Who: Reginald and Rhett. Where: Living room. When: Around 4 PM.
For the record, Rhett couldn't give a single fuck that he didn't get rewarded. What bothered him was Their reasoning--Their goddamn fucking lies and bullshit. It didn't make any fucking sense. He'd done everything they wanted, albeit with some resistance occasionally, but so had the others. If jumping when They said jump wasn't enough, then what fucking was?
Lowliest of criminals. A parasite. Rhett had already come to terms with that a long time ago. No, what set him on edge was himself. Is that what They wanted him to change? He was just supposed to let everyone else in and trust them? And then one day they were going to be pit against each other, and he'd just have to do what he'd been preparing himself for this past week anyway. And if he didn't then he'd be punished? What would they do? Lock him in some room until he broke?
Rhett had been distressed and manic since he saw the message, and immediately took it out on the walls in his room. He put all his restless energy and anxiety in every punch, trying to splay his indescribable words and feelings into the very building itself.
By the end of it his hands were throbbing, his knuckles red and bruising into a deep purple, and the skin broken and bleeding as well. He was slumped against the bed on the floor, sobbing pathetically and crying into his palms.
He had nowhere to go. Rhett was now fully realizing he was absolutely, and completely trapped.
All his walls were up, yet he felt like all eyes were on him, boring past his meager defenses. It was like he could feel Their prying eyes, and the others' gazes and they all saw right through him for what he really was. They were judging and condemning him to this suffocating box where even he couldn't judge whether his free actions would simply fuck him over a day later.
Damned if you do, damned if you don't. Except either option threatened to ruin him entirely and shatter the life he'd worked so tirelessly to build.
For a very long time, Rhett simply sat there, going through moments of peace mixed with moments of terror and tears. He felt like a child again, locked up in the bathroom with no windows and no way out. The sound of steps brought both fear and hope into his heart, but mostly the former. He thought he'd gotten past that, and yet here he was again...
Eventually he dragged himself back onto the computer and numbly responded to a few of the comments. What did it matter if he did or didn't? At the moment, it gave him something else to think about at least. His immediate thought after that was to go outside for a walk, but when he dragged himself out the front door, he barely got ten feet before he simply stood there, occasionally staring up at the cloudy sky. Even with the on and off rain, he stood still, not caring how drenched his clothes get. They had laundry machines in the house. For now, anyway.
Within those few hours outside, Rhett ran the same thoughts over and over in his head until he was so tired and emotionally drained, they no longer meant anything to him. He slumped back into the house and crumpled into one of the sofas in the living room, uncaring that he was getting rain all over the floor and furniture. The pain in his hands had mostly subsided, but his knuckles were mildly swollen and certain fingers were skinned.
The dread continued to loom over him, but what was he supposed to do? Open up to one of the others? Reveal his transgression and ask for forgiveness from a complete stranger? Yeah, sure.