Teaching Darkness Infection Chapter 5

Date:  June 9, 2007

Time:  6:10 PM

Location:  Dark's Mindplace, Therapist's Room

"Well... here's a room I haven't seen in a very long time..."

Standing in the center of the old therapist's room that his mind had conjured up when he was so deeply in need of help all those months ago, Dark took a moment to look around to see what, if anything, had changed.  To his surprise, most of the changes had been made to the bookshelf.  The books stored on it had changed to reflect all he had learned since the last time he had been there, and it made him smile a bit to see how much he'd grown.

Everything was back in its place.  The light tan walls were unbroken and the paint was flawless.  The carpet was thick, soft, and all in one piece.  The furniture pieces were whole, and all the things that may have rested on top of them were just as they had been before that very first rage fit after Mephiles's first visit to this room.

In fact, the only thing a touch out of place was the thermostat, which Dark quickly corrected.  

Now... where was his younger self, exactly?

Dark didn't fancy peeking outside of the room to see if he could catch sight of the little Dark.  Not only was he nervous of what he might find if he did so, but what if Krad should happen to spot him?  No, that was out of the question...

The sound of a small voice clearing its throat reached his ears, and he jumped slightly, whirling around to face the source of the sound.  His ears stood straight up in shock as he found a small boy sitting on the therapist's couch, a child who looked for all the world like a six year old Dark.

The two merely stared warily at one another for a few minutes, taking one another in.  This Little Dark's ear left ear was whole instead of torn, and while he didn't look as healthy as he should, his weight was closer to what a child of his height and age should be.  His quills were a bit fuller and his fur was cleaner.

However...

Dark inhaled sharply at the terrible bruising on the little boy's body, the most noticeable of which was a black eye.  Besides this, his arms were also shredded in the same way Dark's had been, only his wounds had not been cared for and so the cuts were red and inflamed.

Letting out a soft curse, Dark approached the miniature version of himself, and mentally kicked himself when the child, who was not yet done with his surveillance of Dark, whimpered and drew back.

"You don't need to be afraid of me.  I'm not going to harm you..."

The younger one merely stared at him with wide eyes.

"... I'm going to see what I can do for your arms.  Will you allow me to?"

The little shade looked at him somewhat skeptically, but gave a small nod.  "... O-okay..."

Dark stood up and began to search the room for the medical supplies, mumbling to himself that he'd been quite certain he had left them in the drawer closest to the computer, so why, dammit, weren't they there...?

Little Dark watched the elder Dark rifle through drawers, wondering to himself whether or not this was real or not.  First the doctor, and now him?  "Granted, he's a bit gruffer than she was, but... he's still being nice..."  The younger shade thought to himself as he absent mindedly chewed on a claw.  "No one's ever been nice to me since before Brother—"

"Ah.  Here they are."  Pulling from the bottom left hand drawer a roll of self sticking wrapping bandages, some gauze, a clean cloth, and a bottle of disinfectant, he walked back over to Little Dark, who was still sitting on the couch, and knelt down on the floor in front of him.  Uncapping the bottle and carefully pouring some of the disinfectant onto the cloth, he spoke again, the words making the little Dark cringe with dread.  "I'm going to warn you that it will not be pleasant, but unfortunately it must be done."

"Wh-what do you—aaaaaaaaah!"  The younger one cut himself off with a loud scream of pain, yanking the arm away and clutching it fearfully to his chest.  "Th-that h-hurt!"

Dark winced at the sight of tears in the child's eyes.  "I apologize for that, but there was no other way.  Now let me see your—don't look at me like that, please.  I meant no harm, and now I'm only going to wrap your arm up.  There won't be anything painful about that, I promise you.

Despite still being obviously afraid, the younger shadow held his arm out and allowed Dark to wrap the injury up.  Thankfully, he was so intrigued by the dark red coloring of the bandages, that he barely noticed when Dark repeated the procedure on the child's other arm.  

"Better?"

The little one nodded.

"Now then... shall we discuss why you asked me to come here?"

Another nod, and off he went.  "I don't know exactly what Krad is after, but... he... he's the reason your shadow abilities are gone... he took them for his own... a-and... h-he's g-giving you n-nightmares at night... t-to keep you a-awake when you do fall asleep."

Dark cursed.

"So what do I need to do to take my abilities back!?"

The child swallowed hard and hanged his head.  "... You... probably need to kill him..."

"Fffffffudge..."  Dark just barely managed to avoid the more colorful word in favor of a more tasteful one.  "And how in Chaos's sake do I manage THAT!?"

When the little one didn't answer, Dark slammed his fist onto the nightstand near the therapist's couch, making the smaller one flinch.  "This isn't fair!  Just HOW am I suppose to kill him!?  It's impossible without my shadow abilities!  Preposterous to even THINK that I could accomplish that!  Plus, I cannot kill him while he is in my mind because Chaos knows what problems THAT might cause, and he is completely unable to exit my mind at this time; he himself said so, and since I know he would leave the millisecond he could, I'm inclined to believe he actually speaks the truth!"  The shade let loose a long, frustrated noise that sounded like something between a groan and a growl and head-desked into the couch.  "This can't be happening to me... Not even I have luck this terrible..."

The smaller one merely drew his legs away from Dark and hugged them to his chest as he scooted away, afraid that if he so much as made a sound, Dark would take his anger out on him.

He was right in one respect; the frustration and fury over his helplessness in Dark was building, and the shadow couldn't hold it in any longer.  With a scream of anger, he leaped to his feet, grabbed for a book off the bookshelf, and threw it as hard as he could, it hitting the wall with a THUNK and falling to the floor.

Chest heaving, ears flattened to his head, teeth bared and eyes narrowed, he stared at the book on the floor, his hands up as if ready to attack something.  The littler one crawled off the couch and hid underneath it, curling into a little ball in the furthest corner from Dark as possible.

Several months ago, Dark would simply have torn the room apart in his rage.  But that time had long since passed, and the Dark that stood snarling at the fallen book had progressed beyond that kind of temper tantrum.  He was old enough now to know deep down that throwing a fit here would only result in the destruction of himself, and as that thought worked its way into his conscious, he let out a deep sigh through his teeth and retrieved the book.

"Just great... I have no idea how to progress from here... now I actually have more questions than answers, and of course, I am STILL stuck in this—" Well, he totally learned that one from Shadow...

He continued to mutter and swear angrily to himself as he roughly crammed the book back into its place, counting off all the things he found wrong with this situation off as he did so.  "I don't know why I'm here, I don't know what they think I did, and I don't know where my brothers are or if they're safe!  I don't know what Krad wants of me, and I don't know how to get rid of him!  I don't know where to go from here, I don't know if I can completely trust that Dr. Leah person, and to top it all off, I am TALKING TO MYSELF..."   

A soft whimper caught his attention and he twitched a torn ear in its direction, remembering with a sudden jolt that he wasn't exactly alone in the room.  

"No, I was wrong about how many things were wrong.  NOW to top it all off, I may have just scared the living bejeebies out of my only ally."  Dark groaned, using a term that Mephiles often used in place of more questionable vocabulary.  Getting down on his hands and knees in front of the couch, he peered underneath, finding with a pang of guilt that his younger self was curled into a tight, shivering ball, and was breathing quickly and unevenly.  

"Hey... it's all right... I'm not angry anymore... I won't harm you..."

The first two parts of that statement were utter lies, but Dark had always been a decent liar when he needed to be.  Besides, the last part was completely true.     

Unfortunately, it didn't appear to be enough to convince the little Dark to come out from under the couch.  Dark's ears shifted back when the little one let out a sob of fear and scrunched himself further into the corner.  Oh, boy... he'd dug himself into a hole this time...

And had scared an innocent little kid out of his mind while doing it.

"Is there something I can give him or show him to make him feel better?  Something that I can create to help ease his fear?  What do little kids like, anyway?"

Leaning back from the couch to sit on his heels, Dark put a hand to his chin and closed his eyes.  What did little kids like?

Any type of food was out of the question.  Perhaps the boy would like the same foods, but perhaps he wouldn't, and he may even be allergic to certain types of foods.  It certainly wouldn't surprise Dark, because after all, far more bizarre things had happened.  

A toy, maybe?  What kind of toy would be appropriate?  If the child was anything like him, he would enjoy toys that could be taken apart and rearranged into something new, like that train set in his room... come to think of it, despite the fact that he himself had not yet played with the toy, that train set had been in pieces when he had woken up three days ago...

Dark imagined the train set from his bedroom and when he opened his eyes, there it was, a perfect copy, pieces neatly arranged in the middle of the room according to shape, size, and color.

Now how was he going to get the kid to calm down enough to notice?  He wasn't very good at the whole comforting thing... Mephy was the best at that, and even Iblis wasn't bad at it... but Dark himself?  Forget about it.  The only people he was able to reveal that side of himself to were gone, and no one wanted to speak of them.

"Might as well give trial and error a shot... I have nothing else to go on... now let's see... how would Mephy start this?"  He reached under the bed, placed a hand as gently as he could on the little one's head, and began to stroke it.  His younger self stiffened with a cry of fear and lifted his head just slightly to stare into Dark's eyes.  Another pang of guilt ripped through Dark as he saw the genuine terror in the little one's eyes, and the guilt quickly grew worse.  

Once upon a time... I was like that... scared and alone, and always hiding from the monster I thought was out to get me...

Back then, that monster had been Iblis.  And this time, I am the monster.

Dark cleared his throat and used a voice he normally reserved only for when he was very upset... which, honestly, wasn't very far from the truth at this point, given his recent realization.  "Shhhh... don't cry... I'm very sorry for getting mad like that.  I didn't mean it.  Sometimes I just have to let it out.  But I never take it out on a living being, because that's just wrong."  Dark tried to speak in terms that a scared child would understand and believe.  "You don't have to be scared of me.  I'd never hurt you unless you attacked me, and we both know you'd never do that.  I promise to try to keep a better check on my temper from now on, okay?  Now come out from under the couch."

Almost like he was a robot, the little one uncurled and shakily crawled out from under the couch, head down and ears flat.  In his relief that his ally had emerged from his hiding place, Dark failed to notice that his younger self had only done so because he had been given a direct order, and not because he'd felt any real sense of safety.  Thankfully, once he lifted his head, he noticed the train set, and just as Dark had hoped, an expression of pure, childish delight flashed across his face.  This look was quickly replaced with a wary, nervous one, and the child inched forward to the toy, glancing almost fearfully at Dark, as if checking to make sure that it really was okay for him to play with this marvelous plaything consisting of trains, tracks, and various other parts.

"Go ahead.  I made it for you; play with it to your heart's content, but be careful not to break anything." Dark said, his voice back to normal now that his task was complete.

With a happy little squeal of delight, Little Dark all but pounced on the train tracks, and within mere minutes was already creating an elaborate track for the trains to run, with twists and turns that took the trains beneath furniture, and bridges and hills that created two levels to the track; one above and one below.

Dark blinked, impressed.  But then again, this kid was a younger him.  Even if it turned out that they were not exactly the same, it stood to reason that he'd have the same intelligence and engineering creativity.

"So... I have just a couple more questions for you."

The smaller one looked up from his work and bobbed his head with a big smile, eager to please the one who had been so kind to him as to let him have an entire train set to own.  "Of course; what is it?"

"Can you see what is going on when someone else is in control?"

"... Y-yes..."  

The child had a bad feeling he knew where this line of questioning was going, and he didn't like it.

"In that case... you would know what exactly happened the day of May 10."

"... Y-yes... a-and n-no..."

Dark bit back a more insulting version of what he was about to say and revised it.  "That doesn't make any sense.  Either you know what happened, or you don't."

The little one shuddered, sensing the annoyance in the older one.  "I-I know... I know K-Krad did s-something t-terrible... a-awful... u-unspeakable, e-even... b-but I w-wasn't conscious f-for all of i-it..."

Well, all right... that seemed sort of reasonable, even if it wasn't what he wanted to hear.  At least he might gain some information from it.  "So what DID you see, then?"

The child was no longer looking at him, and had set the train tracks in his hands down; he was wringing his hands now and babbling nervously.  "The oldest one, the one with the gentle eyes, he hurt him very badly."

Dark's heart almost stopped, and his eyes widened in a moment of sheer terror, Krad's mocking hint of a blood soaked iron skillet replaying through his mind.  "Details!  I need details!"

Surely this couldn't be true?  Yes, that was it; the kid was mistaken somehow, and once he interrogated him enough he'd find out what didn't match up.

The kid in question was shivering now, but did as told, just as he always did.  "K-Krad t-took over f-from you wh-while you were sl-sleeping... i-it was l-late, dunno h-how late though... I-I was sc-scared of what he m-might d-do so I t-tuned in to s-see what w-was h-happening..."  The child whimpered and began to clutch at the fluff on his chest.  "B-brother w-was a-awake... w-wasn't i-in b-bed... a-at the t-time..."

He must be talking about Iblis...  Dark's hope was sinking fast.

"K-Krad got out of b-bed... went to the kitchen... n-noticed a d-door with a l-light on as he-he passed by on his w-way to th-the kitchen... I th-think he said s-something a-about, "Must be in the bathroom..." H-he r-reached into a cabinet, and pulled out a-an iron skillet... then w-waited o-outside that r-room with th-the light o-on f-for Brother..."

Dark was about two seconds away from hyperventilating, his mind already coming up with all of the worst possible scenarios for how this could have ended...

The younger one paused a moment and then continued, tugging on his left ear now with one hand while the other continued to clutch at his chest fluff.  "B-Brother t-turned off the l-light a-and opened the d-door... I-I f-faded out th-then... I-I think K-Krad knew I w-was w-watching a-and d-didn't w-want me t-to... s-so h-he m-made m-me p-pass o-out... A-after I c-came back into c-consciousness, I-I thought I h-heard B-brother c-crying "Mephy... Mephy..." over and over again.  B-but K-Krad h-had d-done something t-to my s-sight... I-I couldn't s-see... I-I also wasn't the one in control..."

There; he'd found the contradiction he'd so desperately wanted to find, and if he could discredit the little Dark on this part, then that made all other parts untrue... right?  "But it's not possible for you to lose conciousness like that; it's my mind, so how does he—"

"H-he's o-older than m-me... h-he knows h-how to control m-me... just l-like h-he can m-make you p-pass out, he can d-do that to m-me, t-too... the only d-difference is, t-to m-make y-you p-pass out, he n-needs to take c-control of your body.  He d-doesn't n-need to do that w-with me; I-I dunno how he m-managed to m-make me blind f-for a wh-while, though... m-maybe he's u-using m-me to p-practice so h-he can f-figure out how t-to do it to y-you?"  Little Dark swallowed hard.  "B-but... I th-think the r-reason h-he didn't w-want m-me to w-watch was b-because he w-wanted s-someone else t-to i-instead... only t-two of us th-three can be a-aware of wh-what's going o-on in th-the Outside.  Th-that's the p-person in c-control, and o-one person can w-watch but can't d-do an-anything else other than w-watch; th-the other has to be c-completely un-unconscious.  If I w-was th-the one c-completely u-unconscious, and K-Krad w-was the o-one in control, th-that leaves you as..."

Dark's head snapped back as his body recoiled, as if the words had been physical blows.  His eyes suddenly widened to their widest point as an image flashed through his mind.  Himself, standing in... maybe the living room... staring down at the carpet, which was soaked with something dark that smelled like copper... he was loosely holding an iron skillet dripping with blood... the scent of the red stuff was all around him; he was positively splattered in it... he tried to move, but he couldn't do anything... and someone's laughter echoed around him like a haunted choir...

Krad's laughter.

The image faded from sight, but the horror was still there.  His breaths were ragged sobs now and his eyes were welling up; each breath was painful and his hands flew to his chest to grasp at it.  He didn't even want to begin to imagine what might have taken place that night.  Whose blood was that?  Iblis's?  Or Mephy's?  Did it even really matter whose?  

But Dark was always one to deny everything to the bitter end, and so almost as soon as the despair had come, it left, replaced by a sort of frantic grasping at straws for something, anything, no matter how implausible it may be, that may point to an outcome different from the one he had automatically assumed.  He never told me he directly saw anyone beaten with the skillet.  I was scared; maybe there wasn't as much blood as I thought there was, and I only imagined there was a great amount.  The mind likes to exaggerate when frightened, after all.  Plus, it was barely a snippet of a flashback; that's hardly accurate...

Little Dark eyed his elder counterpart nervously, already guessing at what was going through his mind.  As much as the child wanted to believe that perhaps Dark's brothers hadn't been as badly injured as it appeared they had, he didn't bother trying to deny it to himself.  

One of them is probably dead.  The survivor will be traumatized for life and might never want to see you again.

I'm sorry, Dark... especially because I know that when you finally can't deny it any longer, you're going to shatter into a million pieces...

And there will be no Mephy or Brother to save you this time...

---

Date:  June 9, 2007

Time:  6:35 PM

Location:  Westopolis, Hope's Hospital for the Mentally Ill, Room 263

The shadow groaned as he sat up, his head pounding.  Maybe he should install another door in that room that would allow him to exit his mind when he walked through it, because having to knock himself out to wake up was painful.  

His nose twitched at a familiar, delightful scent and he sat up straight, glancing at the nightstand.  Just as expected, there was the tray with his supper, and he wrinkled his nose at the sight of it.  No matter how many times he told these people he was a vegetarian, he always wound up with meat in his meal, one way or another.  Today it was a salad with chicken and bacon bits sprinkled in, along with a slice of bread and butter and a cup of fruit juice.

However, what had captured his scenes was not the dinner, but the dessert.  As Sasha had promised, it was a small plate of cut up cantaloupe squares.  There were as many of the yellow golden squares as would fit on the plate, and the sight of his favorite food made Dark all but squeal with glee.  He snatched up the plate and stuffed three squares at once into his mouth.

The euphoria over his favorite comfort food quickly evaporated though, and although he continued to eat it was with much less gusto.  He had a horrible feeling in the pit of his stomach, a feeling that maybe, just maybe, Krad was speaking the truth about what he was insinuating with the hint about the skillet.  

But no... he shook his head.  Krad was a horrible, evil monster.  He could be lying just for kicks, so why should Dark believe him at all?  No, even if his brothers were injured, it probably wasn't nearly as bad as that strange, six second backflash had made it out to be.  The idea that they were harmed at all made his stomach turn, but at least they would recover soon and could see him again probably sometime in the near future.  In fact, maybe all he had to do was survive this nuthouse a little bit longer, and they would let him out, and he and his brothers could go back home, where they belonged.

Of course, he would probably have to be on his best behavior for that to happen.  That in itself would be a problem.  Dark despised being confined to just a few rooms, and despised even more people whispering about him while he was in the room as if he were too stupid to be able to hear or understand him.  Still, it was more than just worth a shot, and it was something he had to try to do.

Even if that hot pink mink with the curly blonde hair and the ear grating voice had deserved that kick he'd given to her four days ago... and the kicks he'd given to her since then.

---

Date:  June 9, 2007

Time:  7:46 PM

Location:  Downtown Westopolis, Oscar's Pet Emporium

Sasha picked up the cage handed to her by the bouncing, red haired lynx girl.  The girl's father looked on, amused.  

"These're all the cute little mice we have at the moment!" the little girl chattered as Sasha peered inside to survey them.  There were four white mice and two brown ones; the white were all sleeping snuggled up to one another in a corner, while one brown one was on the hamster wheel and the other brown one was eating happily over by their food dish.  "There's Snowball, Snowflake, Blizzard, and Whiteout.  Over there is Cheeks, and the one on the wheel is Duster!"

At the sound of his name, the little mouse stopped running and walked over to the bars of the cage, sniffing Sasha's nose.  His whiskers ticked her nose, and she sneezed.

The little girl squealed happily and clapped her hands.  "Duster's so smart; he always comes when he's called!  And he loves to sit on people's shoulders, too!  And when you're sad, he curls up on your head, like he's trying to tell you that he'll always be there for you!  He's so sweet; he's perfect for that sad little boy you told us about!  He'll make him smile again, guaranteed!"

Sasha reached through the wire bars and stroked the mouse's head with a small grin.  "He certainly is perfect.  I'll take him, Blossom; just like always, you've found the best pet for my patient.  Would you be a dear and go find me a cage that would make him comfortable?"

The little girl beamed proudly as she gently plucked Duster out of his cage.  The moment Sasha had taken the little brown furball into her hands, Blossom rocketed off towards the area with the cages, leaving her father and her friend smiling at one another.

"You really have a wonderful little girl, Oscar.  She's almost physic, it seems; she always knows just which animal would be best."

The big lynx took his place behind the cash register and began to ring Sasha up, chuckling.  "That's Blossom for ya.  She'll be great at this job one day.  It's just too bad your patient this time couldn't come himself to see what we had to offer."

Sasha took out her wallet and handed Oscar a couple of Rings.  "Well, this particular patient probably wouldn't take well to Blossom's... eh..."

"Loudness?"

"Pretty much."  Sasha sheepishly rubbed the back of her neck.

Oscar merely waved a hand.  "It's fine.  Not all people do.  Not at first, anyway."

Blossom came running back with a cage in her arms, which she quickly deposited on the counter.  "Here you go!"

Sasha opened the cage door and gently set Duster inside.  The floor was covered in clean shavings and there was a wheel, a food dish, and a water feeder.  Duster quickly set out to explore his new home, smelling everything he could.

"It's been great seeing you; I might come back to buy some of those things over there."  Here Sasha motioned to a collection of clear, colored plastic tubing pieces that one could connect together to make a tunnel for their rodent to run through.  "But it all depends on how quickly he takes to Duster, if at all."

"He'll love Duster; who couldn't!?"  Blossom seemed appalled at the very thought of someone disliking the dark eyed, pink nosed, sweetheart.  "Now you tell that boy he had better take good care of my Duster, or I'll pop him one!"

This coming from a skinny, nine year old girl with no powers and a pink, floral printed dress with a big pink bow to match made Sasha want to giggle.  Especially when she imagined Blossom saying that to Dark's face, as she could imagine that the boy would probably have a wtf-face at not only her audacity, but also at the general silliness of the statement, as Blossom most definitely would not be able to "pop him one"  unless she caught him off his guard.  And even then Dark might not fight back because she was quite certain that his family would have taught him it was wrong to hit a girl, which would lead to a one sided sissy smackfest.

Ah, the silliness of childhood.

She restrained herself (barely) and smiled instead.  

"I'll be sure to let him know that."