* A little bit of a stigma regarding mental illness. That will change, and it will be overcome. Note about it at the bottom. It's not horrible, just misunderstanding what it means.
"Why isn't it working?!" Frayne snapped at the man across from him. The man frowned at the angry man standing above him. "I don't know." The redhead mumbled as he stood. "Have you strengthened it?" Frayne scoffed. "No. It's been the same damn dose for years now." He glared at the man as he went and grabbed some jars off a small table. "I'm not a fucking idiot." He growled. "Calm down, we'll just have to mix up something else and hope for the best." The redhead shrugged not phased by the angry man. "Where is Isador?" "Issac." "What?" "He is going by Issac now." "I don't give a damn what he's going by now, where is he?!" As Frayne yelled the other man started to mix some ingredients together, choosing to ignore the angry man glaring at him. "Tell me where he is!" Frayne slammed his hands on the work table as he yelled, causing a few ingredients to fall onto the floor. The other man's head shot up, his green eyes boring into Frayne's. "I. Don't. Know." He grabbed the items off the floor, mumbling angrily to himself as he noticed a few jars had shattered. "Lyndon please, she's my daughter." "Daughter?" The man laughed. "You've gotten too attached." Lyndon glanced up at Frayne. "Tell me what happened? You haven't given me any details, you just barged in yelling like an idiot." "I told you, she saw something." "Hmm, maybe this will work." "Maybe? What if it doesn't." Lyndon sighed. "You know what will happen if it doesn't. He'll get rid of her, just like he always does in this situation." Frayne's mouth suddenly felt like it was filled with cotton, he tried to open his mouth to speak but couldn't. Lyndon was right. "Can you tell me what she saw?" "She said it looked like a shadow, but solid. She also felt like something was holding her down." Lyndon hummed to himself, walking towards a bookcase he started to scan the books. "Did you see anything?" "No." Lyndon nodded. "Oh, so it was just a nightmare." Lyndon grabbed a book and flipped through it. "What-" "and if she continues seeing it, it's obviously a much more serious issue. In which case you should take her to see a Psychologist." "Is that really a good idea?" Frayne stared at the redhead. "As someone diagnosed with Psychosis it wouldn't be odd for them see to, hear, or feel things that other's don't." "So that's it? Don't worry about the shadows and anything else you may see. You're just crazy and it's all in your head?" Frayne started to raise his voice again. "If this doesn't work, yes." Lyndon grabbed a couple more jars of ingredients after reading a page in the book. "Psychosis is something that's more understood now thankfully, that means you can take her to a doctor that will tell her the shadows are systems of psychosis and she won't question it anymore." "Someone with psychosis is usually treated with medicine." Lyndon nodded agreeing with the man. "Yes, hopefully this will help, if not it is suppress as much as it can. Medicine doesn't help everyone completely." Frayne sighed. "Don't worry, I'll be her psychologist." Lydon grinned.
Clara stared at a cheap necklace, a gold heart 'best sister' engraved on it. "What about this." She pointed at it and turned to Ash. "She'll hate it." Ash replied sighing. "What? No way, what's better than a necklace from your sister saying 'best sister'?" Clara frowned at the brunette. "Chocolate, ice cream, candy, going to the cinema, going out for dinner, shopping with anyone other than you, cookies, cake, gift cards-" "I get it, stop." "-puppies, kittens, foxes, batman-" "Stop!" The few customers and shopkeeper turned towards the two girls. Clara turned red, hiding behind her blonde locks. "-Fennec foxes." Ash mumbled as she picked up a braided leather bracelet. "This is nice, you can even have 'best sister' engraved on the metal." Clara took the leather bracelet from Ash. "What color should I get?" She glanced over the different colors and designs. "Her favorite color." "..." "You don't know her favorite color?" Ash glanced up and froze. Across from her was a black shadow, like the one from the other night. "C-Clara." She whispered to the blonde. "Are you okay?" Clara turned around to look at the area Ash was staring at. "Ash." Grabbing the girl's shoulders, Clara gently shook her. Ash turned to Clara, her green eyes wide with fear. "Clara it's-" Ash looked towards the figure again. "-gone." "What's gone?" "The dark shadow thing." Clara frowned, making Ash frown. "Obviously it was just my eyes playing tricks on me. Anyway, what are you getting?" Clara grinned, hoping to calm Ash. "I'm gonna get the baby pink one. I wonder if they can engrave it now or I'll have to come back."
"I can't believe you had 'best sister ever' engraved it." Ash laughed staring at the bracelet Clara handed her. "It's like you're eight." She wiped the tears from her eyes as she laughed. "What? What's wrong with it?" Clara snatched it from Ash huffing. "You could've had something really sweet and sentimental engraved on it, yet you had 'best sister ever' engraved." "What would you have had engraved." "Well, I-" Ash paused. "Uhh.." "See?! You don't know what to put either!" Clara crossed her arms. "I don't have a sister, how would I know what to have engraved on a bracelet for a sister?" Clara rolled her eyes, shoving Ash a bit harder than planned. Stumbling backwards she wasn't able to catch herself, falling to the ground and taking someone with her. Turning to her left she noticed a red haired girl with beautiful green eyes. "Oh my god, I'm so sorry." She stumbled more as she tried to stand, eventually offering the redhead a hand to help her. "I'm really sorry, my friend shoved me and I lost my balance. Are you-" She stopped, hazel eyes widened in fear, forcing herself to look away from the girl's shadow she continued. "Sorry, are you okay?" The redhead nodded, not wanting to speak more to the redhead she nodded and walked away. Clara quickly mumbled an apology for her friend's awkward behavior to the redhead, before running after her best friend.
Clara fidgeted as she walked along side Ash. Letting her long blonde hair fall into her face she tried to avoid looking at her best friend. Her warm brown eyes filled with worry. She opened her mouth only to close it again. How should she bring it up? Ash sighed after watching the girl from the corner of her eye the last five minutes. She had tried not to show that she saw something else, she hadn't mentioned it this time. The fearful expression had escaped before she could control it though. "Just say whatever you're going to say." Ash rolled her eyes, shoving the other girl. "I'm just worried." "I noticed." "Are you going to tell your dad?" Ash frowned. "Yeah sure, hey dad I'm seeing creepy shadows that nobody else sees." "This is serious! Ever since that dream you've been seeing things. Shadows in the corner of your eyes. I know they're only there for a second but it's not normal." Clara grabbed onto Ash's arm as she spoke. "Look, it's fine. I'm just been a bit paranoid lately. I was reading and watching some videos about ghost and demons late at night, like an idiot about a week ago. One of those nights where you start off reading something completely normal like, how stupid people are ruining ancient Egyptian mummies, grinding them up and freaking eating them-" Ash twitched, her voice growing darker as she spoke. "-then somehow ended up reading about all the horrible things that's happened over the last few centuries here in England, which resulted in spirits that haven't been able to rest and demons because insane people helped call on them." Clara stood silent for a moment, watching Ash's anger slip into paranoia. "I don't really think reading about idiots that ruined Egyptian mummies is considered normal." The anger quickly resurfaced on Ash's features. On second thought, that was completely normal for Ash. Clara shook her head. "Are you sure you're okay?" "Yeah, but the innocent Egyptian mummies aren't." "Seriously?" "They destroyed history, we could've learned so much from those mummies-" "Ash, shut up." "But, it's horrible. They need their bodies and everything in their tomb for the afterlife." Clara sighed, Ash wasn't going to stop anytime soon. "Not only did they take their bodies, but the ground them up to eat them!"
"Are you sure you don't want me to walk you home?" "Positive." "But-" Ash turned to glare at Clara. "I'm not a child. I can walk home alone, I've done it for years." "Sorry, I'm just worried." Clara fidgeted under Ash's glare. "I'm fine." Ash snapped and she walked away from Clara. As Ash walked away from her best friend, Clara frowned. "No, you're not."
Ash could feel the anger coursing through her, she took a few deep breathes, trying to calm herself down. Glancing at the cross walk her eyes widened. The boy from the cafe stood across the street. Ash grimaced as pain shot threw her head. She held her head as she fell to her knees. What's wrong? She would get headaches when she didn't eat, but she's ate today. Why did it hit her so suddenly, and hard? "Are you okay?" A concerned voice spoke. Standing above her was the silver haired boy, holding his hand out for her. "I'm fine, thank you." She mumbled while taking his hand. "You're cold." She spoke without thinking, but his hand felt like ice. Glancing at his bare legs she frowned. "You should dress more warmly, it's winter." Ignoring the dull headache she stood concerned about the boys attire. Smiling at her concern he shook his head. "Don't worry, I'm not cold." "But your hand is freezing, and you're wearing shorts in the middle of winter! You should be wearing pants! You're going to catch a cold." Without a word he pulled together is coat, buttoning it to cover his legs. "Does your head still hurt?" "Huh? Oh, no I'm fine. Thank you- um, I'm sorry. My name is Ash." "Joseph." "Thank you, Joseph. I have to get home now, it was nice meeting you." "Would you like me to walk you home?" He asked kindly, still showing concern for the brunette. "Oh no, I don't want you to go out of your way." "I don't mind."
The walk to her apartment was awkward, at least it was to her. The boy beside her didn't seemed bothered by the awkward silence. The air around him seemed relaxed, yet she stood there tense and awkward, feeling bad that Joseph was going out of his way. "This is my apartment." She pointed towards the brick building. "Uh, would you like to come in for tea or-" "Ash." Turning around she noticed her father walking up behind her. "What are you doing?" "Oh, umm, this is Joseph. I didn't feel well on the way home. He noticed and offered to walk me home. I was inviting him in for tea, since he was kind enough to help me." Joseph smiled as he watched hatred fill the man's grey eyes. "Actually, I must be going, it was nice meeting you, Ash." He smiled at the girl and nodded to the man before walking away. "I need to talk to you." Frayne spoke to his daughter as he watched the silver haired boy disappear. "Uh, okay." She walked into the house, her father following close behind. Ash sat on the sofa, her father joined her, a look of worry on his face. "What's wrong?" "Clara called me." She frowned, why would Clara call her father? "And?" "And she told me what happened." "What happened?" Frayne sighed. "Don't play dumb. Has anything else happened today? How long have you been seeing the dark shadows." "Dad, it's just paranoia. I was reading-" "Do not lie to me. I don't want to hear the bullshit lies you told her." He snapped and grabbed her shoulders, making her look him in the eyes. "How long as this been happening? Did anything else happen today?" "You're hurting me." She winced at the pressure on her shoulders. Quickly, he released her while mumbling an apology. "I'm just worried, I need you to be honest with me." "It started after I had the nightmare. It never last longer than a second, I assume it's just my eyes playing tricks on me. Maybe since the nightmare I've been a little paranoid and the shadows kind of trigger the memory of the nightmare? I don't know." "I have a friend, he's a doctor." Frayne watched Ash carefully as he spoke. "A psychologist, I want you to see him. At least once." "What? No! Dad, I'm not crazy!" Ash tried to stand but Frayne pulled her into him, hugging her tightly. "No, no. I never said that. I know you're not. But I'm worried. Please, just see him a few times." He pleaded while holding her to his chest. "What if he says I'm crazy? I can't be. This just started a few days ago. It's got to just be from the nightmare. I don't like scary things, it's got to be why this is happening, I'm just a little jumpy at the moment." Frayne sighed. "Ash, don't overthink about it. We'll find out soon enough." "But, what if I am?" She whispered, tears falling from her eyes. "What if you are? It wouldn't be anything to be shamed of. Ash, sometimes we need help and that's okay. It's nothing to be ashamed of. I just don't want you to suffer, especially if there is a way to help you. To keep that damn demon away." Frayne growled out the last sentence. "Demon?" Ash lifted her head, confusion filled her eyes. "Demons, sorry. You know, our person demons. We can fight them and-" He stumbled over his words. "Dad?" "Yes?" "I'm hungry." "What do you want me to do about that?"
*If you have any type of mental disorder, it's nothing to be ashamed of you and you aren't just some 'crazy' person. I was diagnosed with Psychosis myself a few years ago. Thankfully I'm no longer depressed so it's not a bother now. I know it's hard, to deal with. I don't want anyone to feel bad about any diagnosis they may have. Mental illness is still very misunderstood, the stigma of it is ridiculous. Thankfully it's slowly changing. Ash hasn't had anyone around her that's dealt with it so she uneducated about it at the moment. Like many are.
Anyway, I hope you enjoy it so far. Please let me know if you do.