Chapter Two: We Need A Little More Consistency

I drifted between a light and annoying sleep like state and a deep sleep filled with dreams which I have no recollection of, not even the slightest detail. A hole opened up in the darkness from somewhere up above, small at first, barely bigger than a penny, and then more and more larger eventually taking up my entire field of vision. With the light came an intense heat which soothed my body from the coldness. Eventually the darkness took up no more space than inches around the rims of my eyes. I found the courage and I climbed out.

I was lying a comfortable couch, not to bad looking, but a drastically distasteful color, a dark yet light colored green. I looked around the room: white walls with multiple paintings on them, a window half open allowing a bright ray of sunlight to lighten the room. A man was sitting in the chair next to me writing something down on a pad of paper. He wasn't too bad looking, but definitely not good looking let me tell you that. Midfifties maybe, graying hair, a thin silver moustache and small golden rimmed glasses. He numerous wrinkles o n his face and a dull look in his eyes, evidence that this man has gone through years of negative stress. He began to talk, but the words coming out of his mouth couldn't have been English. I strained my ears for slightest sign of comprehension but I couldn't even recognize the language he was speaking.

Automatically, and against my will, my mouth opened and I talked in some foreign language. What was I saying? I haven't noticed before, but everything was shrouded in a blurry haze, adding a mist like quality to the room. It was then that I realized that it was not me in the couch, well not me, my mind at least. I'm just a spectator in this little back and forth game. But why am I seeing this? Why can't I move my body or understand what I'm saying, I've never spoken a foreign language before. My whole body seems to be in some sort of paralyzed state, but when it did move, it wasn't because of me. I feel like a robot in a TV show who is being controlled by a pilot from the inside. A robot with no thoughts or mind at all save for my pilot's who tells me what to do and what to think.

The more I listened to their conversation, the more absurd the voices became and slowly they became slurred and inaudible. The misty haze had subsided and was replace by a creeping darkness. Slowly moving towards me from the other side of the room. I fell to the floor clutching my stomach. It had opened up and all my insides started to pour out in a waterfall of blood. The man in the chair looked down at me dying on the floor and smiled. He took his glasses off, rubbed each lens on his shirt, and set them besides him. He then got up, rolled upped his sleeves and dove down at my spilling guts, picking them up and eating them. Each bite sent ripples of intense pain throughout my body as his sharp and hot teeth seared through my intestines ripping it apart. I muttered a plead for him to stop but it never left my mouth. The man transformed into a big dog like creature. He had no hair at all, just white skin, which looked burned in places and at others ripped apart, covered in scars and dried blood. He had no eyes, just dark rotting skin and slits of darkness. His mouth was a dark and moldy as well and his sharp teeth protruded from it in all directions, piercing through his skin. It looked down at me, blood and small pieces of chewed flesh fell in my face. In the corner of my eye I could still see the other me, still up on the couch talking away, unaware that his listener had transformed into some inhuman rabid beast who was eating something right on the god damn floor before him.

The monster lifted up his arms, or claws more like it. They were massive and parallel the size of his body which stood about six feet tall. Both of his arms were missing chunks of flesh, exposing his muscles and bones, they're the same color as the rest of his body. At the end of his arm, about tow feet long were long blades where there should have been fingers. They were covered with hardened blood and pieces of flesh were stuck in between them. Instantly, he drove his right claw right through my stomach, blood and insides erupting like a bloody volcano. The thing started to dig away at my body, but I felt no pain. I saw it all. My legs, feet, arms, hands, stomach, lungs, torso, chest, and fingers when flying across the room and splat across the wall sliding down in a smear of dark red blood. He stopped digging at me right before he reached my face. He shoved his dismembered head right next to me and turned his head sideways in curiosity. A thick hurricane of steam erupted through the tiny slits of what is his nose just above his torn up lip. It was nauseas and I was close to fainting when once again of black pool of nothingness opened up at my feet, beckoning me to dive in. And like always I did, not caring where it took me this time.

Once again the bright, intense light pierced away through the darkness. But this time it was there when I opened my eyes. The scene flooded in in and icy cold rush of relief. I'm sure that this is reality. A hospital room. Your typical hospital room, decorated with the usual bouquet of flowers and "Get Well Soon Cards". There's two chairs pushed up close to the side of my bed, in each of them of my mom and my little sister. They looked extremely sad about something, about what? Is someone hurt?

"Look darling, he's up." My mother said smiling. She's a pretty woman. Bright, golden hair, a pretty smile and a flawless age, surprising for her age which is somewhere in the forties. I can't really remember. My sister looked up wide eyed, she didn't seem happy, resentful is more like it. Oh, shit. Her play. I completely forgot about it. Damn, how could I? I was looking forward to that all day and then I just blew it off.

"I missed my play 'cause of you!" She said extremely sarcastically as little kids do.

"I'm so sorry, Addie, I don't know how I forgot. I was looking forward to it all day, I swear." I said soothingly to her. She had began to cry when she said it and I felt so bad. I hated seeing her cute face cry.

"Yea , right, I bet you did it on purpose." She said as she turned her head in a rude gesture. My mother noticed this and nudged her rather hardly in the shoulder, she winced momentarily but acted as if she didn't notice it. She still has on her costume. Oh, I'm so sorry.

"Oh, honey are you all right," My mother said looking at me. It took awhile for me to respond because I didn't expect that she would be talking to me. Of course I'm all right. Why the hell wouldn't I be. It was then that I noticed that I was the one in the hospital bed. It completely slipped my mind, I thought I was in a chair as well.

"Wrong, what could be wrong with me, look, I'm perfectly Albright. How did I get here? The last thing I remember is getting out of school and heading home to pick up you and Addie for her play. Now I'm here, how the hell did that happen?" I said just to get my mother's approval, to tell you the truth I could really care less about the situation I'm in, I mean in can't be to bad.

"Honey, they found you in ditch just on the outskirts of town, beaten and bloody upped badly. Don't you remember who did it, so you can tell the police." She said enthusiastically.

What is she talking about? The police, side of the road? She must be going mad.

"What are you talking about mom, I'm thirsty will you get me a soda out of the refrigerator." She looked at me, jaw dropping, tears pouring down her face.

"Honey, you're in the hospital the last thing you should want is a damn soda!" She screamed for no distinct purpose. What the hell is she talking about?

"Well Mrs. Orson your son seems to be showing signs of your basic schizophrenia patient but what is odd is that he suffers from multiple hallucinations which he can't distinguish between reality and the inventions of his own mind. Normally, patients diagnosed with schizophrenia have little or no signs of hallucinations. These are experiences are more typical of a drug or alcohol abuser but clearly your son is neither of these. Also he has severe atrophy in parts of his thalamus and cerebral cortex which, once again, is not typically found in patients suffering with psychological disorders."

"Well wait a minute Doctor, just what are you saying."

"Please let me finish, you'll have a better understanding when I'm done. Now, as I was saying your son has significantly fewer neurons in his cerebral cortex than others with the same symptoms. The cause of his extreme case has yet to be determined as has his disease, he portrays symptoms which normally wouldn't be found in schizophrenic patients. To make it short, I'm sorry to say this, but your son has an undiscovered and previously unreported psychological illness which, at the present moment has no medical treatment."

"Well, what can we do to help him?"

"Well, what I suggest is to wait a little while and examine his manner and behaviors more and then make decisions on the matter."

"And what if he gets worse? What are we going to do with him them?"

"Possibly your son will need to be institutionalized where his diseases can be closely studied and a cure can be found which can hopefully help others with the same symptoms."

"Well, what about him, what about my son? Won't you be able to help him."

"I'm sorry Mrs. Orson but the damage already done to his brain is irreversible."

A dense layer of mist revolves around madly and eventually dies out into a subtle layer of mist. It's the past. Little Darren Orson lays at the table scribbling with a crayon on a piece of paper. What he is drawing is unable to be made out. In the room besides him, an older woman and man are arguing about their son, who at the present moment isn't paying attention to what they're saying, even if he was he wouldn't be able to understand them anyway. They are arguing about him.

"Now listen here Lisa, you know damn well that we won't be able to help him. The least you can do is treat him like a fellow human instead of some mistake that you made and are out to correct. Lisa, he isn't a mistake, if God intended him to be that way then he's supposed to be that way!" The man yelled at the woman.

"Intended him to be that way, my god Jean, look at the boy, he can't even keep a steady conversation going for more than three damn words without going off topic. He doesn't fit in at school, he has no friends. He has hallucinations Jean! Your hear him, just out of the blue like when he's hatching TV he's starts talking and acting like he's somewhere else, it isn't normal. He's psychotic!" The woman yelled back. Little Darren continued to draw this time he started a new picture, this one more obvious of to what is than the previous. He drew in a yellow color with large claws that he was using to dig up buried treasure on a small island. In large brown letters at the bottom of the page he wrote the word "DIGGER", his g's and r's backwards. The argument continued in the neighboring room.

"Now listen here Lisa," Jean continued, "there is nothing wrong with the boy that you didn't cause with your constant nagging and criticizing of him. You're the one who made him unsocial, he doesn't have social anxiety disorder, he's a normal human being who is just a little slow at life and he doesn't need your goddamn bithcing and yelling at him all the time. You scare him Lisa."

"The hell I do , he needs it. He shouldn't be acting all weird like that, he should be able to play with other kids without scaring them away, it's not normal to think that your son thinks he can walk through walls, has six fingers, or that he's two inches tall. It also isn't normal that he goes around pretending he sees a big dog like creature with huge claws that he says is going to kill him at night."

"Well maybe he isn't normal, but what he needs is your love as a mother, not your hatred and apathetic attitude towards him, he needs somebody there for him, a woman Lisa, I can't give to him what you can. And let me tell you this, he damned well is normal, and I don't ever want you or anyone to ever sat that he isn't ever again, you got me?" He looked like he had enough of the conversation. He sat down at the table and picked up the cup of coffee he had set down before the argument. A few seconds later he spit it out back into the cup. Ice cold.

The little boy in the other room got up and walked into the kitchen a few moments before the argument had stopped. His mother turned around, red in the face. She walked over to him, towering above him, steam almost coming out of her ears, she slapped him, her long fingernails digging into his side of face. Blood began to trickle down along with his tears.

"You little bastard! How many times have I told you not to eavesdrop. Go to your room and don't come out into morning." She firmly, not caring that she had just harmed her child in more ways than one.

"But mommy, digger's up there." He cried towards her.

"I said go now! End of discussion." She yelled, near bursting point. The sad look on Darren's faced disappear and in its place a happy expression resided. He ran up the stairs of his room mumbling happily about a talking bear and purple aliens, his curls bouncing up and down as he went.

After making sure that his son had went up the stairs and into his room, Jean said, "You see what I mean Lisa, you don't even treat him like a person, you treat him like some disgusting creature you found in you food or like some lowlife, don't forget Lisa, he's human, and you helped to create him."

"No! I had nothing to do with the creation of that horrid freak!" She yelled as she ran out of the room. She walked up to the picture that her son had drawn not thirty minutes ago. A deeply angry look took over her face, ever her movements were angrily executed. She picked it up and ripped into pieces and dropped onto the floor. The pieces landed in a neat mound, like a newly dug grave in a cemetery, the three long claws of Digger's right arm landing on top. She walked out of the room biting her nails.