Across Acheron

Session 11

Explosions were going on in my head that wouldn’t quit.

Miniature figures of me threw bombs across the frontline of my thoughts, eradicating the old me who didn’t stand a chance against the rage. The sky swirled in Technicolor and was peppered with paper planes roaring with static, adding to the clamour at no man’s land. Loud battle cries vibrated against the walls of my skull and chimed in my ears, causing me to bite my lip from the sting.

Both parties—the old and the new me—charged through the frontlines with bayonets of hatred and contempt. Shots rang out as cries left identical lips, but no blood spilled from the bodies of the wounded. They just...disappeared.

The new me fought for freedom, leaving the old me dead. Annihilated.

Onwards, men! The captain in my head shouted, who was really me but with facial hair. Don’t laugh. The war is not over. It’s never over. The enemy is not just you; it’s also everyone around you.

But I still couldn’t eat and I still couldn’t sleep; much less could I trudge through the thick mud of thoughts just to fight even larger armies.

Pathetic men are the ones who quit soldier! Is that what you want to be? Pathetic? You’re going to spend the rest of your life knee high in this soil, boy, allowing it to take over your every being like a swarm of parasites. You’re nothing but a worthless—

“So here’s what we’ll do,” Keenan spoke up, knocking me out of my imaginary warzone and back to reality. He sat right in front of me at the old wooden dinner table, watching me pick at the pancakes. “You’ll go help Cillian out, but come back ten or twenty minutes early. Say that you have diarrhea or something, I don’t know. I’ll get you the key. You question the woman and get out of there before he comes back.”

I didn’t answer him. He had been carrying a conversation with himself for the past twenty minutes, but it didn’t seem to bother him that all I found interest in was the war in my head. He didn’t make a show of it, but I knew he could see it. He could see everything.

“Cillian’s on edge. If you find something to use against him, it just might make him crack. Once he loses reason, you’ll have an advantage. You can twist his mind to let you escape. Cillian can become your doll, only if you play your cards right.”

I stabbed my fork through the fluffy pancakes, causing Keenan to jump. The table filled with silence as Keenan stared at me with hard eyes. I returned his gaze, something I never would have done weeks ago.

“What’s wrong with you?” he asked. “You weren’t like this yesterday—”

He stopped short when I suddenly scrapped my chair against the hardwood floor, getting up from my seat. I grabbed the towel that sat beside me and walked away from him, heading to the front door.

“Wait, Jack! You know I’ve got to walk you there.”

Say your prayers, soldier. This enemy will be tough.

Keenan caught up to me in no time, keeping close at my heels as I opened the door and headed in Cillian’s direction. The sun was already beating down hard and made the air thick with heat. My stomach growled against the lack of food I had consumed, but I forced myself to continue onward.

I found Cillian in the middle of the field, one hand holding a basket full of raw corn while the other reached for more. He turned when I approached, his eyes rolling from the sky to the ground as he gave me a once over.

“Where’s your basket?” he asked. “How the hell do you think you’ll manage carrying—”

“Can I talk to you for a sec, Cill?” Keenan asked, gesturing to the house. I nearly puked. He never called him ‘Cill’. What kind of bullshit was that?