Were the Pills worth it? in the end...

The room was suffocatingly quiet, save for the rhythmic drumming of the rain against the window. Nimdok sat cross-legged on the floor, the medical book trembling in his hands as he read the faded entry aloud to himself, each word feeling heavier than the last.

“Used to treat… schizophrenia and… dissociative identity disorder. For patients experiencing… severe psychotic episodes…”

His voice cracked on the final words. The book slipped from his fingers, landing on the floor with a dull thud. His breath hitched as the realization seeped into him like poison.

He lifted his gaze to the mirror. Slowly, as though afraid of what he might see.

The reflection grinned back at him, a smile that wasn’t his own. Mr. Fox—his charm, his confidence, his hopeless romanticism—was there, but the edges began to fray. The sharp outline of a fox’s ears melted into a tousled mess of Nimdok’s hair. The clever grin softened into his quivering lips. The glimmering eyes became his own wide, terror-filled gaze.

“No…” Nimdok whispered, shaking his head. “No, no, no…”

The mirror flickered. Memories began to crash over him in fragmented flashes. The vibrant parade when Mr. Fox had arrived in town. The cheers, the laughter, the light. The soft hum of rain and the warmth of storytelling. And then… darkness.

A figure in the night, staring down from the second-floor window of the apothecary. That wasn’t someone else. That had been him. Watching his own illusion with longing, with lust, with the kind of yearning only the broken could feel.

Mr. Fox hadn’t existed outside his mind. I am Mr. Fox.

“What… have I done?” Nimdok whispered, tears blurring his vision as the memories shifted, growing sharper, crueler.

Darcia. Her warm smile. Her endless devotion. Her touch—soft, lingering, possessive. She had taken him in, sheltered him, but her love had become a gilded cage.

The memory of the heart attack dissolved. He saw himself lying on her bed, not the streets. Her hands on his body, her voice whispering things he could no longer hear clearly. What did she make me do?

Darcia’s face appeared in his mind, smiling softly as she tucked him in, her lips brushing his forehead. “My dear brother,” she had said, her voice heavy with affection and something darker. “You’ll always need me, won’t you?”

The image twisted, her warmth morphing into cold calculation. She had been the one to keep him here. To let him unravel while the world outside moved on without him. She used me. She loved me in ways she shouldn’t. She made me… into this.

Another flash—Mr. Fox’s charm, his laughter, his relentless pursuit of love. The warmth he brought to the village, the people who adored him. He had been everything Nimdok was not. Everything Nimdok wished he could be.

But Mr. Fox was gone. He has been gone for weeks. Nimdok’s hand flew to his mouth, his knees buckling as he doubled over. I’ve been pretending… I’ve been living as him. I didn’t even know.

The shadows in the room seemed to swell, wrapping around him like the padded walls of his cell in the asylum. No longer his room—this was a prison. It had always been a prison, no matter how much Darcia tried to make it look otherwise. A cage of love, a trap built from obsession.

His gaze fell to the desk. A knife gleamed under the dim light, the blade reflecting his tear-streaked face. He reached for it, his trembling hand hovering over the hilt.

He closed his eyes, tears falling freely now. His final whisper was barely audible, a prayer to the only person who could end this nightmare.

“Save me, sister…”