"What is it that you see today Thomas? Have the vision changed any, do you still hear the same voices?"
Day in and day out it was the same exact question, Shelia or whatever the hell her name was, Tom really didn't bother to keep count after the fifth one. He'd gone through so many physicists that it really didn't matter anymore, they all thought he was crazy and they all gave him that same fucking annoying sympathetic look during every visit.
So, he felt no guilt whatsoever when he said what he did, "Of course Doctor…" His voice came out as a sickly-sweet croon, much more akin to a psycho than a patient in a therapist's office, but he knew it scared them. It made them all afraid when they heard him talking like that, just like at one point it had made him afraid to hear the overly calm voice of a doctor when being approached by a needle.
"They say many things, they say that you take anti-depressants, or you're supposed to at least. The time of your refills don't match the time in between they say, and during the night every night you think about those pills, every night that your husband comes in drunk as can be, you think about smashing his head in with that wonderful golden apple award and then overdosing. But…" Tom leaned forward, his smile was more like a shark now, a shark that had just tasted blood in the water, and he could see with delight how she scooted back in her chair.
She was spooked by his words, the subtle swallow as her skin of her neck bobbed up and then down like a cork in the lapping waves of water. No…she was terrified of him, she was terrified of just what he'd say next. It was always the same, and it always ended the same.
She was scared out of her wit's end, and yet she was trying to maintain the illusion of her control over him. "O..Oh?" Her voice gave a pathetic tremble to it, and it made him want to sneer at how pitiful she had become within mere seconds of him talking.
'It can't be helped, she is but…human.' The shadow on his shoulder whispered to him and only him, it was like a poison gas that only he could see.
Schizophrenia. Delusions. Hallucinations.
Even depression, they called this beast that followed him, in the beginning, they tried every medicine they could think of to drive the image away, instead, it only made things worse. Cramps, headaches, nosebleeds, blackouts, those were the only things that followed. After that, he learned to lie, "No I don't see the monster anymore, I feel fine." He had lied to the doctor's face, he had smiled like any other normal human being and lied about the whispers until they released him back into his parents' care.
"Oh yes, they say a lot about you…but they say a lot more about other people. Like a cop down the street, his gun didn't belong to him at first. In the beginning, it belonged to this newbie you see, and as a newbie, he was a newbie he died. He accidentally shot himself. His father didn't take it too well, his wife left after that, and the rest of his kids. In the end, it took him a couple of tries…but he eventually got it." The sick green color of her face made him internally cackle with glee, she looked so close to being sick, she looked like she was so close to vomiting. And briefly he wondered, would the puke look the same color as her face?
He did so want to see it, people like her tried so hard to maintain control over things that were way over their head. It was funny to see them claw and grasp at any sort of semblance of control, once they realized it they'd go to any sort of lengths to get it back. He wanted to see it, he wanted to see it, he wanted to see i-
'That is enough, push her too far and you won't be able to play again. I'll punish you…' Tom instantly sobered up, the faint twitch in his eye going away as he sat back up properly instead of hunched over.
Above all, he hated to be punished, he could still remember the last time. The loss of control in his limbs as they jerked and twitched around, having a tunnel vision as an odd taste of metal and half regurgitated food filled his mouth, it had run down the corners of his mouth and stained his bedsheets as he twisted and writhed around like each and every one of his nerves were connected to a live wire.
When the multitude of sensations had passed it was like learning to use his limbs for the first time, when he had tried to stand he had fallen right on his face. Luckily, his parents had been asleep or else they would have come in wondering what all the commotion was. No, it had just been him and the shadow, the shadow that controlled him.
It was the loss of control, something that just about every normal human hated to lose. Only he lost it in a very physical sense, but still, it served as a very painful reminder of what he was. He was still human, for now at least…
"I'm sorry…were we talking about something? I..I remember coming in to talk for our session, is everything alright Miss?" Tom asked purposefully stuttering his voice like some pathetic little wimp, it wasn't too hard to fake his confusion, and with his hawk-like eyes, he could see the tense lines in her face lessening, as she calmed down little by little. She was a complete idiot, a real tragedy to her profession, she liked to think that she was the best.
She was laughably the worst.
He what she'd write, he knew that her scribblings would account to something like, 'A relapse, a loss of self.' Along with whatever medicine he'd toss down the drain, the shadow hated the medicine.
The medicine hurt him, and only it was allowed to hurt Tom.