Soul Seeker (Peace Keeper Sequel)

Chapter Seven: Troubles at Work

Authors Note: This is probably one of my favorite chapters in this volume, but it does deal with some pretty heavy mental illness issues, so a Trigger Warning is in place. 

As fake as she knew they were, Phoebe was unable to remove their images from her reality. It really sucked being one who greatly preferred her own mind over the ideas of other's company. This especially sucked when her own mind was plagued with hallucinations of the childhood she tried desperately to repress. Every so often, the figure of a cop would appear at the end of her bed, screaming incoherent words into her ears. She had tried a hundred bloody times to tell it to stop, but eventually, she just gave up. When she would walk into a building, sometimes she would hear a gunshot. She would immediately jump and let out a terrified scream. This became noticeable almost immediately, so the boss of her graphic design company ordered her to see a therapist (Phoebe supposed it was better than being dragged to a mental hospital.) She knew her childhood friend, Mirella, had graduated to become one after college, but this was something she never wanted to share with her. What if Mirella thought she was insane? What if she already somehow knew about her condition and that was why she refused to contact her?

"These thoughts aren't really yours." Phoebe's lousy excuse for a therapist once said.

"Well, if they aren't mine." Phoebe began with a smirk, "then would you bloody mind telling me whose they are and why they're in my mind?"

"Oh fuck, look who's back, everyone." Phoebe moaned, hearing the demanding voice of the officer that woke her up every morning. She peeled her eyes open and removed her sheets. The officer was still shouting, still pointing his ethereal gun to her face as she sat up with messy, golden tendrils of hair sticking to her face. She frowned.

"And you'll be gone in 3-2–1"

Just as she had finished saying one, the entity disappeared and the silence enveloped her once more.

She took the taser she kept on her nightstand and put it in the pocket of her gray sweatshirt. She took one foot out and stepped on an empty bag of crisps she had just eaten last night while listening to the voices in her mind.

"I should be in a fucking mental hospital." She thought before throwing that bag absentmindedly on the floor of her bedroom. Phoebe stepped over the multiple bags of empty food products that littered her floor and walked to her kitchen.

"Did you remember to take your medicine, dear?"

She heard her mother's voice in her mind. The answer, no, she had not, and she would later regret that mistake.

Gunshot in 3-2-1.

Boom, just as she walked into the office of her work. She jumped, but not enough to set off her coworkers. Coworkers, she believed, were all plotting together to send the police to her anyway. It wasn't like it was her fault that her father looked nearly identical to that serial rapist. It wasn't her fault, right as they pulled up to the school and her father walked her in, that he had been shot in the back by another father whose daughter had been taken. And it wasn't her fault that the police just so happened to be there, holding guns out too close to young Phoebe who coward beside her father's car which was now splattered with his blood.

There was incoherent yelling, screaming, another gunshot; and then she found herself at home with her grieving mother. The funeral was just a few days later.

She sat in the chair furthest from the group collaborating on their designs. Glancing over at her every now and then, seeing what she would do. She kept a grip on her taser and turned on her computer. Why was she even here?