WAS//Jinson

Broken

[Song of the Chapter: Insomnia by The Rose]

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If the world could go gray, that's what this felt like.

I knew that they were fighting again, I could hear the glass shattering from my bedroom. There were thuds, there was screaming and all I could do was hug myself under the quilted blanket in my locked bedroom.

They're not my parents. Why am I so scared?

Jackson's eyes scanned through the black words against the white and tanned pages, quietly closing the book as he sat on the chair, waiting for the nurse to come out and call his name.

He'd been here for a while but he didn't have the time to truly manage to reconnect with society. After all, after the incident, it was hard for him to even have his own personality. It was so scary, he had quite literally forgotten everything.

There were times where people would come to his door, knocking and looking for him but he would never answer. He was afraid to answer the door now.

"Wang, Jackson?" the nurse called, Jackson standing up and closing the book in front of him.

The nurse smiled sadly at him and guided him through the halls to get to the doctor's office. She wanted to give him a hug but it would be inappropriate.

"Doctor Xian? Jackson's here," she knocked on the door, calling to the doctor inside. A distant response urged him inside and the nurse left Jackson there with a heavy feeling in her heart.

The inside of the office was a polished psychologist's office, a few stuffed animals for the younger people and a Rubix cube for the older ones. It wasn't brightly telling it was a rich man's office but there were hints.

A polished black forest wood here, a couple of gold awards there.

Doctor Xian motioned to the comfortable couch and Jackson sat down, closing the door behind him as he walked across the thick, dark gray carpet.

"Hello Jackson," Xian spoke, his voice soft and smooth, "It's odd that you want a meeting this soon again. Is something wrong?"

Jackson bit his lip and handed the journal over to the doctor. He picked it up and asked him what it was.

"I found it," he replied with a shaky voice, "When the moving men you sent brought the stuff from the storage unit. It was...I guess it was mine?"

The doctor opened the small notebook and on the first page, written in smooth characters, was Jackson's name followed by the age.

Name: Jackson Wang

Age: 6

He quickly looked at the first page and read the words that the young man had been re-reading in the lobby of the hospital. It was hard, even for the psychologist who'd seen horrible family situations before.

But Xian could see the tear stains on the page. He could feel the emotions coming from the young kid, the pain that he had been feeling in that exact moment.

He let out a small breath and closed the book before handing it back to Jackson.

"So have you read it all? Do you know what your life was like before you were flown here?" Xian asked again, watching Jackson warily. If it was hard for him to read the first entry, he can only imagine what it must have been like as him.

"I haven't been able to get past the first entry," Jackson admitted, "I've...um...I've been busy."

Xian screwed his eyebrows together and leaned forwards. "Have you made friends then?"

The younger quickly shook his head, a sort of feeling of fear and dread washing over him at the idea. He wasn't sure why he felt this way whenever someone around him mentioned the word.

"I've been selling off a lot of the stuff that was in the storage unit. Most of it was useless but valuable," Jackson explained quietly, "So I've been able to pay the rent myself for the first time."

He swallowed and looked at the notebook with a side glance.

"It seems to me that you're trying to avoid it," Xian spoke, placing the book next to Jackson, "You can't be scared of everything that heals a small wound."

Jackson closed his eyes and ran a hand through his hair. He didn't want to think too much about this, about why he should read this.

"Jackson...you told me yourself, a month ago, you wanted to stop being afraid. It shows that you want to improve. Don't hold yourself back.

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Having returned from seeing Doctor Xian, Jackson found himself running his hands constantly through his hair as he tried to focus on watching TV. It had been two months since he'd woken up from a coma screaming. He'd been in that coma for a month but in that time, no one had found out anything about him.

What they did know was that he could speak several languages, as when he woke up he was yelling in Korean which quickly switched to Cantonese when he found out where he had woken up.

He didn't remember what he was screaming but he remembered Doctor Xian having told him.

It was something about his friends, about some sort of danger. But that was all the nurses were able to translate with only a base level knowledge of Korean.

Doctor Xian had done so much for him. When Jackson finally was able to talk to people without having a panic attack when they walked into the room, the psychologist gave Jackson a small apartment close to the hospital that maybe it would help him heal.

It did, in a way, but it also helped Jackson remember why he had been in a coma.

Just flashes, like in a video game where the edges of his vision were red, of the banging of a door, of Jackson standing and opening the door.

A black figure stood there and slammed a silver wrench against the head of the young man.

Jackson jolted back to reality as the sound of gunshots went off on the TV, his attention going to the screen where a drama was playing.

He couldn't stand being afraid like this.

Maybe that was part of the personality that he didn't have again...

"Screw it," Jackson sighed and stood up, walking briskly to the notebook on the kitchen counter and grabbing it. Returning to his seat on the couch, he muted the TV and crossed his legs.

If it started when he was six, there was a lot that he was going to have to get through.

It's not that he had anything else to do with his time.