Triangular: a story by (CheeseDealer)

Tommy Pickles decided to kill his parents. It was strange indeed, for although he had gone to sleep the night before without baring any kind of resentment or feeling any degree of malice, he had woken up feeling as though he had no choice other than to kill those that gave him life. It was as though an idea had been planted in his brain, as though there had been a great refinement of his thoughts, or an image had been superimposed over the glazing of his eyes, or some other such strange event had happened. But whatever had befallen Tommy, it was real, and it was telling him to kill his parents. And that's what he was going to do.

He opened his playpen with his plastic screwdriver, and ambled outwards, walking into his kitchen. He walked immediately over to the drawers where his parents kept the knives, and reached inside. Coldness touched his fingers, as he felt the cold steel blades, yet there was also a certain degree of warmth resonating from its touch, a feeling of love. Tommy pulled out the first knife he could find. It was long bladed, serrated and highly polished. Tommy could see the reflection in the blade of the knife, see his face, see the hatred that burned unresolved in his eyes. He tilted the blade, watching as the light above shone and glinted with the dim lighting of the kitchen. Tommy gripped the knife's handle; yes, this knife would do nicely.

He walked out of the kitchen, and into his hallway, past the plants and carelessly discarded toys, and soon he found himself before the doorway that led to his basement. It was ajar, and every so often, a hum of blue light would pierce the darkness for a split second. Tommy smiled, and walked inside. Although he had seen his basement a thousand times before, it all seemed alien to him, as though he where gazing upon it with a new set of eyes. He walked down the stairs; they where rough, callous against his flesh of his bare feet. The sensation was strange; it was as though Tommy was feeling it for the first time. Indeed, twice on his way down he had to stop, and his senses overloaded on feeling, as his eyes focused on a colour it seemed for all the world he had never seen before, as Tommy heard a sound like he had never heard before, as their where sudden realisations… it was overwhelming.

Tommy continued down the stairs, and into the cold of his basement. His father was slouched over a large steel box, long, and slightly green in the darkness. It was a shape that Tommy recognised, but that at the same time looked so strange and distant, as though Tommy had only dreamed of its existence. He crept ever closer to his father, ever closer, until he could reach out and touch him, until he could embrace him, and finally, Tommy struck.

But his hand was stilled by a sudden force, and Tommy became aware of voices, frightened, panic-stricken voices. He recognised the words they spoke, but in the order they where used, they made no sense. He recognised the voices, but as before, they where alien; he didn't know how he recognised these voices, but he knew where he recognised them from. The lines around all the objects he could see began to blur, becoming a haze of such immense vibration that it pained Tommy to look. The colours, the lines, they began to contort and contrast, becoming surreal, a kaleidoscopic haze of light and refraction, and Tommy felt that he was falling.

He couldn't stand it; he couldn't stand the lights and the sounds, and he couldn't stand what they congealed into, and as the colours phased and the sounds shifted into form, Tommy was watching himself, he was watching is other embracing him, he was watching her hold him tightly against her, with tears welling in her eyes. A tear fell, and Tommy watched it fall, he watched it sparkled as though it were a diamond, as though a beautiful, fragile treasure. He watched it hit the floor and shatter into a thousand million atoms of splendour, that glowed like stars as they rose. They where an entire universe of stars, or planets, of life and death, of light and darkness; there where swirling constellations, strange deep-blue planets, vapour trails left by meteors of tears and a swirling vortex amidst it all.

And Tommy felt her presence, he felt her warmth, and once again he was back inside his own skull, back inside his own body, and his fingers responded when he asked, and so did his feet. He was crying, but he didn't know why anymore. And suddenly, there was a darkness, and a voice in his ear so reassuring, he fell into a dreamless sleep.