Pains Through Anger

Chipita enters his room and slams the door behind him. He takes one at the collar that was lying peacefully on his desk. Its skull charm glistening from the ceiling light. Chipita felt like whoever they were was somehow mocking them. Laughing at them through his misery, like they did when they made fun of their gender.

He has had enough of it. He walks over to the collar and yanks it out of its place.

“All this is happening cause of you and your dumbass self!” Chipita yells at the collar.

“I hope whoever you were was suffering before dying.”

Chipita then dropped the collar and went over to their bed. He sat down on it and began to run his hands over his brown hair. He tried to calm down, but the thoughts of whoever it might be inside that collar laughing at his misery kept his soul ablaze.

Finally, Chipita got up. He looked at the collar on the floor with pure hatred.

“Fine, you win.” He says as he snatches the collar.

He storms out of his room and down the small hallway separating his and Chiwa’s room. He goes down the stairs and into the bathroom. There, he closes the door behind him and looks into the mirror. He holds the collar close to his neck and fumbles to clasp it in place. Once he was certain that it was in place, he looks at himself in the mirror. Nothing was happing, nothing was showing.

Chipita stares at himself in the mirror, then begins to chuckle. Of course! They weren’t gonna show up and mock them! He had just made up that elaborate story for himself and he believed it. He was a fool to believe that they had been mocking them this entire time inside that collar. He resides his laughter and whispers to the mirror curses to himself. This would’ve continued for a few seconds if not for the knock on the door.

“Yes?” Chipita answers.

“Are you okay? You’ve been laughing like a maniac for five minutes.” Chiwa’s voice rang out. Chipita sighs, at least he wasn’t so angry now.

“I’m fine,” Chipita says as he opens the door.

Chiwa looks up at him and her eyes widen.

“You’re wearing your collar!” She squeals, raising her hands to her face.

“Oh, who are they? Is it someone pretty? Can they hear me? Hello?!”

“God, you’re annoying,” Chipita growls as he wraps a finger around the collar as it tightens around his neck.

“Chiwa, bedtime in ten minutes!” Their mother howlers from the other room.

Chiwa turns in the direction of her voice.

“Mom! Chipita has her collar on!” She exclaims happily.

Chipita glares at her for using the wrong pronouns and for telling their mom. It hadn’t been twenty minutes and yet it seems that Chiwa was already making this a bigger scene than it should be.

“That’s amazing! Now, go brush your teeth!” Their mother responds, her voice having a somewhat fake cheerfulness to it.

Chiwa turns to Chipita with a smile. Chipita returns the smile with an aggravated glare. It wasn’t her place to tell their mother, nor should she so happy. It wasn’t a celebration to have a forever companion. Especially one that hates him as much as they do.

“What?” Chiwa questions.

“Nevermind, go brush your teeth.” Chipita huffs as he walks past her.

He goes back into the kitchen and up the stairs.

As he opens the door to his room he felt the collar’s tight grip around his neck almost suffocating. This wasn’t like last time. Last time the collar just barely tightened. Now it seems that it was suffocating him.

Chipita doubles over, gasping for breath. He manages to go into his room and close the door before he began coughing. This feeling was awful. He began to claw at the collar to try and get a finger underneath the leather to pull it off him. His fingers scratch his neck in a blind panic in hopes to loosen the tight hold it had. Chipita gasping becomes wheezes as they try to fight for his life. His eyes begin to feel heavy and he couldn’t fight it anymore. He closes his eyes and his breathing begins to slow down to nothing but a whisper.

“Chipi? Sweetie?” Alile calls out from the other side of the door.

“Are you okay?”

There was no response. The doorknob swings to the left and the door opens to reveal Chipita spiraled on the floor, his fingertips smeared with blood. His mother gasps.

“Oh dear,” Her pastie says, flying near Chipita and leaning close to his face.

“It seems like they did put on their collar Alile.” they nonchalantly turn to Alile.

“Andy! Call the hospital!” Alile screams as she begins to tremble.

Andy howlers back at her why with worry lacing his voice. She did not respond to these questions as tears begin to fall from her cheeks like crystals. Alile slowly walks over to her son and lays down beside him. Her pastie watches her with a sort of coolness to them, then looks down at Chipita. Alile cries as she looks at her son in worry. She wipes away the blood dripping down his neck with the end of her shirt.

Someone screams words behind her. She turns to see Andy and his pastie at the doorway. Andy looks wildly at the scene sprawled before him as his pastie did the same.

“Hello, Richard.” Alile’s pastie says calmly, looking at Andy’s pastie.

Richard flies toward Chipita and takes a look at what happened.

“Momma,” Chiwa’s says as she peers from the doorway.

“What’s going on? Is she okay?”

Andy turns to her and tells her to go to bed. Through a little bit of hesitation, Chiwa follows Andy’s command and goes to the room right across from them. Alile looks back down at her beautiful son. She takes her trembling hand and places it on the side of his face. She could hear Andy talking on the phone with someone as the pasties tried to figure out what had happened. Whatever happened was probably due to the collar, but Alile never had this much trouble out of it when she put it on. She had minor headaches and a feeling of suffocation from the collar, but never so much that she passed out. Her sobs grew ever more violent. Her pastie notices that she was beginning to lose control of her calmness.

“Alile, it will be okay.” Her pastie states, floating near Alile and placing her transparent hand on her shoulder.

“He will be okay.”