There wasn't much to it. It was just a room. A room with some light source high above us. We sat in chairs.
He didn't know why he was here. His father had dropped him off earlier. I felt sympathetic for him in this respect, but nothing else. Not yet.
Of course, he didn't want to be there. Who would? Uncertain for hours upon hours of what was going to happen in the end. Of how one would emerge, if at all? I couldn't blame him.
But nothing else. Not yet.
You see, I didn't know him. At all, up until that day. I mean, I've heard of him… vaguely. I don't usually bother myself with things that don't pertain to me, but this time… I don't know why I told his father that I would talk to him. Perhaps because his father is well respected, maybe I just wanted that honor.
But I've been in this room with him for the last three hours. He doesn't suspect why he's really here. He doesn't understand the true depth of it. No one really does at first, but I fear that if he comes to realize what he's doing here, he may become biased.
I am not biased against him. I'm not biased against any of the people who come to see me. I just talk to them. I bury my way into the depths of their consciousness. In essence, I become part of them. I can understand everything they do, feel everything they do. I think that's where this went wrong.
We began talking, and it's all been going downhill from there. No, this boy is very interesting… but I feel myself giving way… I feel myself trying to understand what he's telling me, I feel myself starting to accept it as truth. This cannot be.
He's telling me about his home life, now. He's telling me that his father never gives his kids the time of day…. Sometimes he doesn't even recognize his own kids. His sister is abusive. He lifts his shirt partially to reveal several ugly bruises on his abdomen. I cringe at the images that flash through his mind of how he received each of them.
He tells me that he didn't get all of the bruises from his sister. He says that some of them were from the kids at skool. He relates to me the story of his elementary skool years. It's horrible, the images he finds buried deep in his subconscious. He's remembering all this abuse, all this horrific mistreatment, and relating it all to me with a perfectly calm demeanor.
And no one's ever around to stop it, He says. Not that anyone would care to. If he ever has the slightest chance to be helped out of a situation, the one person there that could help him just laughs… occasionally, he'll find someone who seems genuinely remorseful about not helping the child. But it's not often.
And the worst part, he says, is that it's not even people he knows. Most of the people in this town are completely oblivious to the fact that it's abuse against someone they don't even really know. I see these images, there's blood on the concrete. Always on the concrete.
He says he wishes someone would help him… either that, or that everything would just go away. But since the former is more plausible, I say, let's expand on that.
He denies that. He tells me that lately, the latter is very much plausible, even likely.
Those Aliens I was telling you about… They're coming to destroy Earth.
How can you be sure?
I've been fighting the Invasion since I was in fourth grade, he says. But no one ever wants to listen. No one seems to care that their doom is immanent. But, he says, if he gets sent to a mental hospital, there would be no stopping it. He asks me if I would help him avoid that. He wants me to keep him safe from the certification that he knows is on the way. He tells me his father has been trying to get him put away for a long time, almost since he was in middle skool. I see late night fights and an enclosing space, a padded cell.
I tell him that there isn't much I can do in that respect. I tell him that I'm just one person, who his father wanted him to talk things out with.
He laughs at this. He actually laughs. That was funny, he said. For a moment, I thought you were actually going to be upfront about it. All the others were.
The other what?
Psychiatrists.
I shift uneasily. There's no going back, now.
What makes you think I'm trying to condemn you? We're just talking.
I'm not crazy, and I'm not stupid. I know you're evaluating me. Just like the others did. I know that dad hired you as the most cold-hearted professional there is. It's just another attempt to get rid of me. He thinks I'm a waste.
There are more memories of fights. I can see his father's face, pure rage at the boy… for his actions or words, I do not know, but I can hear him. He's telling his some that he's a waste of space. That he was disappointed that something better didn't come out of him. He was disgusted with his son.
For what, the boy asks. For doing what I love? And he stormed off.
I lower my head as he sits across from me. I can't do this to this child.
We both stand up, and I nod. I follow him to the door before turning off the light and heading back into the cheery lobby of the offices, much in contrast to the dark cell we just came out of. Why they built it like that still baffles me.
His father and sister are sitting there, waiting for my verdict. I shake my head, resting a hand on the boy's shoulder.
The man stands up, and embraces his son, going on and on about how happy he was that his son was not insane. I can see the boy's face, a disgruntled expression of the same disgust from his memories. I can feel everything he feels. And he knows that, as soon as his father has an excuse, he'll have his son see another specialist. He knows that, next time, he may not be as lucky.
The man pays the attendant and walks out with his daughter, leaving his son behind to pick up his things before leaving.
I come up behind him and he mutters thanks before starting off. I stop him and thank him for the endless hours he spends fighting the boy in his memories, for never giving up; for protection.
A moment passes and I let him go back to his father's car.
I can almost see a smile.
A very sleep-deprived one shot by Tibatha Dunncan. Surprised you made it this far, really. 0_o