A/N: This is highly experimental so I have no idea if this will actually be good or not. Happy Halloween either way.
WithINsanity
By: Couragefan09
Part One: the Dog and the Doctor
"COURAGE! HELP ME!"
"Muriel!" The tiny dog screamed as he shot up from his slumber.
He jumped off the bed, his eyes scanning the room for danger. Everything was quiet as far as he could tell. There was no sign of an intruder or even Muriel in distress.
He turned around. Neither of his owners were in the bed. How could that be? He had heard Muriel scream right in his ear. She couldn't have been attacked downstairs, could she? Her screams would have sounded so much quieter...
There was no sign of a struggle, in fact the bed looked as if nobody had been sleeping in it at all. Had Muriel made the bed while he was asleep? That didn't seem very likely. He usually woke up at the smallest sounds and Muriel making the bed would have certainly woken him up.
He made his way over to the door. The entire house was eerily quiet. Normally you could hear Muriel in her squeaky chair or she'd be making noise in the kitchen, Eustace was rarely quiet himself unless he was reading his newspaper.
He stopped at the edge of the hallway. There was nothing but silence and it made his fur stand on edge. What had happened to Muriel? Why had she screamed? Nothing seemed out of place and there didn't seem to be any intruders around.
Wait...
Something was out of place. On the wall to his right, there was what looked like claw marks etched into the wood. He drew in closer and gasped. It wasn't claw marks, it was writing.
RING THE BELL
What was this? Ring a bell? What sort of bell was he supposed to ring? The farm didn't have a doorbell and as far as he knew there were no other bells around.+
He shook his head. He needed to find Muriel, whatever this was, it didn't matter. Hopefully who or what had taken Muriel hadn't left this message. He was admittedly not very good with riddles and besides that, what good would ringing a bell do?
He went downstairs and just as he suspected his owners were nowhere to be found. The living room was deserted and the kitchen looked as though it had never been touched. He checked the basement just to be certain and it too was completely abandoned.
He found that same message again, this time drawn in the dirt on the basement floor. He shook his head at the sight of it. Something about the words made him feel weird. It made him think of...of...something? Something he was supposed to know? He couldn't remember what it was and part of him didn't even want to know. Perhaps this was the doing of whatever had taken Muriel?
He went back upstairs and decided to go check outside as well. There wasn't much of a point in doing so as he knew it was unlikely that they'd be out there but it was worth a shot either way. Maybe he'd find more clues as to what had happened to them or maybe he'd find even more of those strange scribblings.
He opened the front door and was treated to an eerie silence. Nowhere wasn't exactly a loud place but this new found silence was making him feel even more uneasy. The only that could be heard was a light breeze blowing quietly across the farm, there was also...
He cringed. What was that? He could hear something and it was unlike anything he had ever heard before. It was a low rumble, the sound of something terrible moving across the flat landscape of Nowhere.
He gazed off into the horizon and into the general direction of the sound. It was far away, whatever it was, but he could still just barely make out something moving around out there. He fought back the urge to scream. Something terrible was coming! He had to find Muriel before it was too late!
He tore off in the direction of the chick coop, calling out Muriel's name. The coop was about as abandoned as everything else. He nearly ripped his ears off in frustration. A sense of panic was building inside him and he didn't know why. What was on the horizon? Why did it fill him with so much dread?
He made his way back over to the farm, this time checking behind the house. Eustace's truck was still around, confirming that they hadn't left. Only the barn remained unchecked now and its door was hanging open as if inviting him in. Something about it made him uneasy but everything was making him feel uneasy right now.
His brain was screaming at him not to go inside but he knew he had to do it for Muriel's sake. His legs did not want to work but he pushed himself forward until he finally made it over to the door.
'Don't look! Don't look!' The tiny voice in his head was saying but he ignored it and looked in anyway.
The sight that greeted him caused him to scream. He slammed the barn door closed and clutched his chest, gasping for breath. No, no, no! This didn't matter! He just needed to find Muriel and...
His mind was reeling. He couldn't get himself to calm down. The words had been there too, this time written in bright red paint, or at least in what he hoped was paint. They had covered the entire back wall of the barn. They stuck out in his mind as though he had just stared into a bright light.
IT IS TIME
RING THE BELL
Why? Why did those messages elicit such a horrified reaction out of him? Just knowing that they were there made him want to curl up in a ball and hide. But why? He felt like he should know what they meant but he did not. Nowhere didn't have any bells, it didn't have any churches, clock towers, or anything.
He suddenly felt like he was being watched...
He gazed over at the house and caught the silhouette of a person moving across one of the second story windows. Whoever it was, they had been watching him.
"Muriel? Muriel!" He cried out.
He hadn't check any of the rooms upstairs! Maybe that was her!
He raced back over to the house, still calling out Muriel's name. So long as he could just find her, everything would be alright...
…...
Personal Log
Matthew is one of my more interesting patients. He was brought to me after a suicide attempt and I've been keeping him under my wing ever since. A teacher found him about to jump off the school roof and she took him to me as a precaution. She did not want him to go back to his father and thankfully there is enough evidence of abuse for me to reasonably justify keeping him away from that man. This system often works far too slow and children are often given back to dangerous parents before anything can be done for them. Thankfully everything worked out this time around and the boy was allowed to be kept under the protection of this hospital while I treat him.
That old drunkard of a man did not take kindly to finding out what had happened to his son. We were almost reduced to blows over it. The old fool only cares that he could potentially be prosecuted for what he did to the boy. I'd hate to think what would happen if he ever got to take that child home again.
I digress, this is about Matthew and not his deadbeat dad. The child was all but neurotic when he was first brought to me. He is essentially mute outside of a few basic words and sentences. When you can get him to speak he talks with such a nervous stutter that I almost want to declare it a nervous tic. He is often reduced to babbling out nonsense whenever he is scared or thinks someone is angry with him. unfortunately his condition has only deteriorated further since his second suicide attempt.
Certain laws allow the old fool to visit the boy until he can be relinquished as guardian. Removing him of this right is of course yet another tedious and slow process that cannot be bypassed. He was given the right to visit the boy but only under the supervision of a nurse or doctor.
I was not present at the time but he apparently became violent and had to be escorted out. Matthew seemed fine at the time but he was later found trying to harm himself with whatever objects he could get his hands on.
After this second suicide attempt he was placed within a safe room and left under constant surveillance. Despite my best efforts his mental condition deteriorated to a point of where he could barely even function anymore. He began to think of himself as a dog. He wouldn't eat any food unless it was given to him in a dog bowel and he stopped responding to external stimuli unless he was spoken to by the name he has given himself. 'Courage', as he is now called.
I am rarely anywhere but beside the boy now. If anyone should be monitoring him, it is me. I've forsaken most comforts for his sake but I don't really mind. I rarely see my home anymore but marriage has never a thing of mine so I don't exactly have anyone waiting for me.
The child has seemingly retreated into his own fantasy world. You see this sort of thing a lot in my line of work but I have never seen someone retreat so deeply into their own delusion. I cannot imagine what sort of abuse this boy has endured to have broken his mind so completely. He is not stupid by any stretch of the imagination as he was one of the highest graded children in his class but he has been stunted by years of abuse. I fear he may never be able to lead a normal life.
I've learned quite a bit about his fantasy world when talking to him. It is a literal 'middle of nowhere.'. He is a dog and lives with his owners in this place. They are often attacked by warped people and monsters and nearly every one of them resembles something in his life. An encounter with an evil snowman is most likely his warped version of having to walk to school with no clothing provided for cold weather.
He is often hurt or nearly killed in many of his misadventures. I believe this plays into his suicidal desires and I have had to intervene on several occasions to make sure he doesn't die within his own delusion. The psychological effects of him dying within his own fantasy could be catastrophic. I run the risk of damaging him even further by helping his delusion along but I'd rather do that than risk loosing him all together.
Of the two most prominent figures in his delusion, Eustace is the most fascinating. He appears to embody the child's father but while he is cruel and vindictive to 'Courage' he is never outright abusive. He is willing to kick him out of the house or even scare him but he has never physically harmed the boy, unless of course the plot of his current delusion demands for it. The man is even somewhat of a sympathetic figure having come from an unhappy childhood and a lifetime of failure. This seems like an unusual thing for Matthew to do to the embodiment of his father but perhaps he is trying to impose upon him the same sort of unhappiness he himself had to deal with as a form of punishment.
Muriel is also an interesting figure but she does not seem to resemble anyone in Matthew's life. She seems to be the embodiment of what he thinks a perfect mother or grandmother would be. He has obviously lacked a motherly figure in his life and so he is trying to make up for it with the perfect motherly figure to protect in his delusions. While she is extremely kind, she is ridiculously absent minded and very rarely notices what 'Courage' really wants. This may embody his frustrations with good-hearted people not helping him even when it was obvious that something was wrong. Perhaps both her and Eustace's absentmindedness embody the uncaring and unhelpfulness of his parents.
Matthew has been slipping farther and farther into his unreality despite my best efforts. My progress with him was unfortunately destroyed when that wretched man managed to wrestle another visit with the boy. We weren't interested in letting him see the child again but we were threatened with legal action and had no choice in the end.
He tried to strangle him. The supervising nurse stopped him almost immediately but the damage had already been done. He said he was trying to destroy 'evidence' but now the only thing he managed to do was guarantee that he will be tried for attempted murder.
Mathew became catatonic almost immediately after the attack and shortly afterwords he slipped into a coma. He has drifted off into his fantasy land completely and getting him out may very well be impossible now. I've had several months to work with him in this state and I am no closer to waking him up.
His fathers actions have sped the process up and caused him to lose his guardianship much faster then expected. The boy is now technically an orphan. I was hoping to ease him out of his delusion as slowly as possible but complications have arisen. My superiors want to pull the plug on the boy as he is costing the hospital a lot of money. They know that if he wakes up he will be nothing more than an orphan living off the system, an orphan was severe psychological issues who will probably need support his entire life. I've offered to become his guardian and adoptive parent but they are convinced he will never wake up again.
I have to hurry, speeding up this process is dangerous but I have no other choice. A more forceful method will be needed. I doubt it will be painless but it will be worth it in the end. If I can just save this child's life, nothing else will matter. It is time for Courage to ring the bell and wake Matthew up. Time is running thin.
End Of Chapter