THE MADNESS
TIMELINE

The Grind is not merely an action; it is a sensory deprivation tank where only the objective exists. It manifests as a singular, blinding light in the distance, rendering the rest of the world in absolute, suffocating darkness. You see the destination clearly—that vision of rice and steak replacing the ramen noodles—but the distance never seems to close no matter how fast you run. Tunnel vision sets in, effectively cutting off the peripheral vision where friends and normalcy used to reside, forcing you to stay in your zone at the cost of everything else. You tell yourself that being raised from the bottom requires this level of isolation, that you had to get out, but the silence of the room begins to feel less like focus and more like a cage.

Time begins to distort in this state, creating a disorienting friction between reality and perception where days drag their feet but years fly past. The atmosphere around you changes physically; the air grows heavy, and the smell of the grind becomes distinct and stale, like air trapped in a room that hasn’t been opened in years. It is a stagnant scent that clings to your clothes, a reminder that while you are moving internally, your physical world has stopped. You repeat the mantra that you are home grown, that you built this wealth on your own with no label to save you, but the weight of that independence starts to crush your chest. You claim it is no sweat, but the exhaustion creates a fog that makes looking back impossible, even if you wanted to.

Then comes the Shadow, a presence that arrives not with fear, but with a seductive utility fueled by the voices of those who doubted. You scream word to my haters into the void, using their negativity to bring you up, unaware that you are inviting something darker to take the wheel. It appears as a spark in the eyes in the mirror, a voice that says I will succeed, but it sounds like an entity entirely separate from your own soul. At first, you claim you are blessed to be here, grateful for the progress, but as the Shadow leans closer, you realize you are no longer chasing the dream for freedom. You are chasing it because the Grind has become the only thing that makes you feel alive, and you ain't wasting no time listening to the warning signs.

The shift wasn't subtle; it was a violent acquisition of status where the currency was no longer money, but fear. He realized that if he put that on his arm or parked the rolls out front, he didn't need to speak to command the room; the objects screamed for him. He was about to live it up, not for the sake of pleasure, but to prove a terrifying point to a world that once looked through him like he was glass. He spent his racks with a nihilistic fury, realizing that buying their silence felt significantly more powerful than earning their applause. It was a lonely victory, but as he stood there, disconnected from the crowd, he demanded they see him on his own, independent of their validation or their rules.

As his influence grew, the warmth of his humanity began to burn off, leaving behind a hardened, obsidian shell that was impervious to connection. He felt himself going with the flames, allowing the destructive energy of the lifestyle to consume his old identity until only the ash remained. It was a conscious choice to open up the gateway to the entity whispering in the back of his mind, inviting the darkness to take the wheel. To maintain this level of control, he gave it all away—his empathy, his patience, and his softness—trading them for absolute dominance. The visuals of his life turned cold and sharp, mirroring a soul that had decided to burn bright rather than burn long.

The repetition became his mantra, a hypnotic rhythm pulsing through his veins: they might see my reign, over and over, until it was the only truth he knew. Yet, beneath the layers of bravado and the frantic need to spend it up, a starving child remained, whispering that deep down, he just wants some love. He buried that voice under layers of luxury and noise, terrified that if he stopped spending and moving, the silence would kill him. He claimed he didn't give a f--- about the consequences anymore; he only cared about the optics of his supremacy. He sat on a throne built of discarded emotions, ruling over a kingdom that was as expensive as it was empty.

The setting is a crowded room, perhaps a nightclub or a gala, vibrating with the energy of a hundred strangers, yet he stands perfectly still in an invisible glass coffin. The bass rattles his chest, but he feels nothing, a profound disconnection that convinces him it’s all in my head, a localized rot that is slowly making me dead to the world. He watches the joy and chaos of others like a ghost haunting his own life, present in body but absent in spirit. There are feelings inside that scream to be released, but they have calcified into a heavy stone in his chest. He stares at the lights and silently wish them all to die, desperation clawing at his throat, hoping that if the feelings vanish, the pain will follow.

He catches his reflection in a passing window or mirror and recoils at the stranger staring back, noticing eyes that are darker and void of the spark that once fueled the chase. He realizes with terrifying clarity that can’t run nor can I hide; the darkness is not an external pursuer but an internal resident that has locked the doors. Every exit he looks toward leads back into the labyrinth of his own psyche, leaving him so lost, I’m so blind to the way out. He navigates a world that has suddenly lost all its color and depth, reduced to a monochrome existence where success feels like ash. The sadness is there, buried deep, but he cannot shed a tear to release it.

The voices are relentless, a cacophony of his own internal monologue mixed with the ambient noise of the world. They repeat the cruelest narratives, whispering that he should quit, that he sounds like shit, confirming that my mind is what kills me dead inside. This verbal assault creates a feedback loop of negativity that deepens the numbness, convincing him that the void is safer than the attempt to feel. He stands amidst the celebration, a hollow shell wondering "what happened to me," while the music plays on for everyone else. He has become a monument to his own silence, dead long before his heart stops beating.

The first fracture in reality occurred when he retreated so deep into his own mind that the exit disappeared, forcing a complete severance from the music for months. He drifted through days that felt identical, screaming internally that you don’t know my pain because he lacked the language to explain that I’m goin insane. His actions in the physical world ceased to align with his intentions, creating a jarring dissonance where he felt so oh low despite the height of his career. He felt worthless, a vessel without value to anyone, doing things that didn't align with his character simply because the voices told him to. The isolation wasn't a choice anymore; it was a cage built by his own psyche.

Then came the smile, a facial expression that belonged to the entity rather than the man. It was not a smile of joy, but a dark, forced contortion of muscles that looked eerie and misplaced, a sign that the real him seem to have gone bye bye. It was too wide, stretching the skin in a way that signaled danger, making those around him react with instinctual caution. They could look right at him, but you don’t see me now; they only saw the mask of stability stretching thin over the chaos. It’s a pity now, the whispers said, watching the man dissolve while the monster learned to mimic his face.

Contrary to the chaos of the mind, the visual manifestation of this insanity was terrifyingly calm and organized. It was not a messy breakdown, but a cold restructuring of his reality into something clinical and sharp. The visuals of his life became precise, lacking the warmth of human error, as if he were operating on a different, colder frequency. I don’t even know why I let it get this far, he wondered, but the precision was addictive. He was no longer driving the car; he was tied up in the backseat, watching the crash happen in slow motion while the world applauded his composure.

The mind is a container, sealed tight like Pandora’s Box, designed to hold back a lifetime of dos and do nots that society forced upon him. For years, he felt tied up in my own life, ignoring the missed calls from reality because there was nobody at the home of his soul to answer them. He was lost in my own mind, drifting through time zones while his true self was left behind, screaming to be let out. The pressure built in the silence, a dangerous compression of guilt, fear, ego, and obsession pushing against the lock. It was not a question of if the box would break, but what would happen when the lid finally flew off.

When the seal finally broke, it wasn't a trickle; it was a flood of suppressed, manic energy that sent him flowin' round O town without brakes. He was bout to lose control, moving through the city with a reckless hunger, tryna see what's down because he could never ever calm down again. The night became a blur of pullin' chicks and pre-gaming, a desperate attempt to drown out the silence with noise and motion. Yet, even in the middle of the party, he would wake up feelin' like the moon without a sun, tossing and turning as the drama in my head caught up to him. He was rollin' rollin' rollin', losing all control, until he could see nothin' else now but the darkness in front of me.

This project functions as an infinity loop; the moment you reach the end, the chaos forces you back to the beginning to understand how the two versions of me came to be. The opening of the box was not a victory, but a surrender, a realization that he was trolling down a path of destruction and it was truly disgusting to witness. He realized he could not kill the Madness without killing himself, so he stopped fighting and made the most dangerous deal of his life. He looked into the abyss of his own reflection, accepted the shadow as his equal, and whispered, “I settled with you.”

This phase marks the seduction, the falling in love with the darkness and the dangerous ideas it whispers. He begins to romanticize his own suffering, believing that the pain is the only source of his creativity. To protect the fragile remnants of his true self, he constructs a Mask—not a physical object, but a curated persona designed to shield his vulnerability from a world that would exploit it. He wears it so tightly that he begins to forget the face underneath, speaking things I’m not supposed to show only when he is by myself, alone. Behind the mask, his mind is blown by the dissonance, but to the world, he is composed, hiding the fact that he is stuck on a static and failing a real test of character.

The Mask becomes the interface for all his interactions, a filter through which he projects strength and indifference while secretly wasting this time on relationships he knows are dead. He navigates a toxic cycle of love tangled in ego, where hard aches and a heartbreak become the only things that make him feel alive. He asks why do I keep on coming back when nothing’s getting better, stuck in a feelings game where he is perpetually falling and getting reattached to people who drain him. He knows he needs to leave you alone before my cover is blown, but the chaos is addictive. He screams why the f--- you do this to me, blaming others for the pain, when deep down he knows he is the one chasing you through the dark road, refusing to turn my light on and see the truth.

Ultimately, the Excerpts are just that—fragments of a whole that no longer exists. He offers the world pieces of himself, carefully selected to maintain the illusion of control, singing I don’t see what’s so wrong while his intuition screams the opposite. He claims he wants to build your trust, to sail my boat through your seven seas, but these are lies told to keep the distraction alive, because he can't leave you alone with his own thoughts. The tragedy of this chapter is that the protection works too well; he is safe from their judgment, but he is also exiled from their love. He admits I’m tired of all that, exhausted by the break up, then make up cycle, but he stays because the alternative—facing the silence—is too terrifying. He stands alone behind the barrier, so lost I’m so blind, waiting for the inevitable collapse.

The love for the music became a burden too heavy to bear, transforming from a passion into a crushing weight that mirrored the fracture in his personal life. He realized too late that we’re divided, split between the art he tried to master and the person he pushed away in the process. He admits I left you out of love, not out of malice, but because the obsession left no room for two, and now she ain't comin home. The realization struck that pieces of my soul created a hole, leaving him so vulnerable that the air itself felt like it was cutting his skin. He stood in the wreckage of his own making, taking back the pieces of my heart, knowing that the aura is off and the damage was irreversible.

The collapse did not happen on a stage or in a booth; it happened in the quiet, suffocating isolation of his bedroom. He sat there thinkin bout just me and you, attempting to drown the memories by drinkin bottle after bottle till its gone, but the pain still lingered on. He screamed into the void, don't let go of me, terrified because nobody wants to sleep alone when their own thoughts have turned into enemies. He was filled with sorrow and rage, begging for anything to ease my worried mind, but the silence was the only answer he received. The room became a tomb, and he was dyin all inside, watching his reality dissolve into the grey static of depression.

As the lights of his consciousness faded, forcing him into a coma of the spirit, he realized the love had finally flowed away. The overwhelm became physical, shutting down his systems, and the last thing he saw was not a saving grace, but the face of Madness staring back at him from the shadows. Madness whispered you don’t know me, mocking his pain as he slipped under. Yet, he calls it a "Beautiful Heartbreak" because in that final moment of surrender, he understood that we can kill this for good. He found a strange peace in the end, realizing that I know I must leave you—both the person and his old self—to survive what was coming next.

"The Below" is not merely a feeling; it is a physical location within the psyche, a cold, flooded void where the conscious mind has been locked away forever. He felt the structural failure first, the cracks beneath my skin widening until the floor gave way, leaving him fading fast, losing ground with no way to win. Now, he is pulled down deep where shadows cling, suspended in a suffocating, foggy expanse of endless black water. He realizes with absolute horror that nobody can help you down here because the entity above has took away your light and swallowed the key. He is falling apart, slipping under the heavy current of his own mind, holding for my life while the surface moves further away.

Above the surface, the body continues to move, driven by a psycho flow that mimics life but lacks the soul. The entity drives the car, signs the deals, and smiles for the cameras, seemingly caught in the life that Majestic built but can no longer touch. Down below, Majestic screams, but nobody can hear you, so he is forced to watch his own life play out on a screen he cannot control. He sees the Entity engaging in his old ways, repeating the toxic cycles, and realizes with a sick feeling that the monster is liking this feeling of me being. He tries to keep control of what I do, but he is merely a passenger now, flying through the sky of fame while his spirit rots in the basement.

The isolation is not empty; it is populated by the ghosts in the bedroom of his mind, memories that have distorted into tormentors hidden in the mist. Shadows speak in this place, their whispers blooming where the silence bled, wearing crowns in his hollow head. He tries to search for light, asking do I believe in a god, but the only answer is the echo of his own regret bouncing off the invisible walls. He is troubled sometimes, running from demons that are no longer chasing him but living inside him, realizing that the fire in my eyes has been extinguished by the darkness in my mind. The walls are closing in too tight, pressing against a will that is fading slow, leaving him caught in a bind he cannot escape.

In the end, the struggle shifts into a cold acceptance, a numbness where he decides to don't feel the love anymore just to survive the pain. He realizes that he and the Madness are enemies, yet they are inextricably caught in my heart, bound together in the same sinking vessel. The line between the man and the monster blurs until he can’t see nothin' else now but the darkness in front of me. The story ends not with a rescue, but with a question mark stamped on the final page. Did Majestic drown in the deep, or is he simply waiting in the dark, holding for my life until the cycle breaks?