I'd rather you didn't repost this story anywhere without my permission, usual warnings about laws and such apply, don't read if you shouldn't.
Also, if you're looking for a story with a lot of sex, look elsewhere. There's no sex in this chapter, and probably not in the next one either. But if you're looking for a decent story, then read on.
Prologue
I was 11 years old when it happened. Such a tragedy they would say in the papers. Such a loss. Such a shame. I had an awesome life, before. My parents were rich, and they loved me more than anything in the world. We had a massive house, most of which was full of things for me. I lived in a fairy tale, with servants and a water slide in the backyard. I had great friends, some of them even liked me for more than my cool stuff, but I didn't mind the shallowness of others.
I did great in school, and even got bumped forwards few years, so at age 11 I was already in grade 8. I studied hard, my parents had given me so much that I just wanted to make them happy. And they were. I got great grades and my parents were already cozying up to the dean at Harvard for my future. Everything was perfect.
Until that night.
My dad used to always say that while we had lots of money, enemies were cheap and he collected them like baseball cards. Apparently he picked the wrong card.
I awoke that night to a scream. I would later learn that it was the last sound my mother ever made. But I was 11, and didn't understand what was happening. Then I smelt the smoke, followed seconds later by the fire alarm. I crawled out of my bed and went to the door, intending to open it and run outside like dad always said I should do if I heard the alarm. But as I reached for the handle it turned and the door was flung open.
In front of me stood a man. You wouldn't look at him twice if you passed him on the street, he was average height, average build. Everything about him was average and normal. Except his eyes. I remember his eyes smoldering with hate and malice, boring into me and making me take a quick step backwards.
"I'm sorry"
His voice was deep and comforting, the voice of a father speaking to his child. But I remember thinking that I didn't understand what he was sorry for. He grabbed my arm and dragged me into the hallway. I could see fire at the end of the hall near my parents room. He was dragging me towards the stairs and probably safety. But I couldn't leave my parents. What if they needed help? I twisted out of his grasp and ran towards the flames. I heard him curse and try to follow, but a siren cut through the air, and he ran down the stairs.
The fire was almost at my parents bedroom door, but I ignored the heat and pushed into the room.
The blood was everywhere.
I saw my dad holding my mom, who had a garish wound on her throat. I ran to him and touched his arm. He slumped over and didn't move. His movement revealed the red that covered his chest. His eyes were open but he didn't respond to anything I said. I felt myself becoming light headed. My already tenuous grasp on reality began to waver. I just needed to lay down for a second, then I would...
I would figure it out in a bit.
Smoke inhalation will fuck with your mind like that. By the time the firefighters found me, I had third degree burns covering a good portion of my body, and I was gasping out my last breath. On the books, I was dead for four minutes before they resuscitated me. And do you know what I found out in those four minutes?
There is no tunnel with a light. There's nothing, just pain and blackness.
I spent 2 years in a coma, and when I woke up, there was no one there. To the rest of the world, time had passed, but to me...
I was waking up from my nap. But my parents weren't there to comfort me, they would never do that again.
I tried to kill myself after seeing my reflection for the first time. My scars, coupled with the loss was too much. But the doctors and nurses stopped me. It wasn't the last time I would try though. And I didn't say a word while I was awake. Not ever. Eventually they checked me into a kind of asylum for troubled youth. I've been here for two years now. Same shit, different day. Every day is almost always the same, sometimes they send in psychologists to evaluate me. The prognosis is always the same. I'm not ready yet.
They don't know it , but I'll never be ready. I'll never walk amongst the rest of the world. Eventually I'll figure out a way to end it here, even though they watch really carefully. Nothing will make life worth living again. Nothing.
Straitjackets and Starlight
Part 1
-=Devon=-
I sat there fiddling nervously with my pajama pant strings as mom looked over the paper I had just handed her. I really wanted her to say yes. She HAD to say yes.
"I don't know Dev... it sounds kind of dangerous."
My heart sank a little at that, but my resolve remained firm.
"Can you at least think it over while I'm at school today? It would really mean a lot to me." I tried to give her my best doe eyed look and sad puppy dog face, but I could tell it didn't get to her like it used too.
"I will. Now go get ready or you'll be late for your first day of high school!"
I jumped up and ran to my bedroom down the hall, closing the door behind me. Barley glancing at my reflection as I walked by the mirror. I ripped off my pants and threw them in the laundry basket and quickly walked up to the small dresser and pulled out my best pair of jeans and a clean green T-shirt. Pulling them on I grabbed my backpack and ran out the front door, pausing only long enough to give mom a quick goodbye kiss on the cheek before I vaulted down the stairs of the apartment building and out the front doors.
I sprinted the first couple blocks and then slowed to a walk as I got closer to the school. High school. It was a big deal for me, especially since I had skipped a grade again and was starting in grade 11. Most of the kids there would be two years or more older than me, and all my friends were going to be in a different grade. But I didn't mind, it was the price of being a brainiac. I could have done even better than I did, but I was acutely aware of the ridicule that came from just jumping forward one year. And I had no desire to set foot on a university campus at the age of 16.
I spotted my best friend Elliott wandering slowly towards the massive school. Elliott was openly gay, and had been 'out' for over a year. I had been completely accepting, along with most of our old school and Elliotts parents. I had even set him up with his longtime boyfriend, and we were as close as brothers. But this was high school, the cesspool of teen angst and aggression, and I worried about how my friend would be accepted in the environment. Elliott saw me and smiled.
"Hey Devon. How's it going?"
"Not bad, how's Chris?"
Chris was Elliotts boyfriend and would be going to a different school this year. I hadn't talked to either of them in a few weeks and I was wondering how they were going to work the whole different parts of the city thing into their relationship. I saw his vision cloud a little and he looked at the pavement.
"We decided it would be too hard to maintain what we had, and that we would be just friends from now on."
I was shocked by the news, as Elliott and Chris were a rock solid couple, and had been together for almost a year, which when your 16 is a long ass time. I didn't say anything, just gave him a big hug and let my arm drape across his shoulders as we walked. We parted ways once inside and I sped off to my classes. The day was uneventful and nothing interesting happened. I discovered that high school was just that. Another school. No different than the last, or the one before that. Last period finally came, and when the bell rang, I ran down the block to try and catch the last bus going downtown. I had an appointment with a friend at the university, and he hated me to be late. But then again, Dr. Lector hated just about anything. If you thought about it though, if you were an award winning psychologist with that last name, you'd probably hate most things too. I was pretty sure he didn't kill people and feed them to orchestras or anything, but I made it a point not to eat when I was around him.
My dad had left us when I was 10 years old, just woke up one morning and decided to say fuck this, and was gone. My mom took it pretty well, but we still had to move and she started working two jobs. She thought some therapy would be good for me, and her best friend gave her the number to a great doctor who she thought I should sit down with. To this day I'm not sure why she thought I needed a shrink, but I'm glad she did. Before that day I wanted to be a chemist. I even had a little chemistry set I used to play with day in and day out, but as I walked into that office for the first time, I was intrigued. A secretary had told me to just sit and wait for a few minutes, there were coloring books on the table. Coloring books! I was indignant even at that age over the slight. I waltzed right up to the big ornate book shelves and found the thickest volume I could, and plopped myself onto the comfy leather couch to read. That was the first psychology book I had ever read, and to this day I could almost recite it back to front. When Dr. Lector, or John since that's much less creepy, had come out of his office an hour later, he found a 10 year old child full of questions. I wanted to know more about Freud, and the mysteries of the human mind. My mom had paid for a 1 hour session that day, But I stayed for 6.
Since then I visited John as often as I could. I had decided I wanted to get into criminal psychology, profiling and the evaluation of the violent and insane. John had said he would help me as best he could. I was barley sixteen and I had read almost all of the first year psychology students books, and I couldn't wait for more. I remember almost everything I read word for word, but apparently I was still missing something. John would just smile and shake his head when I asked what it was I didn't have.
It took months of convincing to get him to let me in on the secret.
"Devon, what is it people like me study? He had asked, his hard eyes staring out from the thick cloud of pipe smoke around his head.
"The human brain." I hadn't even hesitated, which elicited a chuckle from the man.
"No, that is a very, very small part of what we do. Personally, I couldn't give a rats ass about how the human brain works. Leave that to med students and brain surgeons. No, we study people. What they do, how they do it, and WHY they do it. The tinniest twitch can convey a thousand words. A lovers caress can bring to mind a billion thoughts, and the way we structure a sentence can completely change how people perceive what we say. What your missing my boy, is that special ability to connect with PEOPLE. I would wager that you know more about psychology then I do, simply because of the fact that you remember all these books."
I had squirmed in my chair, not sure where he was going.
"But the reason I charge 300 dollars an hour and the reason YOU will be locked in a library for the rest of your life, is that you aren't good at talking to people."
Apparently my face had looked like I would burst into tears, because he quickly added."But never fear! I have a plan. If it's alright with your mom, I would like you to go and interview someone for me. He's a boy about your age."
"Why wouldn't that be okay with my mom?"
"Well, he's committed. Sever trauma and suicidal tendencies and whatnot. You would have to go to the institute and talk to him there. It's perfectly safe, but I'd like you to get some practice with real live patients before we go any farther in these private lessons."
And so he had written my mom a letter, which I had handed to her this morning. She HAD to say yes! What if I never got to see if I was really good at this. No sooner had the thought crossed my mind then my phone buzzed with a new text message.
Hey sweetie, thought about it and as long as the Dr is sure its safe, I'm ok with you doing the interview
I almost let out a cry of joy before I realized I was on a crowded bus, but settled for a huge stupid grin instead. I got to the Doctors office only to learn that he had gotten called away. I was a little crestfallen until his secretary handed me a file as I walked out of the office.
"John said to give this to you too review, the interview will be this Saturday. Good luck Dev!" She practically beamed at me as I walked out the door, and my smile more than matched hers. It was hard not looking at the file until I got home, but I didn't know if it contained pictures or anything, and from what little the Doctor had told me, it was a pretty graphic case. I got home and the house was empty, since my mom would be at work until nine. So I had a few hours to read in peace and quiet.
I opened the file and was a immediately confronted with a picture of a burnt husk of a mansion. There was still smoke coming from the ground in the picture, and fire trucks could be seen on the edges of the photograph. The next picture was one of two body bags with the subtitle "Remains of Westbough, Jacquline and Westbough, Anthony". They must be the boys parents I decided. The last picture was of a small room. There was absolutely nothing in the room that I could see, but one corner was deep in shadow. If I focused really hard, I swear I could see the outline of a man there, or maybe a boy due to its size, but I couldn't be sure. The subtitle read "Canadian Institute for Mentally Ill Youth; Room 457; Block A; Westbough, James"
Following the pictures there were several pages of text, mostly doctors notes and lists of prescriptions. The last page was a brief summary of the incident that had resulted in the boys incarceration.
On October 26th, 2000, Andre Mallard forcibly entered the Westbough estate and killed both Jacquline and Anthony Westbough before setting fire to the house. He then proceeded to James' room (Then age 11), his intentions remain unclear to this day due to a lack of evidence, after which he attempted to escape, and was later captured and tried by police. James' body was later discovered in his parents' bedroom, severely burnt and succumbing to smoke inhalation. The patient remained in a coma for twenty five months, and upon awakening refused to speak (Then age 13). He has displayed sever suicidal tendencies and as such has been placed under our care at the CIMIY (Canadian Institute for Mentally Ill Youth) where he must be kept under constant supervision. All attempts to communicate with the patient have been met with failure. All attempts at reintegration into society have also failed. Incarceration will continue indefinitely.
The date on the paper said that it had been written just over two years ago, which I suppose meant James was probably 15 now, just a year younger than me.
I sat back in my desk chair and wondered what it would be like to be James. I had no idea what he looked like, but the paper said he was severely burnt. He had lost everything, so what would he think about now? He must think a lot, if he never spoke. I wondered what John was getting at. Obviously the paid professionals had gotten nowhere with this kid, what was I supposed to do?
My thoughts wandered back to the boy himself, and I wondered what he was doing, right now.
-=James=-
I glared angrily at the pills in the small dixie cup. There were four today. There was only two yesterday. Did they think I wouldn't notice if they doubled my dosage? I gave a resigned sigh and downed the pills all at once, half hoping that maybe there was a mix up and they had given me way too much and I would finally get to end it. But I knew they wouldn't, they were way to careful.
I walked over to the desk in my small room. This room was better than my last, although there were enough anti-suicide measures in this room to make me sick. The desk was just a part of the wall that jutted out, with rounded edges, and the stool was likewise curbed. all my books were actually just stacks of papers, the really soft recyclable kind; I could eat all of them and have no issues all, and it was impossible to get a paper cut on the stuff. I wasn't aloud writing utensils anymore, not after I tried to open up my wrist with a pencil last year. The bed was just a foam mattress on the floor, and the blankets were sewn on with canvas stitching so I couldn't rip it off and hang myself, which I had tried to do on more then one occasion.
I sat there reading my schoolbooks for a few hours, devouring the information. I had no idea what grade I was in technically, but I had kept up on my studies despite being locked away more out of simple boredom then any desire to become a functioning member of society. Eventually it was time for lunch and my nurse walked in and set a tray down on the floor by the door.
"Hi James! How are you feeling today? That's great, I'm very well thank you. Grilled cheese for lunch again today. Yeah I know it's not your favorite but the chef doesn't seem to listen when I complain on your behalf."
I sat there glaring at him as he continued his one sided conversation. That was the main reason why I was still locked up. I didn't speak. I hadn't spoken in four years, and I didn't plan on ever speaking again. Eventually Manny, my nurse, left because he got tired of my constant glaring and silence. I picked up the food and ate it standing up. I had tried to starve myself once, but decided it wasn't worth being forced to go onto a liquid diet through an IV again so now I just ate with the same numbness that occupied my entire life. I had just finished when Manny reappeared, which caused me to raise an eyebrow because he didn't usually come back until dinnertime.
"I forgot to tell you! Saturday, so tomorrow, you have a wannabe-psychologist coming to visit you. He's apparently pretty young, so go easy on the glares alright kid?"
With that he disappeared out the door again.
Great. Just fucking great. Another eval' where they would come in and sit with me for 20 minutes before eventually getting so annoyed with my silence they would leave. Oh well, at least it got me out of my room for awhile. I went back to my books and gave tomorrow no more thought.
-=Devon=-
The bell rang loud and clear, and I practically ran out of the classroom. I couldn't wait to get home and go to sleep so that tomorrow would come faster. This was turning into an awesome week, the best I had had in a long time. Mom had taken me to get my driver's license and now she let me borrow the car, which I couldn't do often because she needed it for work, but it was still cool to have. Elliott seemed to be cheering up slowly and I had even seen him talking to a few other people aside from our friends, which was good because it meant he was branching out a little. Mom had said she had a surprise for me when I got home today, although I was finding it difficult to be excited about anything other than my interview tomorrow.
After retrieving my things form my locker I dashed out the side door, trying to beat the flow of students all eager to get home to the weekend. There was an old red Jeep 4x4 sitting outside the door and I barley glanced at it as I walked by. I hadn't gone more than a few steps before it honked its horn. Only then did I look at the person inside. I found it odd at first that they weren't sitting in the driver's seat, and even odder still when I realized it was my mom. She had a huge smile and was waving at me to get in.
I walked up to the passenger window and she rolled it down.
"Uh... Hi mom. What are you doing here? And who's truck is that?"
She seemed to be having trouble getting words past her grin, but finally managed to say "It's your truck. Now get in and drive me home!"
I was dumbfounded, and just stood there for probably a good 30 seconds with my mom grinning at me. Finally the reality set in and for the first time that week, tomorrows interview was forgotten. I gave a big whoop and ran around to the driver side door before whipping my knapsack into the back and flopping down on the driver seat. With a complete disregard for the fact that we were surrounded by kids from my school, I gave my mom a big hug and a kiss before firing up the engine. I was about to pull out when Elliott walked out the doors. I looked at my mom and she laughed then unbuttoned her seatbelt and climbed into the back seat, shooing Elliott into the front.
He gave me a wide eyed look of disbelief before he too shared my smile. We drove my mom home then decided we wanted to drive around a bit.
"Well, where would you like to go? The sky's the limit!" I asked my passenger.
"If you're willing to drive out of town a bit, I know a cool place."
I nodded my approval and followed his directions out of the city. We lived in a city that was all prairies to the east, and the rocky mountains to the west, and Elliott had me going east. We drove for a good half hour then he told me to turn into a farmer's field. After some good use of the four wheel drive, we came to a great gully. From the highway, you couldn't see anything, but from where we were parked, there was about 30 acres of forest with a creek running down the middle.
"Whoa, I would have never known this place was here." I asked, a little awestruck by the sheer beauty of the place.
"Yeah. I used to come here a lot to think when I lived out of town. My old house is just 4 kilometers north of this place. It's a coolie, kind of a prairie oasis. Drive down and there's a place to park in the trees."
I grinned at Elliott and started driving down the hill. He seemed a little on edge for some reason, and I was wondering why. Hopefully he would tell me when we got into the woods.
Thanks for reading, there will be more (obviously)
I appreciate constructive criticism, and everyone loves compliments, send me an email at m-davidson@hotmail.ca