Heavy Rains: Inferno (WATTY AWARDS 2012)

Part 1: Chapter 1

Heavy Rains

One: Inferno

1.1

“Who is this? Is this...?” The words begun slow and shortly sloped to a low inaudible hum, which I ignored. 

They were muffled and it felt like they went through cotton fields before reaching my brain and through my wavering consciousness, I couldn't latch onto much more than the first few words that she said.

There was a jolt of electricity, a shock more than anything, of pain that suddenly flashed around in my skull. The pain pulsated in my brain, drumming against the inside of my skull.

When I finally opened my eyes, there was light which greeted me in neon shades.

I snapped my eyes closed just as fast as I had opened them, feeling safer in a world of darkness than in the light.

I could feel this woman who I called Dr. Robinson breathing on me despite her being in her respective chair probably a good four feet away from me. My heart beat quickened and my fingers trembled, digging my nails deep within the cushions until I knew my knuckles must've turned white. 

I had always hated the antique furniture anyway. Smelled like dust.

I waited exactly two minutes and twelve seconds, wondering if I should tempt fate and open my eyes, or subdue and keep them closed. It would've been so much easier to of sat there in nothingness but her voice came back again and my head was beginning to clear.

"Open them, open them, Jamie."

I held onto those words as my guide back to reality and opened my eyes after so much resistance. My eyes darted around the room, vision bouncing from one dusty aristocrats portrait to another, all with demeaning, judgmental expressions. The look on their faces reminded me of the nuns that wrote me off as a lunatic the first moment they hear my story or read through my files.

None of the sisters had ever said that but the other part of me, deep back behind my consciousness, had whispered it to me from a place that no one else could hear.

I was originally looking for a route, and then from there, just waiting for the opprotune chance to escape from the woman who sat so calmly in front of me.

But I knew her game, maybe just as well as she knew mine, and I was too experienced to be fooled by her slack posture and warm eyes because behind that inviting expression was nothing more than pure curiosity and a thirst to know more about my supposedly fascinating mind. Notes were written down cleanly and thoughtfully on a little floral pad of paper using a ball point pen with a calm expression.

Always, always so calm. And meanwhile my mind was destroying me. But no one, no one cared.

I knew what she wanted. She had become aware that her lifespan was questionable, and her contribution to the world was totaled out to zilch. Her name wasn't well-known or published, and she was chasing a fleeting dream to be known for something by now. She was going through her mid-life crisis all to my bad luck.

She lowered her head attempting to make eye contact with me, and despite my best efforts to avoid it, I met her steely gaze. Her legs were crossed politely beneath a modest but age appropriate brown dress and she seemed like such a perfect little psychiatrist. She cleared her throat to grab my attention. After so many sessions, she knew when I was beginning to let my mind wander.

My eyes instinctevly shut at the noise, it being loud and somewhat intrusive. I set on grinding my teeth together. One noise, one object, one anything just to bring me back to reality and anchor me there.