As always, disclaimers on the first chapter!

Yes, I am an evil cliff-hanger person! At least, though, these chapters have worked out so that the worst of the cliffhangers happened on on a Tuesday, rather than a Thursday! Blame luck for that one! :D

This chapter was the most difficult for me to write, and required the assistance of TrinityLast when I did write it. I never realized how difficult it was to play mind games with one's own self until I had to do it.

Madness

The average sentient creature, human or otherwise, would sooner retreat into their own mind and focus on getting rid of what scares them than, say, focus on what isn't hurting them. Fight or flight, what ever it takes to get away from it. I never understood this mentality of walling yourself in with your fears until it was just you and it with no way out. It always struck me as dangerous, overloading one's fight-or-flight reactions until they were nothing but whimpering, mewling babies.

When the Leviathan trapped me in my own mind, all I could see was black. It was the complete opposite of what I saw in Nick's mind, including, to my relief, the very lack of Nick. I held my hand in front of my eyes and was just as glad to see that I wasn't standing in darkness, just the black background that is my near-empty thoughts.

"Nick, Nick, Nick... Is that all you think of?"

I turned to look behind me, seeing a shadow move through the blackness, circling me at a slow and steady pace.

"It's aaaaaall about Nick. What makes you think he could ever really care about you, anyway? How many women has he had before? How many do think he's had since you arrived?"

I licked my lips and lowered my eyes. "He may have... He still even might, despite what you have done to him!"

I heard the Leviathan chuckle, a low and deep sound. "Oh, I doubt that. It was an accident, your coming to Stonehaven. A happy accident, but how many of those do you really get?"

"Not many," I murmured in agreement.

"Besides," he continued, "you don't really belong there anyway. No matter how much you may love it, you don't deserve to be there." He paused a moment then laughed softly to himself, as if he realized something funny. "You never really did belong anywhere, did you? LACHSA, five hundred students who all felt themselves outcasts in the normal school systems, and you couldn't even get yourself to belong there either. An outcast among outcasts."

"No, I don't..." I smirked at him. "But, then I suppose you should be thanking me for that. If I wasn't the way I am, I wouldn't have had the drive to create you, would I?"

He stopped in front of me and cocked his head to the side. "You know, you're right." He leaned in, his foul breath hot against my ear. "Thank you," he whispered. "Thank you for being such a whiny piss ant that you felt the need to create a creature like me to enable your masochistic tendencies."

The Leviathan stepped back and started laughing as he looked me over. "And look where it got you! All grown up. Don't you wonder what the doctors are saying?" He smirked and his voice went quieter, "Listen, and you might be able to hear them..."

"Doctors?" I furrowed my brow and cocked my head to listen, even though I knew better then to do that. "What doctors?"

"Why, the ones at the mental clinic," he chuckled. Suddenly he stopped and looked at me thoughtfully. "Did you really think this all was real? That you're a werewolf?" He barked a harsh laugh. "I thought you were more grounded then that. But, then again, you were working all those hours..."

"Nice try," I rolled my eyes, "but if that were fact, you wouldn't be here. They'd have me so doped up that you would be nothing but light and color."

As if right on cue, the darkness came alive with light and color of the likes my eyes had never seen before. Having lived in such warm climates most of my life, I had never seen either of the Auroras, but I suppose that was how my mind's eye interpreted it. Did I summon this, though? What the hell was it, exactly? When I stepped up to the lights and peered into them, I saw my own memories as if they were little movies in my brain. I smiled a bit as I watched some of them.

That smile faded when I felt the Leviathan behind me again.

"Well, I suppose a book world is as good of a place as any to disappear into when one has a nervous breakdown." He paused a moment. "And I do like the colors. Very nice; much better than that dreary black you had. By the way," he continued with detachment, "watch your side. You should be feeling a bit of a prick. Probably because it's almost supper time."

I tried to ignore him, stepping closer to the lights and memories. There were so many... Then I heard it, faint at first like the whistle of a very soft breeze. When they started getting louder, I was able to make out words. Whispers about UCI Medical Center and a man named Doctor Dummon, dosages and therapy. I shook my head and my heart started to race. I felt like I was back in the Hall of Whispers in the Los Angeles Museum of Tolerance. I would try to jump away from them, but another whisper would speak to me from another angle. I could feel the Leviathan watching me.

I turned to face him. When my back was to my own memories, the whispers got louder.

"Dosage...blood pressure...eyes unfocused, not..." came a female voice from my left.

"Don't want to...moving her...traumatic...high incidence of...if there's no change..." a male voice on my right filled in the empty space between the female's words.

I clamped my hands over my ears and screamed. "Bullshit!" I glared at the Leviathan who was staring at something over my head, "I call bullshit on you!"

He tore his eyes from the memory he was watching and graced me with an almost fatherly smile. "Are we playing cards now? You always did love the game of Bullshit. Although, I suppose you denying all this fact is predictable of you. Deny, deny deny... But, has it occurred to you that, if your subconscious wanted to snap you out of this, the best choice is me. Who else could rile you up like this?" His smile became a toothy grin, but his eyes darted back up to something over my head.

I shot the Leviathan another glare, still panting from my earlier scream. "My subconscious wouldn't pick you... It'd never pick you..."

"It's a subconscious for a reason," he said quietly. I noticed his reluctance to look at me again. "No one has control over it. What other character have you written that you were this passionate about? There were no others. And, really, you must realize how ludicrous it is that you are here, arguing with yourself."

"Goddess, you're such an idiot..."

"Don't call yourself names, Nyx," he interrupted me. "It's tacky."

"Subconscious doesn't mean completely out of control. How else would you explain lucid dreaming?"

I paused. Had I actually hit on something? The Leviathan fed off one's own fears, taking memories and twisting them. Using one's own mind against them, forcing them to pay attention to him while he showed them what they wanted to see the absolute least in the world.. He was just a walking, talking nightmare. What if there was a way to take the reigns out of his hands?

"And there were many that I created that I carried far more passion for," I continued, trying to formulate a plan while distracting him. "There was the original Nyx Goldstone. All brawn, very little brain, though. Or what about Anastasia 'Snow Wulf' Death-Takes-Last? Brain, brawn, and had both a master and a half-brother who were there for her. I'm sure you, of all people, remember the de Fays; Bevan, in particular."

As I spoke the name of the characters I created, wrote, and played, they appeared as memory flashes to the Leviathan, surrounding him and backing him into the wall of memories that he was so fascinated with a moment before. I watched with smug satisfaction as his eyes darted to each memory as they came up and disappeared, taking an unsure step back from each one.

"I don't know why you chose me," he said, not looking at me.

I heard the voices start to resurface, talking about bedsheets, bedpans, and catheters. I pushed them away, focusing on something else. Something that wasn't Leviathan created. The first thing that came to mind was a song, Broken by Seether. Hell if I knew why that was the first thing I thought of, but I wasn't quite in a place to complain yet. I'd deal with the facts later.

"As long as you're in this room, real life doesn't have to touch you."

I could tell that he was striving for my attention again, but I refused to give it to him.

"No decisions have to be made," he continued, "no bills have to be mailed out. Hell, they've got you catheterized so you can piss in a tube! You don't even have to think about getting up to pee."

"Television, computer, and pissing in a tube," I mumbled distractedly, "Sounds like heaven, considering what a lazy ass I am."

The Leviathan closed his eyes and leaned against the wall behind him. I noticed that he sank in a bit, much like one would distort the shape of a hammock when laying in it. I was close and I somehow knew it. "Suddenly you acknowledge where you are? Are you that afraid of intimacy that you can't let yourself get attached to even a figment of your own imagination?"

I looked at the Leviathan with an overly exaggerated expression of suspicion. "How did you know that?" I whispered just a little too loudly.

He looked up at me oddly. "I'm a part of your mind. How else would I—"

"Yes, that's right!" I squealed. "You are a part of my mind! Which means that soon the nice doctors will make you go away. I'll be drugged up with pills and shots and everything else they've got for killing the imagination side of the brain."

"Someone has been watching too much Drop Dead Fred," the Leviathan said wryly. His eyes darted side to side, worry in them clear as crystal. "They don't drug you up that much in real hospitals. You're knocked out because...because you retreated into your own head. They gave you a sedative to make sure you won't wake up and hurt yourself. Sometimes they let you come around so a shrink can talk to you." He laughed, soft and nervous. "Hasn't done much so far, obviously, since you're still here."

I giggled madly and bounced on the balls of my feet. He was buying his own story because he thought I was. YES! The opening that I needed. "They're gonna come and they're gonna make you go far, far away!" I said in a singsong voice. "And then my real friends will be here to play with me all day long."

He furrowed his brow at me. "They can't make me go away, dear. Only you can..."

I blinked at him before pressing my fingertip to my lips and turning away, taking a few steps into the void that was my mind as if I had forgotten about my foe. "I wonder if Kata will bring me cookies..." I gasped and grinned, "Or congo bars!! It could be Yule time all year long!"

"How will you eat them, princess? You're un-con-scious!"

I knit my eyebrows together in thoughtfulness as I turned back around and paced back the way I came. I pretended to be still so engrossed in my own thinking and that I didn't notice him. But I watched him. I watched as sweat started to form on him and his ability to concentrate on me started to wane. The deeper he sunk into the wall of my memories, the more overwhelmed he seemed to get.

"Of course, we'll have to invite the Duke to the tea party... But Kitty doesn't like him." I giggled again, keeping up with the insanity act, no matter how embarrassed it made me feel. "Maybe Kitty'll eat his balls..."

The Leviathan thought I wasn't watching him, and I knew it because he shook his head as if to clear it. He closed his eyes and tried to steady his breathing, letting his bad ass act fall just for a moment as he leaned further into the wall as he shielded his eyes against the brightness.

I let my voice lower to a nervous whisper as I continued my pacing. "But what about my tiara party? No one will come if Kitty does that..."

When I turned back around to face him, he was squinting at me as if trying to figure out what I was doing. His hands swatted at things that weren't there, but I could see them in the memories. He shook his head again and buried his face in his hands to get away from the visions.

"What do you think, Mr. Opossum?" I giggled again. "Opossum... Your parents must have really hated you." Another giggle and then I pirouetted. "It will be the most fabulous Chanukkah bush ever!"

I stopped and watched the Leviathan, dropping the entire insanity facade. He was swatting away visions that only he could see, breathing heavy with panic. His eyes met mine, wild with the sensory overload he was getting from fighting with my memories and not having me to focus on. I dusted my jeans and squatted down right next him, leaning in close to his ear.

"That sensation? That pain all in your mind?" I whispered, "Welcome to madness. This is what you did to all those people for all those months that you were here. Does it taste good?"

The Leviathan growled at me, taking a swing with his arm that I easily dodged. He was trying so hard to focus on me, to block out the barrage of thoughts and dreams that overloaded him.

I moved back into place, right next to him. "I created you, brought you into being. I think it's time to take that privilege away. Say goodnight, sweet prince."

Standing up, I dusted off my jeans and turned away from my creation. I ignored him as I hunted for a way out of my own mind. I was ready to go back, to see Nick again, to make sure no lasting damage was done. Behind me, I heard the Leviathan scream. The room suddenly was very bright, then I was surrounded by complete darkness and silence.