Philip was a fairly normal boy.
Science was his favorite subject. He spent most of his free time as a child setting up Rube Goldberg machines and egg races. His mom told him he was just like his father, but he wasn't sure what to make of that. He just focused on what he liked to do, not letting anyone else's beliefs or ideals get to him. He was an independent child, curious about anything and everything and interested in knowing how the world worked.
He had blonde hair and blue eyes, stood at the average height for a thirteen-year-old, and excelled in all of his studies. He wasn't a part of any clubs or sports, but he ate well enough and immersed himself in physical hobbies, such as walking around through the woods and exploring creeks and winding pathways, which kept him relatively fit. He hadn't yet hit the stage where acne spreads like poison, but that didn't mean he wasn't getting certain urges or losing his temper a lot more frequently. (He lost his temper quite a lot these days, actually, due to a certain someone.)
Things weren't all perfect for Philip. His father left him at a very young age, and his mother was diagnosed with cancer. Her treatments left her feeling ill most days, but she still managed to take care of and provide for her son. Philip was a bit of a social outcast as well. It wasn't that he was a bad person, but he didn't talk much to the other kids, and his sarcasm and pessimism didn't exactly make him popular. The truth was, Philip never really cared what other people thought of him. He had a certain level of pride, and was flushed with embarrassment when he made mistakes in front of other people, but he didn't really care if they liked him or not. His mother wanted him to make more friends, and he hated to disappoint his mother, but this was one of those times he wouldn't give in to her pleads. Philip was the kind of boy who went through life without giving a shit. He was perfectly fine to be on his own, doing his schoolwork and performing his own little "experiments".
The problem was, he wasn't completely alone. You see, Philip had a friend. Just one. Very. Special friend.
(That was putting it kindly.)
This friend's name was Clarence. Clarence was a lot like Philip - cunning, sarcastic, blunt - but the difference was, Clarence never shut up. He was, frankly, irritating. He didn't know when to stop digging through Philip's memories; he gave him frightening hallucinations when he least expected it; he made lewd comments in public that only Philip could hear, and then Philip had to make an excuse as to why he was choking on his drink.
Clarence was inside of Philip's head. But it wasn't like some childish imaginary friend kind of bullshit. He was far more disturbing, and far too real.
He first introduced himself to Philip about a year ago, naming himself from some movie Philip had only watched the first half of. The first few months were absolutely terrifying and dreadful; Philip was frightened by the raspy voice only he could hear. It knew things about him he'd never told anyone, things that had never left the inside of his mind. Philip was afraid to let anyone into his life, and this… thing just forced its way in. Philip couldn't sleep some nights, kept awake by his fear of Clarence and the things he could do to him. Once he walked down the hallway of his house after a long night of reading creepypasta online and saw Jeff The Killer in his kitchen, grinning up at him before chasing him back to his room. Philip had screamed and slammed the door behind him, and moments later his mother was at his door, knocking and begging him to let her in. He didn't open the door for minutes, thinking it was all just a joke, that the serial killer would stab him as soon as he opened the door.
But he eventually caved in; his mother's cries were too much for him to handle. She'd scooped him up in her arms and kissed his forehead like he was a little kid, asking him repeatedly what was wrong. He told her what he saw, and her face turned white. But she just assumed he'd had a nightmare, and took him back to bed. She searched the house afterwards, but she turned up with nothing, of course.
Clarence was only in Philip's head, and that was the extent of his powers. He couldn't interact with the physical world, but he could manipulate Philip's brain into thinking things were there when they weren't. Clarence could completely control his senses; Philip was at his mercy. The first few weeks were torturous as Clarence tested his limits. One morning he had Philip wake up to his room on fire, and Philip could feel the heat of the flames licking at his feet, and when he couldn't get the window open in time, he could feel the pain of his arm catching on fire, the pain of burning alive. Clarence had sneered at his quiet little sniffles on the floor of the bedroom, taunting him for falling for yet another one of his tricks. But then one day Philip started looking up mental asylums, and after that, Clarence never pulled another stunt like that again. He tried to be reasonable with his pranks - as reasonable as an asshole like him could be, Philip supposed. He claimed that it was boring up in Philip's head, having nothing to do, and he had to let off steam sometime. At least he wasn't trying to get Philip killed, or making him think he was about to die anymore. Even so, Philip was pretty sure Clarence was responsible for half of his nightmares, but the entity in his head never admitted to it.
A few months passed, and Philip slowly got used to hearing Clarence's voice. They didn't exactly have the most friendly relationship, considering how unwanted Clarence's presence was. But… Philip adjusted. It was nice to have someone to talk to, sometimes; to think hateful things toward his classmates, and have those feelings understood and agreed with. To have conversations with someone who couldn't abandon him, not like his father, not like all the people he once sought friendships with before. To not be alone. With Clarence, Philip was never alone.
There were a select few times that Clarence almost seemed redeemable. Once, Philip had almost been kidnapped while walking home from school. A couple men in a truck drove up beside him and were talking casually, but there was a dangerous gleam in their eyes, and it sent Philip on edge. He'd expected Clarence to laugh about it, but instead his voice was very serious as he talked Philip through it, reminding him to press the emergency call button on the phone in his pocket, to back up when the men looked distracted, to look at the license plate so Clarence could get the number solidified in his memory. Philip's legs had been shaking the whole time, fighting the urge to run, knowing he would stumble and fall if he did, and the man in the passenger side would catch him.
Thankfully, nothing bad had happened to him - one of his neighbors stopped behind the car and pretended he was Philip's dad there to pick him up, and the car with the two men sped off before Philip could even say a word.
Later that night, Philip wanted to thank Clarence and then report the two men to the police, but Clarence was back to pranking him again. When he asked for the license plate number, Clarence gave him five different numbers and he wasn't sure any of them were correct. They went back to being annoyed by one other for a few weeks, with little change.
It was the little things that happened over time that made Philip's opinion of him change. How, when Philip needed someone to talk to after having bad dreams or bad thoughts, Clarence was there, with all his dry humor that somehow became better than silence. The way Clarence would remind him of the chores he forgot to do (usually only when he got bored, though) and the schoolwork he almost left home on his desk (usually when Clarence was too tired to remember to be spiteful). Somehow, they managed to coexist, and that in of itself was a miracle.
But one day, he made the mistake of responding to Clarence aloud instead of in his mind. His mother overheard him and asked what he was doing. He made the stupid decision - which Clarence still wouldn't stop chastizing him for - of telling her about Clarence, and that was what put him in the psychiatrist's office, which was why his mother had a bottle of pills shoved into his hands and regular meetings with a therapist scheduled for him.
Most of the time, it was Clarence who could feel Philip's thoughts and emotions and not the other way around, but as soon as Philip was handed the bottle, he could practically feel Clarence's fear swimming throughout his mind. Philip had mixed emotions about it; for once, he had the upper hand, and after all those times of being scared out of his wits by the arrogant, selfish entity, he felt powerful holding what was possibly the key to regaining his freedom.
But instead, while they were halfway home and on the highway, Philip rolled down his window. 'Oh, for the love of god, calm down,' he thought to Clarence, and the tension he felt in the back of his mind eased at once. 'Just know that you owe me one.' Philip tossed the bottle out the window, and, as they were going 80 mph, it disappeared down the road in a few seconds. His mother screamed at him when she realized what he'd done, but he didn't pay her any mind.
Sure, the bottle could have given him freedom from Clarence, but he didn't want that freedom.
Not yet, anyway.
His mother drove him the rest of the way home in the rain that afternoon, the droplets trickling down the windshield almost mirroring the tears down her face, as she cried and wondered aloud why he didn't want to get any better. Her worrying felt like needles pressed into his heart. Philip felt guilty for making her cry, but he didn't utter a single word. Instead, he rolled his eyes and turned to look out the window at the gray, lifeless sky.
Philip hated it almost as much as Clarence did. Clarence didn't know why he was there, but he knew that those pills were an attempt to get rid of him, and he wouldn't have allowed Philip to take a single one. Philip wouldn't admit it aloud, but he didn't want to take them, either.
The next week, his mother reordered the pills and begged for him to take them, pleading and crying long enough to make even Clarence uncomfortable. He'd told her he would, and then emptied a couple pills a day into the trash can, so his mother would assume he was taking them. It hurt to lie to her, when all she ever did was for his sake… but he couldn't let her take Clarence away. Clarence was the only friend he had.
'You got that right.'