Phases Eight

Phase 31 Familyarising

Fear doesn't mean getting scared. It's the fight with courage for not getting scared.
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Was it a dream?

No. A dream can't be so vivid.

Is it some kind of phantasm?

No. Phantasms doesn't cut your hand with a wire and make them burn like the abyss of hell.

"Do you hear me? Mark, can you open your eyes?" A familiar voice approached him.

Mark hadn't seen the face of the person to whom the authoritative voice belonged. He had been hearing the voice for nearly a week, or he believed it was a week because the voice informed, nothing he could assure. He was put into a prolonged sleep that he could only be in a state of partial consciousness how much ever he struggled to wake up.

I can't fuckin open my eye. What the hell have you done to me?

Were he expected to tell, but pathetically ended up with a groan from the gut

"Nnnmmrgghh" he tried to move his body, but it played truant and immobile as it had been for the past week.

"Okay, I have it. Now don't panic. Take in a deep breath." commanded the autocrat.

Mark felt cool air entering his nostrils. Involuntarily exasperation released the tightness prevalent on his nerves.

Another wave of uncannily tremor replaced the former effect on his nerves.

For Christ's sake why my respiratory system listens to him and not me?

"That's really good" appreciated the anonymous speaker. "You are gonna open your eyes in three.. two.. one.."

Mark heard the snapping of fingers whose startling noise made his eyes flutter open.

"Where is Lucy? What happened to her? I wanna see her immediately." spoke out Mark gasping a lung full of air. The last night he spent at her place became an event of vague memories.

"I could have said that if you had co-operated a little more in the therapy."

Stood by the side of his chair was Daniel Clark, with bright blue eyes, grey facial hair turning white at the ends and spectacles with thick lens through which his pupils zoomed on his face.

By his looks Daniel Clark could be mistaken for a godfather granting wishes for the orphan boys on the streets. Undeniably he did have some special powers as he had Mark under his spell, not allowing him to move a muscle for a week!

Mark examined the wires attached on his head. He shivered, giving an effect of being doused by ice cold water from the Antarctic. "Was I under induced hypnosis? Why?"

Daniel Clark unplugged the wires and turned off the monitors. He squeezed Mark's shoulder with a fatherly affection, "Luciana. She is no more."

Mark shook off Clark's hand from his shoulder, "I won't believe you. Who are you to order things that I don't wanna do and tell some shit that I don't wanna listen? Get off me" he screamed, at the same time hugged his knees and buried his head on it.

"She was my everything. My world was that girl. Why did she have to leave me just like that? Without even saying a goodbye." Mark didn't cry. The last thing he wanted to do was to break down before a hypnotist in the D.R.E.A.M.

Cry you cold hearted moron. Cry..

Mark swallowed the adamant lump in his throat. He clambered down the seat and searched for an exit.