Chapter 8: Ecstasy!
Later that night, after I was able to control my emotions again, I met up with the group at the smoke pit. In my hand I carried the drug known as ecstasy. The group looked up at me with suspicion. I glanced down at each of them, but stopped at Simon. One didn't have to be psychic to see he was in great pain. He could barely move his arm up to take a drag from his cigarette. It was more likely that Tom and Brian helped bandage him up after I took him back to their quarters.
"What do you got in your hand, Mary?" I heard Jeff call out to me. His voice had me shake my head to the reason why I brought the drugs out. With a deep breath I explained the drug and its purpose. The others appeared intrigued. I could tell they were all eager to try it. Hell, after a day like that, who wouldn't?
The first one I handed the drug to was Simon. "Here, we all could use a little 'vacation' from this place." I told him. As I placed the drug in his hand he looked up at me. His once innocent eyes are clouded with the pain, and anger he holds over what the Dean made me do to him.
Simon looks at the drug in his hand before panning around the circle to the others. I could tell he was thinking if he should actually take the drug or not. Without saying a word, he pops the pill in his mouth. He sat quietly as the drug was slowly taking effect. I gave everyone else a pill before I, myself, took the last one.
At first nothing seemed to happen. For a moment I figured the drug might have been too old, or that I might just be immune to it naturally. Suddenly I began experiencing an immense amount of dizzying and disoriented feeling all at once. It was defiantly a feeling I never felt before. The forest seemed to move as I began to see strange images, like spirits and mythical creatures running between the trees. The guilt I had for beating Simon passed quickly, which made me feel free. I almost felt that I could just fly off this Island.
For a brief moment everything seemed to have been blacked out. It could have been that I had closed my eyes at that time. I could remember hearing voices around me giggling and making jokes that only made sense to them. All of a sudden the voices slowly disappeared to the distance until I couldn't hear them anymore.
How long it had pass, I wasn't sure, but with a start, I quickly opened my eyes to find that I was the only one left in the Smoking Pit. I struggled to push myself up off the ground. Wondering through the forest was like trying to walk on marshmallows. Everything felt soft and uneven. When I looked up ahead I noticed a figure standing in the middle of the path. At first I thought it was one of the Founders. In a panic, I tried to think of a clever excuse as to why I'm away from the campus. But for some reason I couldn't think. I blame the drug. It was blocking most of my mind to think clairvoyantly.
As I got a closer look at the figure and realized that it was a female, she looked very familiar. "G-Grandma," I blurted, as I was able to see it more clearly. The ghostly shape of the elderly woman that I'd admired from my childhood held out her arms to me. I didn't know how she was able to find me here on Founder's Island, and at that moment I didn't care. All that mattered was she found me. Eagerly, I ran up and hugged her tightly. For the first time since coming to this Hell, I felt safe in few moments of heaven. For a moment I didn't realize that I was again crying, but this time it felt right to cry.
"Oh, Grandma!" I wailed, "I've missed you so much."
"Hush child. It's alright now." My grandmother's voice sounded like an angel of hope. 'If this was a dream, oh please, don't let me awake.' I remember thinking to myself.
"Are you still wearing the angel pin I gave you?" She asked me lovingly.
"Yes, I never take it off, Grandma." I told her reassuringly.
"That's my girl. I don't ever want you to loose hope."
"Oh Grandma, how I wish I could be at home right now with you, mum, and dad." I said controlling my tears. I looked up at the angelic eyes of my Grandma, and they had a serious look to them.
"Now, you know that can not be right now."
I sat there in shock as she said this to me. "Why can't I?" I asked.
"Because, you need to finish off the mission, my child."
"M-mission? What mission?" This was all starting to get weird. None of it made any sense.
"You have been chosen to start the wave that will defeat these monsters from taking over the world, don't you remember?"
"Grandma?" I was getting concerned, how could she know about the mission? I needed to clear my head, so I started to shake it before looking up at my Grandma again, only to see that she was now gone.
"Grandma!" I yelled out into the darkness. "Please don't leave me." I whispered.
"I never left" her voice softly echoed in my head.
After coming to my senses I got up and headed back towards the smoking pit. I remembered why I left the pit in the first place. The gang is missing I had to find them before they would get in trouble. This worried me somewhat they were all my responsibility. If anything were to happen to them I would feel so guilty. To my relief I started hearing their voices coming from our training field.
As I made my way there I also heard whispering voices coming from the bush beside me. I recognized the voices to be Renee and Tom. It sounded like the two of them were admitting their love for each other. For the past four months everyone felt a strong connection between the two, but we all kept silent, especially them. If the Founders found out that they were in love the reaction could be disastrous.
Apparently the drug helped decrease the fear of being caught with their feelings and allowed a sense of freedom to express and explore each other. I decided it would be best to just let them be with themselves at this time, my concern right now was to see if the others were ok.
As I finally arrived to the field I looked around and saw Brenda, Brian, Jeff, Rob and Mark lying in the middle of the field looking up at the stars. They all stared in awe at the wonders of the twinkling sky. I then realized that Simon was the only party missing from this group.
"Hey," I called out to them, "have any of you seen Simon?" It was very hard to keep focus. Even as I stood still, the ground felt as if it kept moving.
Jeff lifted his head to look at me. He studied me to see if I were another illusion or real. "Last I saw him he disappeared over there in the bush." Jeff finally told me.
"Kay." I nodded before over to the bush Jeff pointed to.
I saw Simon sitting in a pile of leaves. It had appeared that he made himself a nest to sit in. How ironic, I thought, being that he's a chipmunk. He muttered something, but I couldn't understand what he said. It almost sounded like he was talking to someone. I heard him blurt out a name. Alvin I believe it was. That was when I realized he was actually lecturing him not play around with his inventions.
"Simon?" I asked. "Are you ok?"
The troubled Chipmunk looked up at me in a panic. "Mom?" He began to say.
Amused, I rolled my eyes skyward and replied, "Simon, I'm not your mum. I'm Mary, remember?" I feared that something might be wrong with him. "You are not hurt, are you?" I asked with concern.
"Mom, I had that dream again." He continued as if I hadn't said anything at all. "You know, the one where I'm on this crazy Island, and there are monsters all around it."
"Simon, wake up. First of all, you're still on the Island. And Second, I'm a human not a chipmunk. So how could I possibly by your bloody mum?" I said to try to snap him out of this dream state he was in. I sat down beside him, and to my surprised he threw himself at me. He wrapped his arms tightly around my waist. This had taken me so off guard that I was frozen.
"Oh mom, it's so horrible. I can't bare the thought of not being home with you and my brothers."
At this point I figured I would play with this little game until he is able to snap back to reality. I slowly wrapped my arms around Simon, comforting him with tender strokes on the back of his head. He sighed contently as I did this.
"I'm sure, not everything about this 'crazy' Island is not all that bad, now is it?" I said trying to get him to remember his friends.
After thinking for a moment he finally replied. "Well, no. There are these other chipmunks, a-and older human kids in the dream. They are friendly, and they help me."
I started to find myself becoming quite comfortable holding young Simon in my arms at this point. By repositioning my legs both Simon and I found us in a more comfortable seating arrangement in his little nest he had made.
"Tell me, Simon, what else in this dream do you remember?" I asked in order to strike up a conversation.
"It was so bad, monsters…everywhere! I would see them eating other children a-a-and the-they beat me. I can still feel the stinging on my arms from when they whipped me, mom." He said as he pulled back from the hug and started to rub his bandaged arms. "How can a dream cause so much pain?" With pleading eyes, Simon looked up at me. "Please, I want to stop having these nightmares. Make them go away. Please?"
I had no idea on how to respond to this question. My mind itself was going through a lot of confusion and I was having a hard time on staying focused. Without giving it much thought I replied, "I promise, one day you will have no more nightmares, my son."
After I said that I found myself wondering why I would call him a son. Could it have been that was what I always dreamed of having, as I got older? If I were to have a young child to call my own, would he be just like Simon? I continued to look down at the hopeful chipmunk and saw him smiling back at me; there was a sense of warmth. I never felt this feeling before it was like my chest become very warm. I found myself smiling back. I studied every twinkle that came from behind those big round glasses. The more I thought about it the more I could feel a maternal feeling within me.
I began pulling Simon in for another hug, since I greatly enjoyed the earlier one. Together we sat there holding each other. I don't know how long we actually sat there, but then Simon slowly pulled away and again looked up at me. His eyes became big and confused. It almost looked like he saw me as a different person. After a moment of thinking about it I came to the conclusion that he no longer saw his mum, but me as Mary, his human friend.
"Mary? What's going on?" He asked in a harsh whisper.
"You had an hallucination, Simon." I replied as a matter of fact. "Most likely a reaction caused by the drug."
"I don't know what real anymore. My mind is going crazy."
"We are all feeling the same way you are, Simon."
Just then light of the rising sun caught my attention I quickly rushed up and held my hand out to Simon. "Come on now, we must get back to the campus. The last thing we need is to get caught with our guard down…agreed?"
Simon simply nodded at me and took my hand and got up. Together we gathered the rest of the gang and made our way back at the campus.
OoOoOoOoOoOo
The one thing we have learned with our experience with ecstasy is that the affects last for days. It took at least three days for any of us to have REM sleep again. Not only that, but it also made us quite hyper. The Founders, at first, were impressed with our speedy reports that we all would hand in. But it wasn't till I was called in the office that I figured out they were actually suspicious on what was going on with the boys, the Chipmunks, and me.
Mr. Grafton handed me a quiz sheet that was handed in one of the Chipmunks classes earlier that day. They asked me to explain why none of the answers made sense. One question caught my attention the most. It took major focus to not burst out laughing.
The Question: 'Describe different ways that you can break your enemies' defences?'
The answer that was written said: 'One is to gather pickled ham for the holidays.'
I could tell by the handwriting it was Brian that wrote this. It would seem that this particular Chipmunk is getting more and more cocky each year. Who'd guess a once quiet boy would end up being the troublemaker of the group.
I quickly apologized for the young chipmunk's silliness. As an excuse I explained that I might have over worked all the Chipmunks, so much so, that neither of them had any sleep for days. I went on saying that the lack of sleep could be affecting their schooling.
The only problem as I explained this to them was that I could feel my voice speaking an octave higher then usual. I tried desperately to control it, but the more I tried the worse it got. To my surprise, the Founders had bought my excuse. It could be that the Guardian, that sat in the room as well, helped with his power of telepathy. Still, I did get suspicious looks from Mr. Grafton and the Dean. I could tell that they were keeping a close watch on us; it was rather obvious that we were all acting a little strange thanks to the drug.
When the drug finally wore off, the gang and I decided that it would be wise not to go on another 'vacation' like that again.