Tales of a Madman 8

     When I woke this morning I found it impossible to remember my name or who I was.  At least, I think it was when I woke, there is very little difference between sleep and waking for me now.  It came back to me eventually but I am still a little uncertain of what is happening to me.  Always I hear the whispers of dreams in my mind and always I am unsure as to whether the dreams are mine or sendings from the white-coats.

     I can hear the psychiatrists and technicians whispering to me from within my skull and there is nothing I can do to shut them out.  For days on end I screamed and tried to block out the noise.  I stuffed my fingers in my ears, I banged my head off the padded cell walls until my vision blurred and I collapsed to the ground but I could still hear the whispering.  I sang, I prayed, I begged Slayer to forgive me but still I heard the whispers.

     Why are they doing this to me, why are they invading my mind and raping my dreams?  I thought that I would be safe, hidden inside my own head but the white-coats have come in after me and they hack a brutal path through my carefully laid maze of conflicting personalities and false images.  The screens that I took so long perfecting have been blown apart and all that is left is the complete honesty of my life.  I don't think that I am strong enough to face the truth about myself!

     It was only a few days ago that it started I think.  It is so hard to keep track of the time in here but I don't think it was very long ago.  I was looking down at the drain in the corner of the room and the walls and floor of the cell were still dripping after the 'shower' when the door opened and an Ebon walked in.  I heard the door open but I didn't turn round immediately, I was still trying to convince myself that I couldn't have seen the mud flowing out of the room.

     When I did turn round it took me even longer to realise that this ...vision was actually inside the cell and not in my head.  She was tall, had a perfect slim figure and her face had been carved by angels.  Red lips, long loosely curled brown hair and white eyes that seemed to reflect my sins and radiate forgiveness.  She stood there for a moment and looked at me.  With no conscious thought, my hand rose to my head and I tried to smooth out my hair.

     Pathetic, I am a prisoner, a criminal, considered to be insane and still I want to impress this woman.  I must have blushed when I realised what I was doing because she came across the room to me and took me hand.  I could do nothing but gaze at her as she lifted my hand  and lightly brushed her lips across my fingers.

     "Trust," was all she said as she put her left hand onto my face.  I could feel her fingers on my face and it felt so cold.  Cold but still good.  She closed her eyes and I felt the coldness leave her fingers to be replaced by, by nothing.  I couldn't feel her fingers, I couldn't feel her holding my hand, I couldn't even feel her warm breath on my face any more.  I could still see her but I couldn't feel her, smell her or sense her. 

     My vision dulled and I wanted to raise a hand to rub across my eyes but my body was frozen, I couldn't even move my eyes any more. The image of the cell faded away and was replaced by a long corridor with hundred of doors either side of it stretching away into the distance.  Every door had a picture of me on it but no two pictures were the same.  Some showed me as a child, some as an operative, some showed me to be asleep, some laughing, others crying.  Every picture was me but they were all different aspects of me.

     There were images of myself that I recognised from my memories, times that I thought existed only inside my head.  But other pictures bore no resemblance to anything that I knew about myself.  There were some that showed me as an evil, twisted creature and I loathed those pictures.  They couldn't possibly be me but I knew, deep down that they were.  The evil images were as much a part of my self as all the rest.

     I think it was then that I realised what the Ebon had done to me.  She had sent me into my own head to look at myself, to face all the secrets that I had blocked away for so long.  I wasn't going to let them do that to me, I wasn't a dog for them to train and control.  I was also very scared of what I might find behind all those doors, what forgotten terrors from my childhood may rise up to strike me again as an adult.

     It was obvious that they wanted me to go through the doors but I wasn't going to do that.  Instead I sat in the middle of the hall and waited, no point in making things easy for them.  Time passed, I have no idea how long, it could have been seconds, hour or even days.  I don't think that time means much when you are inside your own head.

     It happened very quickly.  One moment I was alone in the corridor and the next the Ebon was back with me.  Only this time she didn't look so pretty.  Don't get me wrong, she was still a very good looking woman but she didn't have the same ethereal quality that had surrounded her last time I saw her.  Maybe that was because it didn't work inside my mind, or perhaps it took too much of her energy to maintain the illusion or perhaps she had just realised that I wasn't worth impressing.  Whatever the reason she looked to be just a normal, although very pretty, Ebon.

     "You have to make a choice!" she said.  "Everyone has to choose."

     I think it was the way that she said it that annoyed me the most, as though I was a naughty schoolboy who was deliberately being obstructive.  Who did this bitch think she was?  First she drags me into my own head and then she treats me like an imbecile.  My temper has never been very steady and by now I was at breaking point.

     "Choose, what fucking choice do I have?  Everything has been decided for me by the likes of you.  If it's so important for the fucking doors to be opened, you open them!  I choose not to!"

     I climbed to my feet and start stalking down the corridor away from her.  I don't know what I hoped to achieve but I just didn't care anymore.  This had to be a bad dream, things like this didn't really happen to you, not even Ebons had that much power.  I was muttering to myself as I walked but I don't know what I was saying, I doubt if it would have made any sense.  Suddenly, the Ebon was in front of me again.

     "You have no idea," she virtually spat at me as she prodded me in the chest with one long, immaculately manicured finger.  "You have absolutely no idea what being inside this cess-pit does to me! Just touching the abominations that is your sub-conscious taints me and now you want me to open the doors to your memories.  You really want me to choose what you face?  Fine.  That's exactly what I'll do, you selfish bastard!"

     Her face had grown ugly with anger and I took a couple of steps backwards as she advanced upon me.  She leaned across me, grabbed a door apparently at random and jerked it open.  With little effort she took me by the shoulders and propelled me into the dark room that lay beyond the door.  Spinning, I tried to confront her but the door slammed shut and disappeared into the darkness.  I jumped forward, scrabbling for the door but there was nothing there.  No door, no wall and no Ebon. 

     With nothing to lean against I fell forward, flat out on what looked like dirty concrete.  The lights slowly rose and I could see that I was on the streets of Downtown but everything looked larger than it should have been, just slightly out of proportion.

     The rain was beating against me and running down the back of my leather jacket.  The water level was high, it came over the ankles of my sneakers and the yellow smog was curling through the streets in search of fresh victims.  This couldn't be right, I was in a cell, not Downtown.  But maybe I had just been lost for a while, after all this was my home.  Yeah, I should be here not in any cell or prison, this is where I belonged, my home.  What cell?  I had never been in a cell in my life!  I was far too smart to be caught by the Shivers.  Me and the boys knew what we were doing, we were hard, we were the best, we were the Disciples!

     I warily walked down the street because I knew that there was a lot of Shiver activity in the area just now and I had a guilty looking face.  The last thing I needed was to be hassled by a bunch of dumb cops.  The mist and the rain muffled everything and I didn't hear the heavy, metallic footsteps coming up from behind me until it was too late.  I didn't sense the armoured hand coming down towards me until it hit me across the back of the head, knocking me sprawling into the filthy gutter.

     Coughing and gasping I turned round to see the massive figure of an armoured Shiver leaning over me.  His hand reached out and grabbed my by the front of my shirt and he lifted me easily from the gutter and held me dangling above the street.

     "look what we've got here," he laughed.  " A lost little gutter rat.  I really hate gutter rats and the only thing I hate more than gutter rats is lost ones!"

     The Shiver shimmered and changed and I was being held in the air by Slayer.  His eyes burned into mine and my memories came flooding back.  Writhing and screaming I kicked, punched and spat but it made no difference.  Slayer lifted me higher and higher until the ground was a tiny speck, far below us and he drew me closer to himself.  His lips were only centimetres from mine and I could see the beads of moisture on them glistening in the dim light.

     "My chosen one," he whispered in a deep, calm voice.  "You are the best of my creations, everything that I have been striving for and yet, and yet there is still more to do.   My ambassador, you will be and you will serve me well by you disobedience.  Struggle little one, struggle against what the fates have in store for you.  Your anger will fuel you and keep you safe from the terrors of the light!  My perfect ambassador, so angry and so scared."

     He drew me even closer and brought his mouth down on mine.  I wanted to scream out, to fight against it but I couldn't, I could only accept.  My lips parted  and I felt his tongue slide inside my mouth, running over my teeth and tongue, exploring every part of my mouth.  The kiss became fiercer, stronger and then the pain came as he bit into my tongue.  Razor sharp teeth dug into the soft delicate membrane and agony flared through me as he pulled his head back and ripped my tongue out of my head.

     Slayer spat my tongue out and laughed at me as the blood dripped over his lips and down his chin.  I screamed in mindless pain and fear, blood spraying from my mouth and painting a mad design on Slayer's perfect, ruined face.  His laughter echoed in my head, drowning out my screams and driving me downwards and then it was over.

     I was lying in the corridor with the Ebon standing over me and I was alive.  I could feel my tongue in my mouth and there was no blood but the Ebon woman looked shocked, she looked as though she had seen what I had seen.

     "Time to go," she muttered.  "You've seen everything that you need to."

     Before I could say anything, the scene changed and we were back in the cell.  The Ebon moved away from me and backed to the door, her gaze never leaving my mouth for a second.  As soon as she reached the door it swung open and she hurried out, leaving me alone again.

     Ever since then I have heard the voices whispering in my head. They speak of a place where you can see the sky, where there is no SLA Industries and no Slayer.  They tell me of a land that is a mass of chaos, with power fighting power and the poor and the weak suffering.  They tell me a place that so badly need the help of SLA Industries, of a place that is ripe to be absorbed into the World Of Progress.

     I dream of this place when I close my eyes and it is noisy and crowded and so like Mort but so different.  I see no weapons and no armour but I see the same aggression and fear.  I see no Stormers or Shaktar or Wraiths or Ebons but I do see humans of all kinds and colours and I see the beginnings of Frothers.  Buildings tower around me, modern side by side with ancient but I see no sign of any SLA Industries, no sign of any Karma or Dark Lament.  I can read the words that I see but they mean nothing to me, they could be names or directions or warnings, I don't know.

     As I dream, I picture myself walking through this strange land but no-one see me.  I know that I am not there because I am not recognised.  There are some though, one in every thousand perhaps who can see me.  They look and they stare and they know, they know that I am an alien invader, an ambassador from a foreign land and they fear me, they fear what I could be.

     I wake from these dreams and I still see the same images.  The people and the buildings and the cars, so many cars all around on the screen behind my eyes.  Is this to be my fate, to be lost in a sea of dreams and  insanity.  My lifeline is Slayer but I have thrown that away, never to be touched again.

     The drugs are coming more and more frequently now but I hardly notice.  I spend all my time watching the players and actors in this new world as they go through their lives unaware of my presence.  The cell, the building, all my reality is fading and becoming detached.  All that remains clear of Mort is Slayer's face and hands and in his hand is my severed and bleeding tongue.  Blood spreads out from the tongue and starts to fill the streets, impossible amounts of blood rise up, choking and drowning and killing and only Slayer can swim, only Slayer can keep above the blood.  Tears stream down my face but I am scared to touch them in case they turn out to be blood as well.

     My last dream has to be the strangest and the strongest.  It is this dream that I have not woken from and I fear that I never will. The strange land has grown strong and I am in an alley between two buildings.  Noises surround me and I can hear someone crying the name of some lost lover, "Herrad," he cries. "Even Herrad."

     I lie back and look up at the distant sky.  It is a dirty blue, crowded with clouds but there is no rain.  A huge machine flies past, reminiscent of the great Foldships of Mort, but different, very different.  Now I notice how cold it is, colder than Mort.  The air seems so clear and clean to me it is hard to breathe.  I can still smell the distant taint of pollution but it is so mild.

     A movement at the end of the alley attracts my attention and I see a large, black van pull up.  It is driven by some strange form of engine, not atomic of that I am sure.  The windows are blacked out and the design is unfamiliar to me.

     A man gets out of the vehicle but leaves the door open as he walks towards me.  I can see he is wearing a black suit and a poppy red ties that shows out in stark contrast.  He strides purposefully towards me, takes me by the hand and leads me back to the van.  Once inside I sit in a daze, looking out the windows as the city streets speed past me.

     "My name is Doctor Crantham," says the man in the suit.  "I've been waiting for you."

     "Slayer sent me," I mutter in confused response.

     "I know, my son, I know."

The End?

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