The Mind Bender

Chapter 15

Dane stood in front of a wall that stretched into the void in all directions. There was nothing around, nothing in this empty space to use to break down this wall he knew he had to overcome. He tried climbing it, but he fell.

A voice from nowhere taunted him. "Stop trying, child. That's as far as your mental ability can reach."

He shook his head. He can't be left here under the seizure of a demented man. The wall loomed over him, but if it was on his mind, then it was not real. "This is not real." He pressed his hands against it, hoping the bricks would budge. Nothing. He punched the bricks. The pain in his knuckles made him whimper.

"Stop trying, you insolent child!" echoed the voice.

"Stop calling me child. You're not my father."

"I'm better than your father, that deluded man was no good! I can be your father."

Head bent down, Dane let out heavy breaths. "I don't need a father." He stood up and punched the bricks. "I don't need a father!" He punched the bricks harder and to his astonishment they started to yield. The boy screamed as he punched his way through the bricks, not minding the bleeding of his knuckles.

"No!" Frank's voice echoed from all directions as his psychic wall collapsed.

Dane walked past the bricks and saw Frank standing in the midst of the blackness.

"Welcome to my mind." Frank smiled and extended a hand, palm facing up.

"No thanks." Dane's stare was blank, unemotional. "I wanna go home."

"You're already here." Frank walked towards him.

Dane glared at him and then images of children surrounded him to their surprise. He saw the man taken aback as the images of children he had tortured and molested played before him.

"Stop mocking me with my memories." Frank looked around.

It dawned on the kid that the man who snatched him had strange, perverted fondness for boys. "Why, Mr. Astor, are you scared?"

Frank glared at him and raised his hands. The bricks flew from the pile and started arranging themselves on top of the other before him.

Dane noticed something. Yes, in this dimension, on this otherworldly plane, they can do a lot of things. Why hadn't he figured it out before?

He walked closer to his assailant and pulled the bricks away. "Don't hide from me, Mr. Astor. I know your secret now." His voice now echoed. "I don't know why you hurt all those kids and me. But my mom said the law comes after bad people."

Frank stepped back. His face bore an expression of dread and fright, which then shifted to anger as he jumped over the boy. "You can't do this! You're just a kid!"

Dane struggled to breathe as he attempted to free himself from the hands that wrapped tightly around his neck. He stared into his attacker's eyes. "You said I was one of a kind." A wave of energy hurled Frank into the air. Unsure of what just happened, he stared at the man who flinched on the black plane.

Frank giggled. "You're learning how to attack people psychically." He stood up. "Can you do this too?" Knives appeared in both of his hands.

Dumbstruck, Dane retreated. "This is not real."

"You mean this?" Frank swayed a knife and cut Dane's arm.

"No." Blood oozed from Dane's cut. He glared at his attacker who had launched the other knife.

"I can kill you here, boy." Frank sniggered as he held both knives by his sides. "But it doesn't have to be that way. Just stay with me."

"You're insane!"  He cowered, but as he did he discovered a reality within this strange realm, where the impossible became possible and the unreal became real.

"Why are you being so stubborn!" the man's voice reverberated with deafening loudness again as he slashed his victim's cheek.

Dane became furious. "Stop!" His scream filled the void with an ear-splitting roar. He saw Frank cover his ears as if disabled by the voice that seemed to bounce off from everywhere. "Let me go." Dane turned around. But as he walked away, he felt a hand grab his shoulder.

"When I say you stay, stay!" Frank's eyes widened. Creases in his face grew deep.

"Let me go!" Dane tried to remove Frank's grasp but was distracted by something else that was happening. The hands that held him grew bigger, and in a few moments it caged him in its clasp. He looked up to see the man looming over him, his distorted face now made even more horrifyingly arresting by its sheer size.

"You're inside my mind. I rule this place. Here, I can do anything."

The colossal hand squeezed Dane's tiny body, effectively immobilizing him. None of his efforts to break himself free was good enough.

"You've shown impressive feats, son. Makes me wanna keep you more."

"Mr. Astor, I can't breathe." The furrows on different places on his face showed he wrestled. But then it dawned on him that this... This otherworldly void is inside his attacker's mind. Inside his mind, where he can do anything. The ten-year-old stopped moving. "This is an illusion." He looked up to see Frank's giant face frowning, eyes narrowing, jaw dropping. "Get your hand off me, pervert."

"Stand down, boy!" Frank glared at him.

"Tell me, Mr. Astor. How many boys have you touched?" Dane saw the embarrassment in his attacker's face. "What made you like them?" He saw him shake his head.

"You don't understand." Frank removed his grasp on Dane as his body quickly returned to its normal size.

The boy watched him blankly. "I'm looking at a few pictures in your head right now. Your father..." Stricken by the sexual images he saw, Dane stopped.

Frank buried his face in his cupped palms and cried. His legs were on the black plane. "He was cruel. Just as your father was to you."

"Henry never touched me." Dane could feel no sympathy. "But you, Mr. Astor, touched me like you touched the other kids, like your father used to touch you. How did it feel to hear your father's ugly thoughts of you?"

Frank glared at him, eyes leaking.

"Mr. Astor, I'm sorry that your father made you do this to yourself." Dane ran his fingers on his abductor's rough, deformed face.

"Stop looking at my memories."

"But it was you who invited me here."

"And I'm not letting you go." As Frank glared at Dane, the black ground rippled.

Dane felt his feet sink into the abyss, but he was no longer scared. "I know your tricks now," he said as he sunk into the rippling blackness from the waist down. "My mom is coming, Frank. He's with the cops. I just heard them." Dane smiled.

"They will not find you inside my house," Frank hissed.

"Because I'm getting out of it," the boy said calmly as he pulled himself from the void that had sucked him. He stood in front of the cowering man. "Thank you for showing me how to use my abilities, Mr. Frank Astor." Dane watched as bricks started gathering around his abductor.

"What are you doing?" Frank glowered as he slowly stood up.

Dane continued to watch him until the blocks completely enclosed his kidnapper. He could hear him screaming from inside, punching the walls. "Goodbye, Frank."

Dane walked away as the brick cage sank into the abyss.

He woke up to see Elaine shaking him. He cried as he embraced her. He felt safe. The cops raided the house. He caught a glance of the sprawled man on the floor. A medical team rushed in to put Frank's body on a stretcher, while Elaine and two more medical personnel ushered Dane to an ambulance. Before they left, he saw the cops cordoning off the house.