I woke up sitting down in a white room. It was completely white without any furnishing or anything. I looked down at my clothes. I was dressed in yellow footie PJs with blue ducks on them. That was strange. I hadn't had those since...
Since...
Oh gods, that day.
Suddenly, the room collapsed into darkness. I tried to stand up, but I realized that I was already standing. I had shrunk to when I was four years old again. I braced myself for the next part.
And then it happened. I was back in the living room of my old house. My mother was sitting on the couch, reading a book, wearing those funny, small glasses I used to love so much. She was much taller than me as a four year old, and she had never frowned in front of me ever.
She turned her head and smiled. "Hi there, baby. Why don't you sit down? I want to read you something."
I tried to hold back, but I knew what would happen. My legs slowly carried me to my mother's lap, where I lay down and gazed at her chocolate brown eyes.
"I want to read you my favorite poem."
NO, don't do it, I thought, don't!
"What is it, mommy?" These words left my mouth in a high pitched, innocent kid's voice. I wanted to run away and plug my ears, but I couldn't. I had to watch and do what happened that night.
"It's a very nice poem, sweetie, one that I hope you'll understand when you're older."
"Read it to me, mommy! Please? Please?"
No! Stop before it's too late. Stop!
"Well, it goes a little like this..."
No, no, no. Stop, Mom, stop!
"The child of light and darkness,"
No, Mom, no.
"Born to reap and slay."
Mom, you don't know what you're doing. Just shut up!
"The remainder of his life,"
Stop, Mom. Please don't do this.
"Shall serve until the end."
I knew how it would end. I knew how it ended every time I saw it in my dreams. But, still, it felt terrible, knowing the ending.
"And when he choose to come,"
My little body was looking anxiously at my mother, waiting for the next line.
"Then he will answer all our prayers."
This is it, little guy, I thought to myself. This is it.
"But, the boy of light and darkness,"
I sobbed a bit in my head as my mother's lips formed the last words.
"Not merely a godsend."
Here he comes.
Suddenly, I jerked and toppled onto the floor. My mother stood up, bewildered. "Are you OK, baby?"
She bent over to scoop me up. I grabbed her hand and pulled her down at me. She yelped and fell onto her stomach. Exposed, I attacked her back.
The next hour was excruciating. When this had happened at that time, I had been away, gone, while the monster took over. Now, here, there was no stopping me from seeing what he saw and what he did.
Finally, he had enough, and I woke up in my regular form. I crawled onto my mom. I watched painfully as I said it. That word that I hated for the rest of my life, the word that changed my life from that point forward.
"M-mommy?"
I had to see my own tears pour from my eyes, hear my own sobbing, smell her blood on my hands, all before changing into regular clothes and running out of the house.
The cold rain stung my skin as I ran across the street. I bumped into a man, who steadied me. "Easy there, son." He paused and looked at my blood covered face and hands. "What the hell?"
I ran as he called the cops. I had to find Linus.
And then I was back in my PJs, and my mother was alive again.
I was shocked, then hardened. She wasn't alive. I was in a loop.
"Hi there, baby. Why don't you sit down? I want to read you something."
I had to go through that again. And again. And again and again and again. I was breaking apart as I watched her read and scream and be torn apart, and I had to go through the same things over and over and over again.
I couldn't handle it. I broke down. I sobbed in my mind as I continued the endless loop and watched myself listen and murder and cry and run away.
It was a nightmare.
________________________________________________________________________________
I woke up, gasping. Larry was ready this time. "Tell me what you saw."
"Uh, Brandon was crying and he was old, but also young, and he was killing his mother, but also telling himself not to kill his mother. Just, I don't know."
"Ok. Slower, please."
I explained what I had saw to him. Larry nodded knowingly at some points and seemed to be deep in thought. His eyebrows raised constantly at some points. When I got to the poem part, he flinched a bit. At the very end, he sighed.
"They're doing it again. I can't believe it."
"What?"
"Remember when I told you about the subjects who had to endure 48 hours of mental torture?"
"Yeah..."
"This was it. They were stuck in an indefinite loop where they would see horrible things from their past over and over again. That's the reason why a lot of them didn't make it. They couldn't handle what was happening to them."
"Oh, gods." I put my hands to my mouth. "Brandon..."
"We're going to have to hurry. I thought he would have it bad, but if that's what Brandon's going through, we need to stop the others." He began to hurriedly pack his things.
"Hold on, you were barely on board a few days ago. How are you so adamant to save him now?"
"Because," He turned to me, "Brandon is going to have to suffer through much more than I expected him to when you first approached me, and I want to help him as much as I can."
He shouldered his bag and gestured to the city, where the sun was just rising above the horizon. "Come on. Let's break him out."