Maybe it's just in comparison to the success of 'Desert Rain', but I seem to be getting very few reviews for this, and truth be told it's slightly worrying. Is it that bad? I mean...I know people are reading this from the number of hits, but I don't seem to be getting any feedback...and I kind of need it, you know. It's somewhat disheartening to write a story and only get a few people commenting on it. If you like it, please tell me. If you don't, please tell me why and I'll do my best to improve it.

Now for the warnings: Er...graphic hallucination, use of drugs, swearing, general poor writing quality. Oh, and all welcome the return of insane!Chazz! (cheer)

Yami's Chan: What, Chazz actually staying in there until he's 18? Pfft. Since when did Chazz ever do what he's told?

Coco Gash Jirachi: Hello again! Well, angst is okay provided it's not whiny, so I'll try my best to avoid that.

ac-the-brain-supreme: Yep, his name is Charles...but he hates that, so Chazz it is! And as for Adams...coughcough...you'llhavetowaitandsee.

ZomBRI: You don't trust him, you say? You shall have to see if you're right...and thank you for the Desert Rain comment! I think Necromancer!Jun and his decorating tips were the most fun to write in that. He's also insane, but in a funnier way.

Littlest-Angel: Aw, I love Chazz, he's so cute (also pats Chazz's head) Owchies! Damn spikes...haven't heard of those songs, but I'm listening to Coldplay's 'The scientist' at the moment. So sad! Makes me wanna cry...

I don't own Yugioh GX. Is it really necessary for me to repeat that every chapter?


Delirium, part three (pandemonium)

"No!" I shout, throat red raw from screaming. "Let me go! Don't you see it?! It's going to kill me! Let me go!"

"Someone this thin shouldn't be this strong as well..." One guard mutters, not sure which. There's five of them - one to each limb and another to hold my head still as I twist and flail for all I'm worth. Above me, the nightmarish shadow-creature gives a banshee-like wail which rattles my eardrums and drowns out my own shrieks of terror.

"Dr Adams! Please hurry!" Another guard calls as I arch my back impossibly and fight against their hands. Hands, hands, so many hands, with fingers that grip and bruise and scorch my bare flesh.

"Nooo! It burns! It burns!" I cry desperately. Flames rise and fall and dance around my blackening bedsheets, and roar so loudly in my ears that they start to bleed, trickling red onto the pillow. "Please, make it stop, make it stop!" I plead, looking wildly at the security. Oh God, they're covered in maggots, white and writhing maggots everywhere, falling onto the bed, inching their way onto my limbs... "Help! No! Get them off, get them off, please get them off me!"

"I'm here." Hurried footsteps into the room, which crawls with shiny black ants clicking their pincers all at once, so loud, so fucking loud...why isn't he affected by them? It's like he can't hear them, or see them, or feel them crawling over his shoes...

"Hold still, Chazz, it'll be over soon..." He starts filling a needle and - he's covered in blood! His white coat is stained with crimson and - oh my God, he's going to kill me, he's going to kill me, he's going to - fuck, it's so...damn...noisy! All at once, the creature wailing and the flames roaring and the maggots moving and the ants clicking and me calling for help - someone, anyone help me! Why won't you help me?!

He leans over me and - his face is rotting away, I can see his skull, venom oozing from his teeth - injects the needle into my neck. I can feel it spreading throughout my veins, little haloperidol knights in shiny armour fighting off the bad, bad, bad cells with little swords and shields and cries of 'huzzah!' and oh, I'm getting tired now...

"Chazz?" Adams asks after I've gone completely still. "Can you still hear me? Chazz?"

"My ears are bleeding." I whisper, then everything - the insects, the flames, the ceiling-monster, the guards, Adams - is drowned out by beautiful, glorious colour. The deepest blues, the richest reds, the most vibrant greens, the brightest yellows, the softest oranges...it all washes over me one after the other, even when I close my eyes. It soothes and warms and heals and sings to me until I drift asleep with a contented sigh.


I'm starting to wonder how I could have ever mistook this place for heaven.

I'm sick of the sight of this room. There's nothing to do but think. I think and I eat and I think and I hallucinate and I get injected with something and then I can't move so I think again and I fall asleep and then I wake up and I think some more and I eat and I think and I talk to Adams and I think and I scream for a bit and I get injected again and I think until I fall asleep and when I wake up the routine starts all over again but there's just so much thinking!

...Phew. Breathe, Chazz, breathe.

Dr Adams visits me sometimes...I don't know how often...I don't have a watch. There's no clock on the wall, no window, no contact with the outside world, nothing. What time is it now? I don't know. Could be morning. Or night. Or anything in between.

Sometimes other doctors visit me as well; nameless, faceless, blue eyes-less, if that makes sense. They come and they ask me questions: how old are you? 15, I think. Blood type? Hell if I know. Occupation? You tell me. No really, tell me, I don't know. How much sleep do you get? Enough. How often do you eat? Enough. How often do you defecate? Er, I'd rather not talk about that. Is there a history of mental illness in your family? Other than my two psycho brothers, you mean? No idea. Is there a history of violence in your family? Dunno, they're all dead. Then again, maybe that answers your question. Now go away please. Yes, that means you. Go away. Now. All of you. Go away already!

"Chazz." Says a soft voice.

...And the room is empty.

"Water." I gasp, and then I hear fading footsteps. My mouth feels so damn dry...not just dehydrated, but utterly barren, like I've swallowed sand. My throat screams for moisture and burns with every ragged breath. The footsteps hurry back.

"Sit up, Chazz." A hand, cool through the flimsy material of my shirt, supports me as I struggle to shift myself up; twice my arms tremble and give way. Rounded plastic presses against chapped lips, which open and gratefully accept the flow of cold, soothing water; it might just be the best thing I've ever tasted.

"Perhaps we should cut back on the medication..." Murmurs the calm, patient, blue voice. "You're hallucinations don't seem to be lessening...and it's already been three days..."

Three days? It feels like longer. But then, time passes slowly when you have nothing to do. I can't wait until this freakin' isolation thing ends, then I'll have something to do to pass the time - I mean, it's only been three days and already I'm slowly dying of boredom. What will the next three years be like?

"Drugs alone won't help you. Your delirium probably relates to a deeper mental disturbance. As such, I propose we tackle the problem face-on."

Propose? Who is he proposing to? There's no-one here. Who is he talking to anyway? More to himself than anyone else...heehee, the good doctor's gone crazy, heeheehee...

"Chazz, I would like to talk about your brothers."

I freeze: the room is cloaked in sparkling ice, like dusted diamonds, the floor blanketed in thick white snow. Icicles hang precariously from the crystallised ceiling and over my frosted bed, threatening to fall. It'd be beautiful if it wasn't so damn cold. Regardless, I fold my arms and scowl at Adams.

"Well I would not like to talk about my brothers, so I guess that subject is dropped, isn't it?"

"Now Chazz," Adams answers patiently. "Your brothers obviously have something to do with your psychological state. It's in your best interests to discuss this."

"No, it's in my best interests to pretend I'm an only child." I turn my head away with a swish of black spikes. "I don't want to talk about it."

"Chazz..." He says in the warning tone parents use on their children; it only serves to annoy me more.

"Adams..." I mimic in the same voice.

He isn't fazed. "Tell me about your brother, Slade."

"No." I snap in reply.

"Then tell me why you won't answer." A serene smile quirks his lips. "Are you afraid?"

"What?!" I'm not afraid. Why would I be afraid? There's nothing to be afraid of here. I'm not afraid.

"You are," He presses coolly. "I see past the bravado, Chazz. You won't address the issue because you're afraid."

"I am not!" I snap. I'm not afraid, I'm not - I'm not! Why are you looking at me like that? Stop looking at me like that!

"Afraid of what, though?" He continues, now ignoring me. "Of the outcome? Of the memories? Of the emotions?"

"Shut up! I fear nothing! You hear me?! Nothing!" I yell hoarsely.

"You fear them." He points out. "Your brothers frighten you, and that makes you feel weak, which in turn makes you angry at others and at yourself - like now."

"No! I'm not...I'm not...just shut the hell up!" I can feel myself growing lightheaded; the room sways slightly before me. What's happening? Adams hasn't injected me with anything, so I shouldn't be feeling so...so...tired...

"What's going on? What...what did you do to me...?" I gasp, gripping the bedsheets as my eyes struggle to keep focus on the world. My gaze falls on the empty cup on the bedside table, once filled with water...wait a minute...the water...the water! "My drink...what the hell did you put in my drink...?!"

"It's for your own good, Chazz." His voice is growing distant and echoed again, like I'm hearing it from down a tunnel. "Now let's try this again...tell me about your brother Slade."

Slade. Sladen. Sladen Waden Kaden Faden...Jaden! Yes, that was it. His smile is too loud. It hurts my ears. I'm going to tell him to turn down the volume, and then I'll ask him to marry me. Oh wait, that's Alexis. Her eyes are pretty. They remind me of happyshinysparklylovelythings.

"Chazz." The sound of a pen tapping against a notebook alerts me to the present once more. Present. Christmas present. I got socks for Christmas with flashing reindeers on them. From Jaden, of course.

...He buys me really weird presents sometimes.

"Are you planning to tell me or not?" Adams queries politely. I blink: question? What question? Oh wait, Slade, that was it:

Slade...with the name comes memories of an authoritarian figure, forever lurking in the background, watching, watching, always goddamn watching...he's never raised a hand to me - but then, he doesn't need to. His words are far sharper than any blade and one sentence could hurt me more than a lifetime of bruises. When he's angry his words cut into me. But when he's calm and collected, and his voice is dangerously soft...his words can rip me to pieces.

"Slade, he...he..." My voice is slurred and drunken. "He doesn't hit me," I confirm finally; Adams nods and writes it down. "But sometimes...he says things..."

"What sort of things?"

"Bad things." I whisper, bringing my knees up to my chest and rocking back and forth slightly for comfort, just like Mom used to rock me when I was a tiny Chazz. "Nasty, hurtful, spiteful things. Better to cover your ears and not hear it. Hurts to hear it."

"And does he do anything else?" I shake my head; Adams writes something in his neat little book in scrawly spider handwriting. "Now tell me about Jagger."

Jagger...whilst he doesn't have the delightful way with words that Slade has, he can sure pack a mean punch. Slade says the words, and Jagger enforces those words with fists. He doesn't hit especially hard...but he knows exactly where to hit that'll cause the most pain with the least evidence. Like my collarbone. The bruising is gone, but it still hurts like hell.

"Hm? Why did you do that?" Adams frowns.

"Do what?"

"Your hand drifted to your collarbone. Care to explain why?"

I look at my right hand: sure enough, it's resting just beneath my throat. Traitorous body parts...

"Jagger...is there to remind me of my place." I say hollowly, not telling him about my collarbone, since there's no bruise there to prove my story. "He hits me sometimes...all the time...when he can find the time...I suppose actions speaks louder than words to him, eh?" I laugh humorlessly, and don't stop. Laugh, laugh, always laugh because there's nothing else you can do...Mom, come back, I miss you...I miss you so much...

"You have very little bruising." Adams points out. I laugh again. "Chazz?"

"Everyone says that." I try to stifle my laughter, but it just comes out louder and more hysterical. "Everyone! But they don't know, you see. Jagger knows how to hurt me without leaving marks. He could knock me out and only leave a shallow cut. Come to think of it...he's done that quite a few times." I add as an afterthought.

"And you believe this to be completely true?"

"Yes, yes, it is true, don't you realise that?!" I snap suddenly, agitation flaring through me. Why doesn't anyone believe me?! "They do it, they've always done it, and they will continue to do it until either I'm dead, or they're dead. And I have no intention of dying just yet."

"I...see. Well Mr Princeton, I've found out everything I need to know, for now." He tucks his notepad away safely inside his jacket and produces a needle instead. "Now how about you just go to sleep and have nice, happy dreams, hm?"

"Happy dreams...that sounds like a good idea..." I reflect, wondering why I didn't think of that before. Adams leans over me, and I feel cold fingers grasp loosely around my wrist before there's a sharp sensation, and then...fatigue. My eyelids grow too heavy to keep open, so I let them snap shut, head dropping forwards onto my chest and body going slumping against the headboard.

"I bid you adieu, Mr Princeton." He utters softly, and I feel cold fingers run through my raven locks once before they retract. The last thing I hear is footsteps leaving the room before weak weariness gets the better of me - time to go to the land of happy dreams...


"Truth serum," I accuse Adams later, fists clenched and trembling with rage. "You spiked my drink with truth serum."

"I did." He confirms calmly. He doesn't - he isn't - well why isn't he apologising?!

"Why." I snap. It isn't a question.

"It was a necessary procedure." He shrugs, and my anger spikes up again. "I needed the information, and I needed the truth. This was the most effective method."

"You fucking drugged me!" I scream hoarsely. "You can't just drug up people whenever you feel like it!"

"I think you'll find I can. You forget: this is Pandora. The rules of outside society don't apply here." Adams relaxes back into his chair, that goddamn chair, the one he always sits in. "Besides, I medicate you all the time. You should have grown used to it by now."

"That's different!" I growl, fingers curled so tightly into fists that my nails cut crescent-shaped marks into my palm. Then suddenly, a thought strikes me:

Truth serum. He used truth serum on me.

So whatever I said...it must have been the truth.

"What I said when I was drugged," I say with a renewed sense of energy and eagerness. "I told you about my brothers, what they do to me. So now you know I'm not lying about them!"

"I know what you perceive to be true, yes." Adams replies. My eyes narrow at the statement.

"'Perceive to be true'? What do you mean? That's not the same thing as truth."

"No, it's not." Adams agrees. "I'm inclined to believe you, Chazz, but you cannot alter the fact that there is not a single mark on your body."

"Because of Jagger! He can hit me without leaving bruising!" I argue - no, no, this can't be happening again, I'm telling the truth! Why won't they listen to me?! "I told you that!"

"Chazz, it can't be done. No-one can inflict damage without leaving some sort of injury." Adams observes me with quizzical blue eyes. "So what you're saying cannot be true."

"But I was under the effects of truth serum. That means I couldn't have been lying." I point out through gritted teeth. "How do you explain that?"

Adams laces his fingers together thoughtfully. "Well you see, Chazz, sometimes mental illness can mix things up in our minds-"

"I'm not ill, dammit!" My fist crashes down on the mattress, not quite having the vehement violence I wanted it to. "And I'm not mixed up either!"

Adams doesn't even blink at the action, but continues: "-In fact, sometimes it can even go so far as to create a sort of false memory, where we think something has happened, even though it actually hasn't-"

"But it did happen!"

"-Which explains why you said all those things even under the effects of truth serum- because it is, in your mind, what you honestly believe to be true. But that doesn't mean it actually occurred."

"Why won't anyone believe me?!" I wail. "They're not false memories, they're real!"

"Now now, Chazz, you shouldn't be too upset." Adams reassures me. "False memories aren't that uncommon here in Pandora, you're not the only one to think up make-believe abuse."

'Make-believe abuse'?

I think I'm going to cry.

No! Don't cry! Crying is bad! The Chazz does not cry!

"Anyway, with some psychiatric sessions and the right medication, we should be able to get your memories back to normal." Adams finishes promptly. "By the time you get out of here you'll be right as rain."

Right as rain? But rain can't be right, it falls vertically or diagonally and lands on the window and looks like tears - dammit Chazz, don't cry! To cry is to show weakness, and I'm not weak! I. Am. Not. Weak!

"My memories are real." I insist harshly. "Why the hell would I make up being abused?"

"That remains to be seen. But think, Chazz: The Princeton group are world-renowned. Your brothers are practically celebrities. They're the subject of much tabloid interest." Adams says seriously. "If anything was happening to you, no matter how careful your brothers were, they'd get found out. It's be all over the newspapers in a matter of hours. There's no-one in the world who wouldn't know about it."

"You don't understand!" I protest, but I can feel the first squirm of doubt in my stomach. No, it is true, I know it is! "They have money, power, connections! They could easily silence anyone who threatened their reputation!"

"You can't silence everyone, Chazz. Rumours will always get out somehow, from someone. There may not be evidence, but there'll always be gossip and hearsay. But has there been any of that?" His blue, blue eyes bore into my own. "Not a peep. Nothing, not even a hunch, a whisper in the dark, a shred of suspicion. If what you say is really true, Chazz, someone else would know about it. But they don't. Because there's nothing to know."

I feel a cold, clammy nervousness eating away at my insides; my fingers flex subconsciously. No, that can't be right...no-one knows it because I haven't told anyone, because I can't tell anyone...but even so, his words ring truth...there'd be rumours of some kind...too many people are interested in Jagger and Slade to not notice anything...

"I want you to think about what I've told you," Adams stands up, brushing imaginary dust off his white coat carelessly. "And then maybe you'll see things for what they really are. Good day, Chazz." He turns and departs, shutting the door behind him with a soft click.

I sit motionlessly on the bed, staring blankly at the wall and yet not seeing it. I remember Slade's words, Jagger's punches - it's all as clear as day. But it just doesn't add up; there's no evidence, no witnesses, not even any shallow gossip. Nothing to suggest they hurt me, except what I remember, and that might not be entirely reliable.

Are my memories real? Or am I...am I really going crazy...?


It used to be that you put up a story, and people told you whether they liked it or not. But now! No-one reviews anymore! What's wrong with you people? REVIEW!