With every person, there is a different issue with every one of them, one can have split personalities, one can be coping with death, a melancholy spirit, the rest could be stuck up with the use of drugs, and all that with, each spirit has its own individual hell, an unheard scream swallowed by the indifferent vacuum. One is broken into fractured individuals, each fragment fighting for dominance, tearing their mind apart like shattered glass. Another is lost in grief, an empty shell carrying yesterday's embers, their tears carving canyons in sleepless nights. Beside them, a trembling figure is tied to needles or drugs, each a temporary escape that draws them deeper into ruin; veins mapped with lies, dreams dissolved in chemical haze.

And another scores scars into their bodies, a mad ritual to be able to feel beneath the numbness, blood flowering like cursed roses. In the room corner, a ghost is perishing under the weight of voice only he can hear, voice that slithers like snakes, spewing truths too gruesome to endure. Some are ghosts of violence, cowering before shadows, their belief shattered into irreparable shards. There are others who drown in the futility of existence, trapped in a series of meaningless days, false smiles, vacant eyes that are reflections of nothing.

And then there are others whose agony is not named, a suffocating terror that claws at their ribs, a hollowness gnawing at the core of them, leaving them aching and trembling in the dark. They traverse a world demanding smiles while their hearts weep, each breath struggling against the urge to vanish. No solace comes. No hand reaches back. Simply the echo of their suffering, sounding in an uncaring cosmos that grinds on, unaware of the symphony of broken hearts. The air itself grows thick with desperation, a stifling mist of concealed anguish that hangs about each ragged breath. One idea unwinds like a garrote around a neck, mind running toward madness, each memory a barb wire, each dream a razor's edge cutting deeper into delusions. They push their own fingers against their forehead, as if they could somehow excavate the cancer that eats there, but the shadow grows, ink-black and ravenous.

Another body contorts in the corner, muscles tightening in withdrawal, dampened flesh a war zone of spasm and ectoplasmic pain. Their veins scream for poison, for the sweet, lethal guarantee of numbness—but it is not available, only cruel, unforgiving jaws of reality. They retch up bile and blood, their interiors turned against them, a hostile uprising of flesh and dying organs.

Nearby, another head explodes into a chaos of selves, each more horror-stricken than the last. One screams in emptiness, begging mercy from the others. Another laughs, a laughter of shattering glass, as they scar words into their thighs, worthless, beast, unwanted; each one a ritual to their self-loathing. The others stand around, empty and unmoving, as the boundaries between them break down, leaving naught but a desolation of shattered persona.

A child though their body is ancient, huddled into themselves, fingers to ears, as the past returns in nasty, horrible spirals. The stinging odor of alcohol, the hand touch, the voice that still breaks their sleep. They sway back and forth, broken metronome, ticking off the seconds until the next inevitable attack, though the beast is absent. The damage remains, living, gnawing away at their bones.

And then there are those who have merely. stopped. Not dead, but alive. They drift through the world like ghosts, their voices stripped from them, their emotions erased from the inside out. They stare into mirrors and there is nothing; no past, no future, only a void of a being who had been. Their hands shake with the effort of pretending, of smiles plastered on and cracking like fragile china. Every step a betrayal, every breath a surrender to the suffocating weight of nothing.

The walls push in now, the air heavy with salt and sweat and metal. A sob's muffled somewhere, a sound so animal it's barely even human. Another's heard, and another, until the room's a bedlam of weeping, screaming, laughing. No one hears. No one comes. The rest of the world continues on its way, unmoved, as the pain mounts up into a cacophony of sound, a devilish refrain, every scream a cry for deliverance that will never be heard.

And it only gets worse.

Fingers tentatively explore raw wounds, not to caress but to punish, to build the outside to match the destruction within. Blood collects, viscous and slow, as the body shudders, too weak to fight, too broken to care. A voice insidiously worms its way into their mind: This is all you deserve.

Another heart hacks in its own throat, fingernails scratching over raw skin, as though it will scratch out the emptiness that corrupts there. Its ribcage gnaws into meat, hunger long gone; what is the point, when every bite is ash-taste?
There is one who huddles in the corner, knees up against their chest, staring at the wall wanting it to somehow answer. But the wall does not move, does not care. Their head a whirlwind of razors, Why am I like this? Why am I not normal? Why does everything hurt? The questions become mush, nothing. They are a ghost in their own self, a witness to their own destruction.

One more lies in bed, sheets in disarray, aching body from icy pain that has gone on for hours. They count the cracks in the ceiling, the seconds ticking away, the breaths they force themselves to release. Sleep is of no use to them, only nightmares, only waking to the same clenched pressure. They close their eyes and pray, not to die, but to nothing, to the satori release of having never been at all.

Somewhere else, a hand lies on a phone, trembling. They can call for help. They should call for help. But the words are caught in their throat, as if heavy tokens unable to speak. Who would mind? Who would listen? The screen washes away, then darkens. Another second is lost. Another try. Another muffled scream swallowed by nothing.

And then there are the ones who've mastered avoiding smiling when you need to, laughing when you need to, floating through life like a robotic puppet. But here, it's only downhill. There's no laughter at jokes. "I'm fine" is a lie. They look through windows of stores and don't know the stranger looking back.

The nights are the worst. The dark is alive, a breathing thing, and it hums all the terrible things they already believe:

You are broken.
You are unlovable.
You will always be alone.

They cling to pillows, to their own arms, to anything to pull themselves back down to solid ground but the emptiness opens wide, pulling them further down. Sleep is battle. Wakefulness is imprisonment. There is no escape, but the grinding, sloughing away of self.

And yet, the world is not enough.

Stand up.
Go to work
Interact with society.
Wear a face.

So they do. They shuffle through another day, another hour, another minute. They breathe, exhale, and speculate how much longer they can keep it up. The answer is ever the same:

I don't know.

But they endure. Not for want. Not for hope. But because to give up, to succumb to the shadows, is unthinkable and a mercy.

And they remain.

And the weight becomes huge.

And the quiet is a shout.

And the emptiness is all that they are.