Taking Route East, Not Calling "Home" ? Twenty One Pilots

TRENCH: 1.4: chapter fourteen

"Yes, of course." She said. Tyler smiled.

"There will be a mass breakout, Josh will be coming. A distraction, a distraction for all of you, and Josh will escort me out with his crew. The ultimate escape while the vultures are brought in for the infamous night of the year. Celebrations. You know as well as I do how it works. If anyone gets caught, it'll be over for all of us." Tyler explained further on. Paige listened intensely, nodding her head in a bobbling way.

"What a plan." She said, Tyler chuckled.

"It's annual." Tyler said, Paige made and O with her mouth in understanding.

"Go, before it's too late." Tyler said, Paige only laughed, making Tyler laugh harder.

"Seasonal." She corrected.

"God only knows what the date is anymore." Tyler said, throwing his hands up in the air as she walked out of the hallway.

"See ya later kid. I know who to find." Paige assured, walking up the stairs with dignity. A purpose to do so instead of wallowing in her own pain like months before. She had come an extremely long way. Tyler was proud of his friend, but nostalgia had began to settle in his stomach that morning. Continuing to eat him up as it did so.

The memories of his mother, singing him to him before bed started to creep in. Something he needed when he was scared, or when closure was coming in, or something was about to happen. His brother when they would go into their room, pretending they lived in a tree or jumped on their beds when their parents were mining after hours. Making up creatures and using paper to make cards out of them and trying to make them shiny with markers they had gotten for Christmas so many years ago. 

The scent of candle wax and the way Tyler saw his siblings grow before him had overcome his thoughts. Happy memories of their parents reading to them, teaching them songs. Tyler coloring with the shades of grey in his sister's crayon box. Tossing stones in and out of waterways near the borders children didn't understand not to go to but went anyway out of interest and fearlessness. It was these feeling that presented the innocence Tyler missed so dearly.

Now, he was older. As he grew he had to deal with much more than coloring and jumping on beds with his brother. He had to raise his siblings until he had to start working. Stress had decided to rule his life, continuing to until the very day he was looking back upon all of his past doings, wrongs and rights, learning how to grow up and live with it all. He still considered himself young, living through the past was something he had done forever, and was the last thing he needed to let go.

Through this growing, Nico had started to pay real attention to Tyler. Tyler called his stressed Blurryface, but he learned as he grew that it was indeed Nico. That was his name. The cell he sat in was shared with Blurryface, and they would just stay like that until the very end. Neither winning or loosing. The cell, the man, and the boy all became prisoners, prisoners of the darkness that Dema never intended but feared, lying to its own denial of its' citizens and of itself. The construct it made out of bias and fear years and years before was what was killing everyone inside, whether they left or not, they were stuck. Forever affected and probed by its' inhumane standards.

To leave Dema would to be leaving the only know construct of society. To join another, to leave. It was a worldwide cult that was accepted as normal, to those who found it abnormal and immoral were considered horrible. Considered insane, so they left and became banditos. Healing themselves and going to beyond and leading happy lives. Becoming real, unlike the nine bishops that ruled the society. Ruled a world they had no say in ruling but for lack of self control.

 To leave Dema was to fall, for Tyler to leave it would be to accept that the past couldn't be changed. Anyone can change from the past, but not change it itself. This was something Tyler couldn't hold onto very easily, he tried to comprehend it. 

But to be falling would be too risky, wouldn't it? To be falling would be to be flying.

Flying would be to be in al little control of oneself, being free. He'd be free from it all, just to accept to grow up. The fear of growing up was horrid, and the imaginary neighborhoods they implemented into his mind that washed away as he grew was something he could never forgive the city for. Lying. Fibs. Horrid concepts that were false to brainwash the kids of the city. Tyler learned over the two weeks that he couldn't stay still anymore. He started pacing, walking in lines then circles then in triplets. He had to fly, he had to fly from the fire into the cold. He needed to go back to Trench.

Go back to Trench even if he was the only one left.

A rabbit falling from the sky, not wanting to grow up and screaming but accepting his past accordingly to leave. That's what he was. Nico was a dog trying to poison him and kill him, only the murder would lead to ruling and not death. But both are synonymous in Tyler's mind.

When Paige came to set him free, there was only one more day to wait until the mass breakout. That night Tyler walked once more around the city of his childhood, saying hello to old friends and saying his final goodbyes in ways they couldn't understand were goodbyes. When he returned to his apartment he took out his final rucksack, putting on his black shirt, yellow hoodie, green Trench coat with the tape already assembled, and his shoes. Sitting in the dark waiting.

Waiting was the slow perseverance of time that lead to an even of previous notability.