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[codyiselsewhere]

If I Surrender - Short Story

**TRIGGER WARNING! This story contains self-harm, mental health and overthinking that's not for the faint of heart.**

Cody had a journal open on the table. He was writing down his thoughts and crossing them out, bit by bit, because every time he tried writing all of them down, he got halfway through and couldn't finish writing it all out. It was an outlet for him, to get his thoughts out on paper. There was mentions of how he truly felt, how much he was struggling, and the constant anxiety that he suppressed down.

He sighed, and leaned his head against the open pages of the journal. Each thought was partly crossed out but there was so many questions and words floating around on the pages. These were all of the thoughts he constantly hid in his head, but they twisted him violently, like they wanted out and wanted to be free. It felt like he was hanging by a thread as every thought got darker, or more twisted, and he knew that he didn't wanna be saved.

Continuing to write down his thoughts, they eventually turned into something that resembled lyrics. He wanted to fall, break, die, because he couldn't take living with what's in his head. Each thought was horrifyingly disturbing, even being written down on paper. He wanted to surrender to his monsters, give up hope towards getting better, feeling like it would set him free.

Cody started to ask himself if there was a point to holding on like this, because it didn't seem like anybody cared if he existed. It was all getting frustrating, every last bit of it. All of the dark thoughts, the lies, the excuses. Nobody knew about all of this, and him being sick. He was getting beyond tired of hearing that he should stay when he knew that he would never be missed.

Sighing again, he wrote down the same thoughts, this time it forming the full chorus of the song "If I Surrender" by Citizen Soldier. He just blinked at the now written on pages with the lyrics, feeling like it was something foreign to him, like it shouldn't be in front of him for some reason. It was hard for him to realize every thought he was having was perfectly described by one of his favorite songs.

He started writing notes, hoping that it might make people help understand his struggles a bit better. "If you could see under my skin, you'd realize why I hold it in, why it's a fight I don't wanna win, why it's a fight I don't wanna win… If you could see all my abuse, and spend a day inside my shoes, you'd realize why I just wanna lose, you'd realize why I just wanna lose… Will anyone believe the hell of being me, before I decide to be the dying proof?"

Writing that note out in his beautiful cursive, he thought of all the negative things that have been said to him about this: "Somebody else has it worse than you." "You're just doing this for attention." "You're just being dramatic." "Suicide is selfish." "You're not praying enough."

He started to cry whilst thinking about those things, realizing that nobody would truly ever understand how much hell he went through in the last few years. Being forced to come out, not being accepted by his parents, straight up being told that he was a disgrace, would constantly be judged for being himself, being told it was stupid to achieve a dream for music, and that his parents wouldn't ever call him Cody.

Wiping away his tears with the sleeve of his hoodie, he rolled up his sleeves and picked up the nearest knife. It was his rainbow chrome paring knife, still covered in dried blood from the last time he cut. Dragging the small blade across his skin, he started crying again, opening up the old cuts and making them fresh, watching them bleed as he slumped down to the floor. His journal still sat on the counter, open to the note he had just written as he sat against his cabinets, fresh blood and tears mixing on his hands, hoodie, pants, and coating the floor.

[codyiselsewhere]

Scarecrow - Short Story

**TRIGGER WARNING! This story contains mentions of self-harm, death, and sadistic things that aren't for the faint of heart.**

It was fall at the Cullen residence and Cody had been preparing for Halloween for numerous weeks now. It was his favorite time of year and he loved doing everything with it. All the pumpkins, the decorations, making everything fall-inspired.

He started getting everything ready back in September and was almost done setting everything up. All of it looked beautiful, neatly organized and decorated. There was just one more thing missing that needed to be put up. The beloved Scarecrow.

Putting up the Scarecrow was the hardest of tasks for him, but it had to be put up to complete the perfect picture of a beautiful fall season. This wasn't something he usually did, but this time around, it was beyond important to him for more reasons than one. He had built the wooden frame weeks ago, coincidentally, it turned out to be the Citizen Soldier symbol.

He had put the frame in the center of his yard, in between the golden, orange and light brown grass, making it also lean a certain way. Now the only thing missing was the figure hanging from it. Walking back inside, Cody grabbed his ragged light brown top hat, rope, nails, and hammer from the counter, and headed back out. He slid the hat on his head, at a certain tilt. Only his grey eyes were now visible from underneath it.

The wind blew as he got outside, blowing his fading shirt open a bit and making the skin on his face drip a bit as he headed over to the center of the yard. Taking the rope, he tossed it over the sides of the upper piece of the wooden frame, and tied it loosely, creating a loop on each side.

Cody then leaned against it, placing one hand on it and nailed his left hand in place, directly in the center of the loop, and moved onto his right. He couldn't feel the pain anymore, having been numb to all of the world for numerous months. Smiling softly, it was now all over. This all began during the middle of August and it led him here.

Now, everything was perfect. The perfect fall house, the Scarecrow. He hung from the wooden frame, face dripping from having cut the skin to make a brand new face, grey eyes not having any shine to them, hat and shirt the same tattered light brown, his skin and pointed nails being a yellow-ish white. It all made sense now. All the references, all the perfect things being in place.

Cody was now the Scarecrow, knowing he was better off this way, being fake, finally having some peace in his life. It was more than a saving grace for him. He had killed himself a long while ago, but nobody knew that they weren't talking to him, but instead talking to a Scarecrow. Disappearing like this hurt less, instead of asking for help.

The only thing left behind was a note on the back table: "You can't kill me if I'm already dead, buried alive by the things that they've said, I killed myself, but no one knows, you're not talking to me, you're talking to a Scarecrow." And then the wind blew again, blowing the note off the table, causing it to eventually land at the Scarecrow's feet, bringing everything full circle.

[codyiselsewhere]

Let It Burn - Short Story

**TRIGGER WARNING! This story has mentions of self-harm, a psych ward and some medical stuff that's not for the faint of heart.**

Cody sat on the floor of his room in the psych ward, watching the world spin around him. His family had put him in here just a few months ago, but it felt like he had been in there for a few hours. They had dragged him from his home, kicking and screaming, having to restrain him in the back of the ambulance.

Nothing helped him feel any better right now. He tried to draw, write, make music and none of it helped. He reached up to fiddle with his earrings, only to realize they had been taken out by the hospital a few minutes ago. They only allowed him to sleep with them in, so he wouldn't hurt himself. It was his favorite pair of earrings, a hourglass pair given to him by his bestie, Liam.

He hadn't been sleeping well lately, most of the stuff the hospital had given him was on the floor. The red sheets were strown across the floor, due to his tossing and turning every night and getting upset at the way they looked when he woke up. The hospital staff constantly had to fix it for him, because if he fixed it, he just ripped them off the bed again. It was getting annoying to them.

The only thing he hadn't thrown off his bed at any given point was his colorful blanket, but that was currently wrapped around him. He had begged and pleaded with the hospital for him to keep it with him, it was one of the only things giving him comfort right now. He rocked back and forth on the floor, as he just continued to sit there on the floor in his motionless, soundless room. The only thing he heard was the sound of his own shivers and breathing. Nothing else but pure static noise.

Looking around, the only thing near him on the floor was a napkin that he wrote on last night, which contained lyrics from one of his favorite songs. The lyrics to "Let It Burn" by Citizen Soldier. Reaching out, he picked it up, and flipped it over in his hands, reading the lyrics over and over, knowing how much it meant to him. On the other side of the napkin was a rose he had sketched on it, similar to the ones tattooed on his left arm, but that was currently covered up by an IV, medical tape and bandages.

He hadn't been wanting to eat or anything lately, so that's why there was an IV hooked up into his arm, and the bandages were there because he kept scratching at his arms, the cuts he had given himself a few months back, and wanting to rip the IV out, but he was unable to, it was helping him stay alive.

As Cody looked over the lyrics one last time, he focused on two lines specifically. "The past is just lessons learned, light it up and let it burn." With a shaky breath, he was determine to fix himself, and get himself in a better mental state so he could get out of the psych ward. A way to turn his life around.