Anonymous Reflection

More Questions than Answers

                “Wait, you shot him?” I asked, pulling away from him.

                “I didn’t have a choice; he was beating himself in the head and crying something fierce and crazy. I didn’t know about the effects then, but now I do. Trouble is, your eyes weren’t just terrified; they were glowing like some kind of blue moon,” he explained. I didn’t say anything. I was too stunned to speak. I had good news and bad news: he could save my life, but he might not be able to.

                “Anyway, I know how this kind of bleeder ticks. If he’s got himself hiding in there,” he said, pointing at my forehead, “then we’ll find him, and we’ll get rid of that bastard. Bleeders like that don’t leave a mind alone for that long. I’d say he’s been planning something with your mind for over a year.”

                “I’ve only been having the dreams for a month or two… and it’s been in my mind for over a year?” The ally in my mind was trying to keep my thoughts calm, but I felt like I was about to snap. I had been extensively scarred by a nightmare of a thing which I still knew nothing about except that it had been festering in my head for over a year. The stubborn old man next to me wasn’t helping me at all. He only cared about solving a bigger problem I knew nothing about.

                “There’s no way to know exactly how long. But a year is a long enough time for it to mess with your mind enough to take over some of the less active parts,” he said, leading to the bed in the corner. “If we’re going to find out how bad it is, we’ll have to do some exploring. Lie down, kid, you got to be asleep for this to work.”

                “What? What are you doing?” I panicked as he brought a syringe towards my neck.

                I’m going to be okay; the thought entered my head as my world faded.

                I woke, gasping for air. Water surrounded my on all sides, and I was in an immediate state of panic. My arms were flailing around and my legs were kicking in a desperate attempt to find the surface. My head was spinning, everything was pitch-black, and I thought for sure I was going to die. But then it occurred to me: I was still breathing. My chest was heaving with effort to pump the fluid in and out, but I was still breathing.

                A hand reached in a pulled me up. I broke the surface, landing on a solid shore at the feet of the stranger in my mind. As I breathed the air in desperately, water drained from my mouth. The hand that had gripped me pulled me to my feet. We stood on a soft ground of flesh-like substance, and the pool from which I emerged was just a small hole hardly as wide as I was tall. Hundreds of similar pools stretched out in the direction away from the shore into a fog. The entire place was overcast in the gray fog and it was dark like a rainy day. I was looking around, completely in awe of the new and foreign place.

                “Welcome to my place,” the creature beside me said.

                “What do you mean, ‘your place’?”

                “It’s a lot smaller than it looks. This is my mind as it has made space in your mind.”

                “What?”

                “Think of it as a dream. We are in your mind, right now, which is a whole new world that we see as you would imagine it. This particular place is in your mind but is how I would imagine it.”

                “Well what the hell are we doing in my mind?” I said, grabbing his shoulder and looking him in his empty eyes.

                “We have to find what is left of the bleeder. While we’re here, you’ll also be able to learn about who I am and what is going on.”

                He started walking and beckoned for me to follow. I went, too overwhelmed by the experience of this strange dream (if it could be called that) to argue with him. We were walking away from the holes and into the thick fog that surrounded the location. The fog enveloped us so that we could see nothing and I had to hold his elbow to make sure I didn’t lose him.

                “You can call me Avrik,” he said as we walked.

                “I thought you said your name wasn’t important,” I inquired. “I thought you were just ending my dream and whatever.”

                “I was, until Morgan spotted that glow in your eyes. I couldn’t have found it because it’s dangerous for both of us if I go wandering around your mind alone.”

                “So that’s his name?”

                “Dale Morgan, a dark old man with a dangerous hobby for hunting bleeders. But someone has to do it,” he shrugged.

                “So what does that make you?” I asked; glad to finally be getting some answers.

                “Before I tell you, you need to know there is a lot you don’t know about what’s going on,” he said carefully.

                “Okay,” I nodded. The fact that he had to reinforce my ignorance was making me nervous. “Continue…”

                “Listen, Damien; I’m a bleeder.”