Twinkle's Story: Chapter 14

*WARNING: Contains some violence.*
*Sorry guys. There's no 'Twinkle's view' in this chapter. Will be explained/understood why in the next chapter.*
*Enjoy reading! ^.^*

DUKE

A few days, almost a week, have gone by since that one day. The day when they started coming. The day when they started to enter my mind. They caused me so much pain. In ways indescribable. I thought they would just leave me alone; never bother me again. Haha- wrong. For every day after they first started coming, more and more of them came. The next one worse than the last. The first one of them- oh how I wish the ones after that were like the first one. True, the first day that they came was violent. I remember the flames, the target, my mother, Twinkle, the blood. I shudder as I remember the red stuff, the blood. But every one after was far, far worse than the previous one. The one I had yesterday hit me the most. I remember all of them exactly, but the one yesterday was the most vivid- the most violent. Before I flashback to details of that nightmare, I should explain what they are. They are like demons entering one's soul, sending detailed messages of things one would never even think about doing in reality. I wouldn't ever think of doing the stuff that happened in them. Why would I? If I would... no, no I can't imagine it. I shudder again. Then I question myself. Why am I even thinking about them again? They're a nightmare- my nightmare. After a moment, I remember again. They're trying to make my life a living nightmare. I have a sly grin on my face. But they failed. My life already as it is, is a living nightmare. They just added on to the nightmare of my life- of me. So what exactly are they called? They are my hallucinations. The worst things ever to enter my mind. The most frightening. I stand up from the chair I was just sitting in. I make a promise to myself. Even though it's all in my head, it's not exactly just to myself. It's me telling the rest of my mind. I declare in my head, "If I get another hallucination, I will react. I will do something. I just can't take it anymore. They have to stop. Just please, make them stop torturing me. I have enough torture in my life already. I don't know exactly what I'll do if they come again, but if they do, then they'll better be prepared. 'Cause I'm not afraid of a little challenge. They'll better be prepared- because I'm going to fight back."

 Surprised to hear the door of the room I'm in squeak open, I sit back in the chair again.  A young fox in what looks like her mid-20s comes towards me, paper and pen in paw.  She flicks a strand of her orange hair out of her face that's covering her right eye. She keeps a short distance from me. I look up at her questioningly and say, "Okay. What do you want this time, Flora?" It came out harsher than I thought it would be. After looking back at the door she entered from, she looks back at me. She places the paper and pen onto a nearby table. "Ah, Duke. Don't be so rude when somebody enters the room. Especially since we're trying to help you." She says the word, 'help' with emphasis. She gives me a disapproving glance. Well, she's not exactly helping me. I grunt and sigh. Flora walks over, so she's now to my side. She intentionally kicks my foot as she walks right in front of me. "Hey! What was that for?" I ask, holding my foot she kicked in my paws. Flora just glares at me. I put my foot down next to my other one. "I've dealt with lots of other juvenile foxes in my career. Those include teenagers with they're so called 'drama'. And you are only a young teenager. Fifteen, right?" I shake my head and say quietly, "No, fourteen." Flora sighs and says, "Exactly. Only fourteen. And you're the most obnoxious and rude teenage fox I've ever worked with. You could at least behave like the others." Others referring to the other foxes she worked with. I say, "Well, deal with it. 'Cause I'm not like other foxes. My... problems," I say spitting the word out. Flora, a therapist in the hospital, likes to call with what we're trying to get rid of, my hallucinations, as problems. Just a stinking problem. I growl softly, so she can't hear me. "... are different than others'. My life is different than other foxes. And that's a cold, hard fact. So just shut up about it, and deal with it." This time, I glare at Flora. "Ugh! Do you really have to be a 'drama queen', uh 'king' about everything? And you want to know another 'cold, hard fact', Duke? 'Cause I got one. You better accept me here... helping you. Or else I'm done- and no one's gonna help you with your problems. Good luck dealing with them, then. Now that's a cold, hard fact." Finally, Flora tells me the actual reason she came back to the therapy room.

Flora takes a deep breath and asks me a question. Now, she's back in her 'therapist voice'- well, that's what I call it anyways. She looks straight at me, and asks me slowly, calmly, and softly, "Are you okay, Duke? Tell me how you really feel. It's okay. You had another anxiety attack around an hour ago. Remembering your hallucinations/reliving them too much, I assume. I'm just here to see if it's gone, which it obviously is, and check back on you. I'm sorry too. I, your therapist, shouldn't have acted that way when I entered here just a few minutes ago. My apologies." I accept her apology still a bit reluctant, and tell her that she assumed correctly. We then have another so called 'therapy session' for a while. Flora constantly writings some notes on a paper. Then, Flora gets up and heads out the door peacefully.

One of the things I had to answer to her was if I remember the first day. Which I do. The day when some of the hospital staff (no, not doctors or anyone like that- others) saw/found me after my first hallucination. The square, which contained the first hallucination, was so tiny. Like the tip, edge, or whatever of a fox's fangs. The sharpest teeth that foxes have. Then suddenly, the square vanished completely. I looked down again from the area where the square was, back to the floor. The square used to be at eye-level with me. Only when I was sitting upright. But right when Twinkle died and 'cloned me' left the room in the hallucination, I laid out on the floor. My arms and legs spread out, each in a different direction. My tail trailing behind me- my body, anyways. My legs going up and down, trying to kick the floor. The air? The memories of the hallucination? I'm not exactly sure what. At first, my arms did the same thing too. I was also crying, sobbing- no, full out bawling during this.  So when my face was too wet with tears, I would make my arms stop moving around. I would wipe my wet face with my arms. The soft fox fur comforting me a little. Occasionally, my tears would just drop off my face and land on the floor right in front and below me. This happened so many times that a small puddle of just my tears were in that spot on the floor. Finally when I don't think I can cry anymore, I looked more carefully at the puddle of my tears.  I still stayed in my position on the floor. As I was observing my puddle of tears, I imagined that instead of the puddle being clear in color, it changed back to red. The puddle of tears being replaced to that puddle of Twinkle's blood on that small platform Twinkle stood upon. So basically a mini hallucination based off the hallucination that just happened.

After that, I just shrieked. I couldn't think of anything else to do. Then this small group of hospital workers who are at the other end of the hallway ran towards the sound of me shrieking. I felt dazed, my mind muffled. I remember mumbling words out. "... Twinkle... blood... Twinkle.... blood." The workers just looked at me completely confused. I managed to get a few sentences out though. "... Oh Zios. Twinkle lost too much blood. And because... because of me. I killed her. I killed her! How could I do such a thing!? I love her. Why would I kill her? Why, why, why!?" One of them said, "No, no. Twinkle's not dead. She's okay. Life is hard, though. She's constantly going in and out of consciousness. You must've saw something. We'll take you to the therapy room to make you feel at least a little bit better. Probably just a real bad dream or something." Then, they took me to the 'therapy room'; the fox who talked held my paw, steadying me. I was still a bit unbalanced from the hallucination. So for the past days ever since then, I stayed in this room. Surprisingly, it isn't as bad as I thought it would be.

I slowly and cautiously remember my most recent hallucination. I don't want to remember it too vividly. I'm really not in the mood for yet another anxiety attack. So this is what happened in the hallucination. My surroundings were also changed into my hallucination, so it wasn't like my first one with it all confined in a square. This is what happened.:

I was standing alone in a plain meadow. Just endless grass. Nothing else. Then the grass suddenly disappeared. I then stand on nothing but air. But not for long. I fell down. I would've expected to find dirt, soil, or whatever underneath grass. But instead it felt like I fell down a steep cliff. And at the bottom was endless water in all directions. Like the oceans and rivers that surround Jamaa's exterior borders- or so I've heard. My feet originally were on the ground below the water. But the water keeps on getting deeper and deeper. I quickly rushed to the surface when the water's waves are at the same level as my chest. Luckily, I took a deep breath of air just before a wave made me slip and fall back down to the bottom of the water. As I placed my feet on the ground that's below the water, the water color suddenly changed. It turned red. Then suddenly it changed entirely. It no longer was water, but instead, blood. I try to rush back up towards the surface. Because I have to take a breath, and because I didn't want to be surrounded by blood- literary. Then again. Nothing good that you want happens in your hallucinations. Well, for me anyways. My nose hits with this glass-like material above me as I tried to swim up. I go off to the side, and I bumped into another side of this glass-like material. Then I realized I was trapped underwater in a glass box. I struggled to breathe. Then for a moment I totally forgot I was underwater. So I screamed as loudly as I could. Surprisingly, I couldn't hear my own screams. At first I thought it was because I was trapped underwater. But as I screamed, or tried to scream again, my voice got replaced with this very high-pitched voice. A voice that's in most horror movies. But I still kinda recognize that distinct voice. Twinkle.

I tried to look for where she is. When I did, I simply gasped, horrified. I realized that I can breathe in this glass box, cage, or whatever. At least that's something good. The rest of the hallucination isn't as nice though. Twinkle was inside this small cage hanging onto something that wasn't attached to anything. Twinkle herself looked more thin than ever. A moment later, I figured out why. Nearly all the blood was out of her poor, injured body. This time, the blood originated from a hole in her throat. To this day, I'm still perplexed on why it was her throat, and not her heart. The blood that made up this entire water was Twinkle's. I know it's exaggerating. No fox can have that much blood. Filling up an entire body of water. I wonder what it could mean. If these hallucinations mean something more- which I just know they do. I can't explain it though. The moment when I expected Twinkle to be dead, she faded away. I sighed. Good, I don't have to see her dead body. Then the walls of the glass box broke apart. I swam towards the surface. I stood above the water. My feet just on top of the surface of the water.  I watched as a red drop fell from my ear tip to the water below.

Now a prophecy message got mentioned in this hallucination. The water turned back into actual water. Clear in color. I breathed a sigh of relief. The waves at the water's surface suddenly paused mid-motion, and they froze. I thought of Twinkle. Her spirit, her 'ice', rising. Bringing with it her 'ice' in the still unexplained/unknown about prophecy. Then as my foot came in contact with some of the ice, the top of the ice, which is on top of the water, turned bright orange. It turned into flames. It's me, the 'fire'. Then slowly bit by bit, the water's surface turned into fire. The ice part simply vanished. The blue glow of the ice died down. So this was how I killed Twinkle this time. In prophecy terms. Then, I, myself, faded away into a dark orange flame. The next thing I noticed, was that it was another hallucination, and it ended. I looked around me, and noticed I'm in the middle of the therapy room where there's nothing but floor around me. The light gray tiles as the floor, shining in the lamp's light.

What scared me the most about this particular one? It was that instead of all the other ones, I didn't scream immediately after the hallucination ended. I was just too wonderstruck. This one involved the prophecy that Twinkle and I have. We still have no idea what it actually means- or so I think. I'm not exactly sure anymore. Then I remember what the mysterious voice told both of us. It said, "'Even the strongest ice will melt to the powers of fire.'" Now more than ever, I'm wondering what that statement really means. I shudder at a thought. Does it mean that I, the 'fire', will kill/melt Twinkle, the 'ice'?       I gulp, worriedly. This is why I can't deal with having another hallucination. I can't stand seeing how Twinkle will die in the next hallucination. I just can't. I will take action to fight against my own hallucinations. I'll go to great extents for them to stop. Yes, this does seem like an impossible task. Fighting with my own mind, really. I shudder again. What if my hallucinations are actually another part of my mind that I haven't discovered yet? A part of pure darkness and evil. I feel uneasy. I can't go on like this. Why can't Flora, or any other therapist, doctor, or whatever here, just permanently delete my hallucinations? So I won't get any more. I sigh. I know that that's clearly not possible to do so. Oh, how I wish it is possible.