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Part Five
By Soshika
Abandon anything you know to be true, what you will see here and now are your truths. What you see here and now will be your life.
The words snailed by in haze, he was unfocused and uncomprehending towards them. They had meaning, he was almost sure of it, but what it was didn't seem to matter. They showed these things several times a day. Several times a day, he was forced to sit and stare at a blue wall where he saw nothing, but others saw the crawling images. Their concent, their beleif in those words, were what made Grey gradually ignore them.
He couldn't feel anymore. It didn't matter, and there was no point to it. His body felt miles away, and if it had been he wouldn't have missed it. He was never alone. Where ever he went, they were there, inside of him, moving and thinking. He had no thought to himself, but neither did they. That was his only satisfaction.
Words were crawling through the minds closest to him, and no one was looking at him. There were no eyes on his pale skin. This was his moment of solitude- when no one was looking at him. But still, not very far away, he could hear Voices talking together...a scratchy feeling to them, like the playback on an old record. Spoken words repeated in the mind. Blinking softly in his own strange version of blindness, Grey listened.
"He has withdrawn completely. Our observation shows he doesn't recognize food or water, and scarcely sleeps. Normally the pain inside the body would drive someone to this after several days, but it's as if..."
"As if he doesn't feel pain. Yes, we already had reports of that from downstairs, but you know how they are. He may just desire to die. It's quite common in their cases, sadly."
"We hardly put out this much of an effort in other cases."
Other cases? Others ...Grey blinked quietly, listening to the far away voices. That word was special in some way, but not when the man said it. Not these others.
"We haven't seen any power like this in the other cases. Remember, her case was the only other reported-"
"She took us completely by storm, too bad we lost her. So...What do you prepose we do with him?"
"He's not shown any signs of communication since he was brought here. If he slips backwards to his Animal instincts this early, we'll use a valulable reasearch subject. But I suggest we look further into the situation before trying anything drastic."
"I'll send out a request to have him interviewed again. How did the last one go?"
"Two weeks ago, and he didn't speak a word the entire time. Just sat in the chair and looked to the side. But on his first visit, he at least said a few things."
"Such as..."
"Well..." The Voice paused...he got fuzzy far-off images. "He called himself a Demon."
Funny...didn't they know? He was a demon. Anything which was made here was a demon. So they were coming to see him again...maybe test on him again. Fine. But they wouldn't find much they wanted to know about...
For once, they didn't drug him when they came to visit. He could feel them in the room without looking, hear them thinking words at eachother and flashing pictures of what they saw. What they saw was him, sitting with his back to the room, knees curled, looking at a corner of the wall. He was daring anyone to attack, now. The harsh white of the hospital cloths they had him dressed in contrasted with the sick paleness of his skin and the black and silver streaks of his hair. Somewhere around him was a tray of uneaten food. The smell didn't interest him and he felt no need to eat. His body was just a fake shell- he had no real form. He was the Darkness...
"How long has he been there?" One of them from behind whispered to one of the more familiar shapes. Maybe it was a worker. He saw it sometimes, out of the corner of his eye, moving things around near him. He didn't care. He dare not feel emotion, for his last outburst had left so many dead..so many he still couldn't count them and their Screams were still with him, every moment of every day. To feel emotions like that was to lose control- to hear the screams and see the fire again. If there were ever to be tears again, they would only be in his death.
"Seventy eight hours," the familiar shape replied. "He won't move or respond to any kind of outside stimuli. Food doesn't interest him, nor does the prospect of rest. I have to hold him down and give him eye drops fifteen times a day, because he won't even blink."
"Will he fight? Upstairs said he tended to struggle."
"Only when he's held down. Otherwise the only trouble you have is getting him to move."
The shapes glowed up behind him, yellow spilling into the edges of his vision. He did not move. He simply sat. One of them cleared its throat, and Grey did not respond. For all the world, he did not hear them. He was concentrating on an image far away, outside the walls, of a dog eating a rodent.
"Would you like to go for a walk?" One of the voices took on a soothing tone, like the ones from outside. For a split second, he almost moved to respond to the voice, but caught himself. The underlying motives were clear as day inside his head, they only wanted him to follow. He did not move.
With a sigh, the familiar shape looped its hands under his arms again and lifted him up, as it did some times. He stood, but said nothing and did not turn until the shape forced him to. "It's the only way to get him up," its said tiredly. "It's like he don't want to be a part of our world."
The two yellow shapes each put hands on his shoulder and began to walk, and he passively followed. Where he went didn't matter, for it was only his body that was moving. His mind was trapped and within its walls, exploring the world through the thoughts of others. The hallways ahead grew into long glowing blue tubes in his vision as the yellow shapes spoke clearly and briskly.
"We need to ask you some questions, my friend. It won't take but a little while, and then you can get back to..." The voice faded into silence as the shape realized there was no word he could place the activities to. As if he had never heard the shape, Grey walked softly in the directions they told him. The world was growing boring here. He was longing to leave.
Leave..I will leave. Those Voices...they are outside...
I am the Darkness...
It is where I must be.
