Flip the Coin [BL]-Chapter 266. Hollow sadness
Dr. Lawrence’s eyes fell on me.
"We will postpone the next ankle monitor for as long as possible."
Henry furrowed his brows, but I agreed.
"Can we do our one-on-one session now?" I asked her, Henry’s head snapping to me.
The blonde doctor raised her eyebrows before looking at her smartwatch—even doctors had them—and nodded.
"Henry, I want to make a few other tests to help you control the components of your ability tomorrow. For now, go back to your lessons."
"No." He grabbed my hand, his whole being filled with uneasiness.
I looked at him before gazing back at Dr. Lawrence.
"Fine. I’ll tell you now with him here. I have problems..." How do I even start explaining that?
"I went through traumatic stuff, and I want you to help me cope with it as efficiently and quickly as possible." I can’t tell her that an overwhelming amount of power and memories has been poured into my body, even if I can’t access them fully, and that I was not going slowly crazy.
"Therapy and medication would be the choice regarding a long-term solution... Fast and efficient would be hypnosis."
"Never. Not on my watch," Henry hissed.
I ignored him.
"What does hypnosis exactly do?" I know everything about it that everyone else does, but nothing more.
"It puts you in a relaxed state to relive your memories without experiencing stressful feelings. This procedure trains your body and mind, helping you cope in the long term," she explained.
"He is not doing it." Henry said, as if the decision had already been made, while he squished my hand.
"Let’s shake hands; I want to trust you." I pulled my hand out of Henry’s grasp and stood up to reach out to the doctor. When she shook my hand, I flipped the coin. Eyes and ears uncovered; black; palm; correct future of Dr. Lawrence.
I stand in the office we usually hold our sessions in. I see myself lying on the couch, my face full of tears.
"Are you okay?" Dr. Lawrence asked me.
"I don’t know." My future self presses his palms to his eyes, choking out muffled
"I am just so... sad."
Coming back, I looked at the doctor, asking myself if this was really reliving memories without emotions, because it didn’t look like it.
Still, the last time in the wet coffin, it was the same. There we clearly were also thrown into this relaxed state. And although it ended with me traveling into the future, I also received a warning from Silver-Henry, which helped me.
I nodded before glancing at Henry.
"I’ll do it; it will be okay. I want to get better." If we do it now, the future will be accurate because it was near, and I can accept a bit of crying if it would help me.
Henry nodded numbly, staring at the desk; helplessness seemed to paralyze him.
I felt really bad for bringing the kicked puppy back, but I had to try to make myself better, and I felt no bad intentions from the doctor.
"Let’s try that now," I decided, and after Dr. Lawrence glanced at her watch again, she nodded and led us to the office we usually used.
She motioned for me to sit on the couch, and Henry, who showed that he wouldn’t leave the room no matter what, leaned against the closed door.
"Don’t interrupt the hypnosis, or it could harm him. Wait for my signal." She implored Henry, who nodded before she soon began.
I lay down on the couch in the manner I had seen in my vision.
"Close your eyes." She said, her voice growing soothing. 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝒆𝒘𝙚𝓫𝙣𝙤𝒗𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢
I did what she asked.
"Take deep breaths." I breathed as the Breathing Guy had shown us, listening to the doctor’s instructions.
"Now, imagine that you are standing on an escalator that takes you down, deeper and deeper into the depths of your mind. There is no reason to be scared; you are just standing, and you can always change the escalator’s direction. If you want to wake up, you can do so at any time. Just let yourself move deeper down and take a look at what is shown to you."
"The farther you go down, the sleepier you become. In this relaxed state, nothing can be a danger to you; nothing can harm you."
I imagined myself on the escalator that had no end, and I waited.
That was until I felt someone watching me, and I raised my head.
I saw a red light high above me.
I knew that it was the eye of the giant, even without seeing the protruding eyeball, and I pressed my eyes shut, feeling horror welling up inside me.
My body convulsed in a seizure, and I heard Dr. Lawrence saying something, but her voice was too far away to understand.
The escalator straightened out, changing into the remains of a bombed street, as I walked straight ahead, as I...
...walk to grade school.
After grade school, I always walk home. During vacation, I walk to the park and then home.
To get to the swimming lessons, my mother and I have to take the old train into the city and only return at night.
Every time I sit on the train that drives through the darkness, I look at the stars, so mighty, so far away.
Inside the half-empty train, where I can gaze into the night, I feel safe.
I hate summer because the days are longer and because then a certain hollowness would claw at the walls of my stomach, squeeze my heart, and twist my mind.
When I go to the park during summer vacation, where I play alone, I find myself staring at the trees and at the leaves dancing in the wind.
Then I zone out for a long time before looking at the mountain behind, asking myself how it would be if I left to go there instead of to the park, school, or home.
I climb trees, although the height scares me.
But I just concentrate on climbing up, one branch after another, and when I reach the top, I look at the landscape.
I do that often in the park. There is one special tree that has grown as if it were made for me to climb.
On my way home, I again feel this hollowness; everything is colorless, sometimes tinted in sepia.
I fear this feeling more than anything. I don’t name it, as it always would come and go in waves; the feeling is just there as if I was born with it, so I don’t think about it.
That is just how it is. This is life.
When I am at home, my mother cooks something if she finishes earlier, and we eat. Or I am alone if she has to work, and I reheat what she left for me in the pan.
After eating, I go to bed. And after sleeping, a new day begins.
I now know how to swim, so there is no need to take the train.
I don’t feel safe if I cannot be in this moving space, locked together with other living and breathing humans, even if there are only a few—inside this shining light that penetrates the night.
The next morning, I walk to school like every other day.
I come home, eat, and do my homework.
My mother works longer, so I am alone.
I look at my fountain pen scratching against the paper, leaving ink.
I move the pen, drawing something random; not a thought in my head.
Ah... this hollowness sometimes becomes unbearable.
I look at the window—the door that leads from a gray room to a gray world.
I walk to the window, open it, crawl onto the windowsill, and watch my feet dangle above the abyss.
I look at the ground two stories below.
I imagine myself falling over and over again, neither with anticipation nor fear.
I often do that in different variations: sometimes I would take a butter knife to bed, hide under the blanket, and press the blade against my stomach. Then I move it down slowly, very slowly, yet never with enough force to slice my skin.
Afterward, I would go back into the kitchen, wash the knife, and put it back in the drawer.
Sometimes I would hold my breath under the blanket, trying to stop breathing—all the while not feeling anything or forming any thoughts.
I come down from the window, close it, and continue with my homework.
Coming back, I stared at the ceiling before pressing my palms against my tear-filled eyes.
"Are you okay?" Dr. Lawrence asked.
Thinking of what I had just seen and what I felt in the memory that wasn’t mine, I could only choke out what I had seen myself answer in my vision.
"I don’t know."
"I am just so..."
".....sad."
