Original Stories Fan Fiction ❯ Death and Separation ❯ Chapter 1

Death and Separation

 

 

 

`RATIONAL'

 

So he's dead now. Killed by an overdose of narcotics. He was my age. No, a few years older. And he's gone. Staring into the mirror, I force myself to look at my reflection. Really look at myself. This face looks like it always has, no change there. Why don't I feel anything?

 

Denial?

 

Or callousness?

 

The face in front of me wants to pull a grimace, but I don't let it. I really look at it. It still looks immovable, carved out of stone. Does the face of a dead person look the same? Utterly still like a mask? Or does it have the unearthly, waxen pallor that's so often been described in stories? What do his eyes look like now? Are they still the clear blue-grey surrounded by whiteness? Or has death bleached their color with unconsciousness?

 

Turning away from the mirror, I raise one side of my lip in an unhappy grin at my thoughts. Why can I think so calmly about it? No tears, no emotions, no nothing. Have I just not realized that he is dead? Well, intellectually, I know he is, and I am still trying to wrap my mind around it. Dead. He's gone. Cold. Dead. Lying palely in a coffin.

 

Or did they cremate him?

 

There it is again, that detached, morbid thinking that I've been doing for the past hour. I think I am trying to force myself to accept it by repeating it over and over again, but it just doesn't work this way. Rationally, I think I know what is going on, but it is the emotional plain I worry about. I want to get all that crying and grieving stuff over with now instead of later. But it just doesn't work that way.

 

My emotional side stays as cold as ever, and I sigh. No, probably the emotional realization will never come, but perhaps it just might...

 

That would be the greatest gift he could give me even after his death: emotions to grieve for him. He was only my psychiatrist, but from what I have gathered normal behaviour is, I should be sad nonetheless. It is my frigid coldness that has brought me in front of this mirror, staring at myself, trying to see what is wrong with me.

 

Closing my eyes, I don't think of anything to make room for feelings. At least, I try not to think of anything in the hope that it will bring emotions to me. But thinking about not thinking about anything is already thinking about something. A headache is starting to throb gently behind my temples, the loop of not thinking about thinking about not thinking repeating itself endlessly.

 

Finally shaking my head, I retreat into the kitchen to brew myself a pot of coffee. That ought to keep me from thinking. Now he's gone, and I am going on. Calling in at work, I take a few days off. Perhaps visiting his funeral will help me find my emotions.

 

 

 

-----<<<<<>>>>>-----

 

 

 

`EMOTIONAL'

 

So he's dead now. He was almost my age. Why did he have to die so young?

 

He was so full of life, so happy, and at the same time so young. But when we met for the first time, he was already old enough to be the fatherly figure I've always longed for in my life. He was my psychiatrist, the one person in whom I could confide everything, my fears, my hopes. Everything. And now I'm missing him dearly.

 

Why I needed a psychiatrist?

 

Well, it all started a few years ago when my Mom and I drove home from a visit to my grandparents. It was already pretty late, and the road was completely empty. Oh, no, I'm not talking about those huge 2, 3, or even four lane highways. No, I am talking about a small road in the middle of nowhere, full of turns, bends, going uphill and downhill. My Mom was driving really carefully because she knew the road's dangerous, and the accident really wasn't her fault.

 

Suddenly, just before we went round a corner, a huge truck that seemed to materialize from nowhere shot out from behind it and hit us dead on. I can't quite remember what happened afterwards, but I know I woke up in hospital, more than two days later, and they told me that my Mom and me had been found almost 15 hours after the accident had happened. They also told me that every help had been too late for my Mom. I must have had a really good guardian angel because I got off with only a few scrapes and bruises, but I must have been so penned up in the car wreck that I hadn't been able to free myself.

 

I still don't know what really happened during that time; it's like a blank in my mind. Hospital staff told me that that was a normal reaction to such a traumatic experience.

 

They sent me to several different shrinks to make sure I didn't suffer any lasting damage from that, but I liked none of those charlatans. Later, I was placed in an orphanage, but they still made me visit those botchers who didn't help me any. Then, one day, when I couldn't stand it anymore going to that old geezer who was my latest shrink at that time, I read his name in the paper.

 

I decided that the situation couldn't become worse, so I went and had a session with him. He was so very different from all those psycho wackos, so open and interested in me. Whereas the others tended to drone on and on until I was almost asleep, we had really interesting conversations about anything and everything.

 

In the beginning, it was really hard talking with him, but later, it got easier, even though my memories never returned. One time, I asked him why he didn't try to make me remember, and he told me that it was best if I remembered on my own. When I was strong enough, my memories would come back. In the meantime, he was always there for me, always helping me. He gradually became a steady pillar of my existence, one I knew I could depend on. After my sessions with him, I always had a more optimistic outlook on life, one he had helped me to gain.

 

And now he's gone.

 

My Mom had divorced my biological father when I was not even a year old because he was an alcoholic. He died a few years later because of liver failure, but as I never knew him, I didn't feel sad. When my Mom died, I couldn't stop crying for days, and I fell into a pretty deep depression. He was the one who got me out of there, taking over the role of the guiding figure in my life, and with his help, I was able to build up my own existence once again.

 

And now he's gone.

 

It aches as badly as when Mom died, the grief so strong that it weighs down on my chest like a stone until it threatens to suffocate me, the tears welling from my eyes falling to the ground in a tide of sorrow I cannot describe.

 

Why did he have to go?

 

I needed him.

 

He was always there.

 

And now he's gone.

 

 

 

-----<<<<<>>>>>-----

 

 

 

`HURT'

 

So he's dead now. He was my age. No, he was a lot older than me. At least, older than the ME me. The original me is almost the same age as him, so I guess you could say we are both the same age.

 

Sorry.

 

Were the same age.

 

I'm not quite sure yet if I can believe that he is dead. But for a completely different reason than my other me's.

 

Well, I'll start at the beginning so that you won't get confused with all my me's.

 

You know, he was really clever, manipulating the original me from the first time I came to see him. I really was pretty down back then. I guess all which was missing from my appearance as innocent victim was the neon sign on my forehead proclaiming so. Still, that's no excuse at all for what he did. He was supposed to help me with my memories of my Mother's death, not use them to hurt me. A psychiatrist's job is helping people, isn't it?

 

I didn't even know I existed until I first talked to him, me lying on the couch in his treatment room, him sitting on the chair. Everything was blurry, dizzy, making me feel as if I was submerged in a water tank where gravity ceased to take hold on me. Now, I know that drugs had been the reason for my disorientation, drugs to make me more susceptible to his suggestions.

 

His words drilled little holes of pain into my brain, forcing me to remember the horror of those hours during which I watched my Mother's breathing grow more and more shallow. It was a nightmarish experience, the dizziness making me sick with the pictures he called to my eyes. There was so much blood, my Mother's breath gurgling wetly in her throat, the panic of suffocating slowly overwhelming her eyes, and I couldn't do anything. Couldn't help her because I couldn't even help myself.

 

When I was a shaking wreck on the couch after he had squeezed all information from me, he made me go to sleep. He said it would help me process my memories, but when I woke up again, I was still as horrified as ever. Strangely though, I wore different clothes than I remembered when waking up the first time. My mind was really fuzzy, and the words he was telling me made all the terrible pictures of her blood-smeared mouth and her hacking cough that spewed some more red freckles onto her face come back until I broke down.

 

I don't know how often he made me remember, never giving me time to recover as even the sleep during which I miraculously seemed to change clothes was filled with nightmares. In the end, I reached a point where I would have done anything to make it stop. Anything.

 

And so he made himself my god.

 

At his words, my pain started, and at his words, my pain stopped. At his words, I was punished, and at his words, I was rewarded. At his words, I became aware of my other two me's, and at his words, I kept my existence hidden from them.

 

From that day on, I have known what they know, but they don't know what I know. They don't even know that they are two separate entities. I'm not sure how he had managed it, but he split the original me into two different personalities, Rational me and Emotional me. Oh, and there's ME me, too. I think he summoned me first, because I was the easiest one to access as I had already been split off during the accident. He merely formed me to his liking.

 

Original me must also have had some tendencies for splitting. Otherwise, he would never have managed to separate it into the thinking and the feeling part. They still are so closely linked together that from the outside, they appear as one person, but I know differently.

 

Rational me knows that it is supposed to have emotions, coming to him to find a cure. Emotional me has identified him as a fatherly figure, coming to him for advice. And every time they come to him, he can be my god again.

 

But now, he won't be my god any longer. His death has opened my eyes to the subjugation I have been caught in. Now that he's gone, I no longer have to serve this false god with all my soul and all my body.

 

Now, he's dead, and I am free to search out my other me's. Now, I have time to heal, to get rid of the narcotics he had been pumping into my veins, and perhaps one day, I will be whole again.

 

But I will heal on my own time. Never will I search out a psychiatrist again, no matter how nice he seems, no matter how much Emotional me craves one, no matter how much Rational me thinks it needs one.

 

Not now that he's finally gone.

 

 

 

-----<<<<<>>>>>-----

 

 

 

`WATCHING'

 

He is dead.

 

I watched Rational discuss with him.

 

I watched Emotional flirt with him.

 

I watched Hurt sleep with him.

 

And I watched him.

 

I saw Rational respect him.

 

I saw Emotional adore him.

 

I saw Hurt fear him.

 

And I saw him.

 

Saw him as their god.

 

Saw him as their father.

 

Saw him as he really was.

 

I watched him through their eyes.

 

But they failed to see me.

 

And they will never see me.

 

Rational will never know that we always thought together.

 

Emotional will never know that we always felt together.

 

Hurt will never know that we always suffered together.

 

But I was there.

 

Watching with them.

 

Seeing through them.

 

Knowing about them.

 

Starting them on their path of healing.

 

But for them to become whole, I have to go.

 

I have to go so that they can live in peace.

 

Now that he is gone, I have to go, too.

 

Because I saw him for what he was.

 

Because I am the same as him.

 

Because I killed him.

 

Because I am evil.

 

 

 

 

 

_________________________________________________________________ ______

A/N:

 

Many thanks to Kegger007 for helping me with this story.

I have done a lot of research on split personalities, but if you can tell me a good reason why my story is implausible, I will try and fix it.

Otherwise I hope that you enjoyed this little venture into insanity!