"No.". (Mind/Split - An Original Idea, Voices/Abuse)

A Lack of Sunshine

The forest surrounding her was thick, discolored, and full of sadness. She did not know how she got there. All she knew, was that something was waiting for her in the darkness. Something was looking for her-- No. She was looking for it. For him...

"Hello?" She called, her voice as dead as the air itself. Internally, she wondered how the forest could live in these conditions.

"This forest is not living," said a soft, low voice. "It is thriving."

"But there is no sunlight," objected Wendy, looking around for the source of the voice, as well as for any sliver of light from above.

"Why do you act so ignorant?" Hissed the voice. "There are creatures born to the night; ones with wings or claws or segmented bodies; creatures born to live at below-freezing depths of the sea! Every plant and creature born to it's own circumstances will find a way to adapt and survive-- if their will to live is strong enough..."

Wendy stopped looking around the woodland. It was started to all look the same to her; it never changed.

"Are you happy, Wendy?" Asked the voice.

The girl ignored the question, instead asking her own: "Who are you? Where are you? I know that this is a dream."

"Yes, it is a dream, but it doesn't make this moment any less real..."

Out from between the trees came a figure, stepping closer, dressed in long sleeves and dark pants. His fingers curled and uncurled like a spider's legs, caught in it's own web, struggling at the cost of it's life to break free.

At the sight of him, Wendy was feeled with fear, and she could not understand why.

The sadness returned to the forest: "Don't fear the darkness, girl. Embrace it. Embrace me..."

Wendy backed up slowly, her feet suddenly bare and stepping on broken glass. She cried out in pain and stumbled.

The figure came closer; a man an inch taller with messy brown hair. He held out his hand towards her. "If you keep living this way, you will only continue  to be hurt. Here... let me guide you..."

Wendy's heart lurched. She knew this voice. It spoke to her outside of her dreams, too... It knew her most private thoughts, her fears, her desires... Her secrets.

The trees collapsed all around her like electricuted birds, dropping to the earth with an eerie sound like ripping paper. She was exposed: the sunlight shone down and scorched her from above; a fierce, blinding spotlight. She lifted her hands to shield herself from the light, screaming, "No! Don't look at me! I haven't done anything wrong!"

Knock knock knock!

The girl's eyes snapped open, her lungs taking in a deep breath, inhaling the scent and taste of waffles and some kind of sweet fruit.

"Breakfast is ready!" Came Ray's voice from behind the door. "Come eat while it's still warm."

Wendy breathed in and out slowly,  her dream evaporating from her mind as reality took it's place: Mom was making breakfast...

She turned her head and looked out the window. It was dark. Very dark. Startled, Wendy flung herself off of the bed and grabbed her Winne-the-Pooh watch from inside the drawer, staring down at it with a firmly beating heart.

8:35pm.

"Breakfast for dinner," she mumbled outloud, assuring herself. "Its just time to eat. Ray is just being funny."

The voice came back to her: "If you're going to continue speaking outloud to yourself, I insist you only do it when you are alone."

"But I am alone, stupid." Wendy snapped back, then flinched inwardly when she realized she was answering her own thoughts as if they were a person.

Somehow, she felt the voice laugh. A laugh so cruel and full of rabid foam; a clear and obvious sickness, yet you cannot look away...

Crash! A plate made of glass broke out in hysterical diamonds across the floor, and the sound of a woman yelling sounding straight after.

Wendy rushed breathless to the door, squeezing tight the knob between her sweaty fingers, her mouth slipping open, turning the knob gently and swiftly to make no noise.

The sounds were not what troubled the girl. It was the silence that followed. The forest from her dream came back into her mind, and her knees grew weak.

"Do not fear the silence; embrace the dark, girl. You have nothing to fear if you have no fears."

Wendy's eyes opened wider in a way people could only write about. At last, she understood: She found herself wearing a broad smile full of wicked satisfaction. Wendy relaxed her face and agreed with this feeling, thinking proudly in her head: "That's right. Why fear anything at all, when life must be lived without fear?"

She laughed aloud and kicked open the door; a woman drunk on mania.

Ice shot down in quivering prickles down her spine: inward the girl breathed the snowy frost: she stood in a clearing of a snow-covered forest, staring up at the sun. It blinded her like a white feather from Noah's dove: too penetrating, too real; she just simply wasn't ready for this!

And in her head, his shouting:

"No! You are wrong. That is not what I am telling you! If the fawn did not fear the coyote, then he would surely die! You may call your premature death a thing which Mother Nature intended, but it was because you had no fear, little fawn! You danced in your mother's shadow and never learned on your own two feet! You fear for awareness to the one who are reckless in mood, heart, or desire: you fear the unstable branch you chose in haste! You fear the words you spoke when someone behaves opposite to what you expected! You must learn to fear correctly in times of awareness and times when empathy is needed; censor yourself, your mood, your everything: be like the tiger in the forest and leave no paw prints on the ground! But never fear when you know it is time to draw your claws--"

"STOP!!"

When Wendy opened her eyes, she found herself on her knees with her hands over her ears, her Dad kicking her lightly in the side to get her to show signs of normality, her Mom holding Ray's arm tightly, the boy's face so open and shining that he looked like a ghost from Scooby Doo had made itself real.

Wendy lowered her hands, a crooked smile creeping along her face. Ray was acting so funny... Wasn't he? She started to laugh; a nervous, yet awestruck sound that seemed to cause her parents to withdraw.

"Ray...?" She said, blinking fast to clear the fog left in her eyes from ... ("Crying?..." ) She wiped her eyes. "What's so funny?"

"Stop." Her Dad said firmly. "Tell us why you screamed 'stop'.""

"Screamed?" Wendy repeatedly. "I... I didn't scream, I--..." Confusion gave rise to a sudden wave of recollection. She looked at her Dad with wild desperation."I screamed because he wouldn't stop yelling at me!"

"Ray was yelling at you?" Mom asked sharply, looking down at him and shaking her conviently-located son by his arm.

Wendy took a breath, but was interrupted.

"I was Not yelling!" Ray shrieked.

The children's Dad rushed forward and pushed Wendy back into her room, kicking shut the door right after.

"I'm tired of all this god damn lying all the time!" He said loudly. "First the zoo, then you said you recorded the football game on the vcr-- turned out you never put the tape in to begin with- then Ray drops the cup on the floor... and now this all this lying and trickery! I'm sick of it!"

Wendy picked herself up and locked the door as her Dad spoked beyond it like an angry pirate captain to his crew of mutinaries. Sinking. Sinking...

The depths of an ocean sadness... Like a forest... She felt the corners of her mouth twitch involuntatily, as if someone else was trying to smile with her lips.

"I give up," she whispered, curling like an injured dog against the floor. She surrendered at that moment, disconnecting herself even further from reality...