Overlap

Chapter 27-A: The Awakening

<11/01/2010 - 05:50 | 559 Motion Street, Austell, GA, USA>

My life hasn't been that great up to now. I knew I didn't have it as bad as others, but I also grew up with little social luxury either. It gave me the green light to daydream and fantasize about whatever I wanted to. Sometimes I would find myself wishing that those moments of altered reality would become my own, that I could somehow shift between planes.

But this is not what I meant! This is not what I asked for! "This can't be happening," I panicked with my heavy breathing, launching myself towards a panic attack. No matter how much I wish I were imagining everything right now, I knew what I heard in my mind was merged with everything else. It's finally happened, I admitted to myself. I've finally gone insane!

"Relax Reed! I can assure you that you are not crazy!"

After stumbling over to the light switch of my room, I banished the darkness even though the light blinded my morning eyes. "Just leave me alone!" I tried everything I could. Wishing her away didn't do anything, and willing my own imagination into a different scenario did nothing either. I felt like I was really stuck with this one. "How can I not be crazy? I'm hallucinating out of my mind here." I felt so sick just saying that aloud. This weird imaginative voice in my mind showed up so abruptly, and whatever control I was supposed to have of it was absent here.

"Reed? Are you up?"

Oh crap! The muffled voice behind my bedroom door wasn't the same as the woman in my head. It was my mother, coming in to check on me or wake me in time for school preparation, but I wasn't expecting her to just barge in here so soon. Covering my mouth to silence myself in a brief moment, I tried to snap my focus back to the situation before me. My own words must have awakened everyone after all.

Just after opening her son's door to find me standing beside my bed with the lights already on, Marrie checked if everything else was okay. "Who were you just talking to?" Her tone lacked some intensity, as if she already expected a particular logical answer.

So she did hear! I did my best to hide what I felt reflecting onto my face, but just knowing somebody overheard me saying anything was so embarrassing that it swiped away my breath before I could speak. After inhaling with a fraction of my own courage, I replied with as mundane of an answer as I could muster. "Nothing mom. I'm just half-asleep is all." Please just ignore that so I can put this behind me!

"If you say so. It's already six, so it's time to start getting ready." Thinking nothing else of it, she turned around, leaving the room while closing the door gently.

It wasn't unusual for my mother to wake me up for me, especially when my alarms fail to go off on their own. The fact that it was six already meant that I had no further time to deal with this charade. After nearly being caught, I had no choice but to rid myself of this pest. "Listen here you blob of fiction!" I spoke through my teeth as quietly as I could the moment I could hear my mom go back to her own room through the thin walls of our house. "I don't have the time for this. Be gone already!"

"For the record, you don't have to talk to me out loud. You can speak to me simply by thinking out loud. It can help when you don't want others to hear us."

To which I whispered, "Just shut up and go away!" This monstrosity my mind created is too persistent. She won't leave me alone, and my words are not reaching her either. Instead of getting the idea that she needs to leave and never return, she isn't registering a hint of what I really want.

I glanced all around my room nervously, wondering how I was supposed to deal with this. At any moment, my brother, my mom, or anyone else could hear me talking to myself, catching me in the act. I would never want that... But then, her last statement registered with me a bit more, even though she was oddly quiet now. Speak by thinking out loud huh? "You mean like this?" I tested such a theory, doing nothing different apart from projecting my own internal thoughts loud enough for my brain to register it as noise, though I kept my mouth shut in the process.