Taurus

Chapter 20

I nodded. "Mali... she created lies for my past. My entire past seems to be a lie. I don't know if she is doing it again. I don't even know if this second is another creation of hers or my own."

Her eyes softened. "Have you spoken to others? Anyone else from your past?"

I bit my lip. "I spoke to two of them. They were tricked too. She... she changed my past in a way that everyone else knew the past she created. She changed even theirs, but I don't to what extent they would be affected."

She blinked at me and then nodded to herself. "That's how those people with the powers of hallucinations work. But there is a trick in their power. It seems very simple, but it is very hard to do so. Ready?"

"Y-you are telling me that," I gulped. "You will help me see through her power?"

Dr Hayes nodded. "That's right. You are not the first to present me like this. There are a lot of vampires whose power is a hallucination and I have successfully treated twenty-two such victims in my long life of sixty years. You can trust me on this. I have worked in this field and I do know how to tell otherwise."

"How?" I asked. "I really want to move forward. I tried talking with the people in my past, but I can't trust them until I see them. I spoke to the people I have met recently, but I feel I can't be myself. I need to know."

Dr Hayes took in a deep breath. "That power... it makes you feel as if everything was real. Right from your emotions and that's why you can't trust the present."

I nodded. "I felt the love for a girl who never existed."

"My previous patients," she said. "They were at the maximum under the influence for a month. I must say, you were under that suppression for a very long time. It will take a lot of time. But seeing your records, I can say that you have a speedy chance of recovery."

I gulped.

She then linked her fingers together and placed them on the table. "They think that the more effort they put in the emotions, the more realistic it would seem. That's true. That's why you believed them all this while."

"But?"

"But," she said with a secretive smile. "But, they often leave the component of the memory itself."

"What?" I asked.

"Look," she said. "Have you ever been to the beach or anyplace with your mother that makes you smile now?"

I thought for a while. We had once gone on a picnic near a stream in the Summer Pack after I had graduated from my university. I was not able to remember everything, but the sky was a different shade of blue that day. The colour my mother loved. Though the water tricked down slowly, it was cool against my skin. I could still remember the way the cheese melted in my tongue.

"A picnic," I said. "I remember a picnic."

"Good," Dr Hayes said. "Remember, the mind forgets the unimportant things, things you have not been thinking for a long time. Think about it like a computer. It had maximum storage. One day you can't put extra things there, for it is full. What do you do then?"

"Clean it up."

"Mind does the same," Dr Hayes said. "But when a sense is attached to it, it becomes difficult. Out of all the senses, olfaction has the best link with memory. That's why the werewolves, vampires and magycs have a stronger memory."

I blinked. I thought computers were hard.

"Now," she continued in that soft tone. "These people who cause hallucinations, they can manipulate emotions, but not these senses. That's why you remember the emotions of the memory they wove, but not the memory itself. You said you loved a girl who never existed. Think of the way she looked. Her voice. Her scent. Or even her touch. Can you remember them? Or just the love you felt for her?"