Bladed Cross

CHLOE

She received the news of Owen's disappearance an hour after the last attack at the lake—which she was not yet aware of.

Chloe Collins sat in her office at the Red Leaf hospital, working at her desk. Over the years, she grew less and less surprised at how fast time seemed to go by. It was probably that way to her because of her job, her patients, and the people she worked with. And she had quite a few patients, despite having no one scheduled for today. These days, her patients had odd issues and conditions. Once, last year, she had a male patient who'd endured a traumatic experience that left him with scars on his chest. He'd explained how an animal with long claws mutilated him. His description of the thing exceeded any logical depiction of a natural animal, and he dared not describe its face. She of course knew more than she let on, given her husband's lifelong condition. But given the lack of documentation of any animal in the area that matched such a description, all she could do was say the same thing any doctor of the mind would say. "I believe that you believe it."

Of course, this had angered him, and he'd started shaking with tears in his eyes, fighting to maintain his composure, insisting that it was true. She had been patient and calm with him though, under consideration that he'd perhaps listened to false information that gave him a hallucination. That was when he showed her the nasty scar on his chest. Three deep gashes that went from his collar bone, down to his ribs. No mistake, they did have the shape of claw marks. But the disturbing part was that there were no signs of tearing or ripping, the way claw marks should. Only clean slices, like it had been done by a razor. Chloe was convinced that it had been a mugging, or a self mutilation, and for that, she had a theory, which later turned out to be true.

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder had been diagnosed in most of her patients, as well as ADHAD and other issues and disorders that concocted into people the most devastating conditions. This man had been no exception. A person with strong OCD could dwell over one, two or more things. These things either provoked enjoyment, or worry and fear. A person could focus on something for a considerable amount of time, not doing much of anything else. That depended on their level of maturity as well. The person would sometimes perform physical actions that related to the things they were hyper focused on. If a child or teen obsessed over a type of media, in which had content of their interest, they would not only escalate their focus, they would unhealthily act it out. Or if someone was afraid of something catastrophic happening in their life, they would live in constant terror that it would eventually happen. There were countless other examples.

It had turned out, that patient had Severe PTSD, coupled with severe OCD, and was prone to hallucinations. His injury had turned out to be self inflicted, for reasons that had to do with a confidential past. Thankfully, he'd gotten the counseling from her that he needed, as well as help from his family, who'd recommended her to him.

The human brain was indeed an astonishing, and sensitive thing, and it could be devastatingly dangerous under the wrong circumstances.

Chloe herself had mild OCD. Before she met Owen, she would consistently repeat her odd rituals, and would get frightened and nervous about what she would do with her life, fretting and worrying about how she would face the world. And because of her condition, she couldn't focus on a career. She couldn't even think about finding any training. After two years of therapy and learning what she had, she finally pulled through. And when she discovered more and more about mental health and different conditions, it had drawn her to the human brain. It was the most amazing organ, with its ability to learn unlimited amounts of knowledge. Its ability to create anything real or unreal, was almost impeccable, depending on the choices and limitations of its owner.

It amazed her, the way human thoughts were based in the cerebral hemispheres, and how neurons carried all those messages, telling the rest of the body what to do. How human beings used only twenty percent of their brain capacity, and how it would be astonishing what we could do with the other eighty percent, only increased her faith in the undeniable existence of a Creator. More powerful than any computer chip in the world, yet not without its outer given flaws.