad as the others who would never leave the island. Families without their kids, because of some ruthless bastard that felt like drawing blood with his greedy hands. 

Cody had forgotten about seeing Noah's silhouette and almost embraced the feeling of... sinking. Falling adrift into whatever depths that his mind was trying to drag him. 

Because after being rescued, he never recovered. Nor did he try. 

Unlike the other survivors, Cody never had anyone to turn to. He never had anyone to go to for support or to pour his anguish onto.

His parents cared about him very little. The fact that they would forget his birthdya despite the fact that he remembered theirs year after year spoke volumes. 

Unanswered texts, and missed calls. All from him to tell them that he was doing okay. Even though they didn't deserve to know.

He reached out for comfort from them, and amidst meeting them the ONE time after he was brought him from that hell on Earth- he knew that nothing would change how his family felt. 

It truly was a sinking feeling. 

A saddening, lonely, awful feeling. 

His mind couldn't help but flash back to the form of Noah... who somehow was still there. 

His pale, tired teal eyes half lidded as he stopped struggling. He allowed the feeling to continue consuming him Because with this feeling of loneliness crushing him- somehow he felt less alone. 

He felt like he truly understood someone else. Even if it may or may not have been true. 

He closed his eyes and just accepted this feeling. Feeling as though his soul was being torn from the inside out. Breached with understanding, and braying with denial still. 

He didn't want to accept what this reality was. 

He wouldn't. 

Because no matter how awful he felt, or how awful some situations were with the other campers- he still cared about them. All of them. Even if they may not have really given half a shit about him when they were alive. 

Not that he would know. 

He would dwell. Because they didn't deserve to be forgotten so soon. Dismissed and regarded as nothing more than a body that didn't even get to reach their parents for a proper burial. 

Just as he felt himself fading back from the little subconscious awareness he had managed to miraculously wrangle for himself- he felt something cold, and clammy on his face. 

Without thinking- he raised his hands- in his mind. Instinctively grabbing onto this cold, clammy feeling, and hugging it close to himself. Desperate to feel something more than this isolation that he had continued into. This self-abandonment and seclusion he wouldn't escape from. 

The clammy feeling continued to hold onto his cheek, and without thinking, he opened weary, eyes, brimmed with unknown forming tears. 

There- he saw them. The cloudy white retna abandoned of pupuls and iris. Dark messy hair, and pale cinnamon skin dampened by the rot a no longer beating heart. 

There was Noah- his dead, ghostly form staring right down at him with an unreadable expression. One that radiated confusion, but also... sympathy. 

"N-..." 

Cody couldn't talk. He was alarmed. Staggering and stubling, he desperately tried to utter out the other boys name. He tried to get 3 more teeny, tiny letters out. To no avail. He tried again. 

"- - ah." 

"N-" 

More and more desperate efforts as he started to panic and struggle, his body writhing as he was overcome with the feeling of drowning. Water flooding his lungs as he tried to struggle to freedom. Sinking, plunging, and descending into even more dark, thick abyss as the ghostly form of Noah looked down at him, reaching out a hand as if he was trying to save him. 

Cody, with one more desperate, deprived heave- slammed his hand up, desperate to feel the others hand again, screaming from the top of his lungs-

"----NOOO!"

- - -

With a sudden, heavy thump Cody screams himself awake, struggling and gagging as he clawed himself out of a blanket he didn't even realize he had on his couch. 

He tumbled to the ground with a heavy thud, panting and groaning as he tried to convince himself he was truly breathing the oxygen that had not truly been witheld from him. 

His heart pumped, overruling whatever outside noise he could have heard as the thumping throbbed in his ears. 

Retaining his breath, and pulling at the hem of his shirt collar to get it away from his neck- he took several moments to process what had just happened. 

Tearing up once more... he just sighed, staring at the ground. 

". . . Noah..."

((To Be Continued))