NaNoWriMo, Part 10: There Are Voices in My Head

Today's word count: 1,895 words
Running total: 18,012 words
Summary: Chase meets Alistair.

Also, there is the wonder of technology.

    When I meet with my friends, their news just makes me feel worse.  I hear the tape that Dean must have referred to.  I’m really glad they decided not to play it during the show.  But as horrifying as it might be for the student body, it’s about ten times more horrifying for me.  I don’t make any attempt to respond for some time after the tape finishes.
    Everyone respects my silence until Brian speaks up.  “Does it mean anything to you?”
    I have to say something.  I can’t keep this a secret.  It’s already not a secret; Dean knows… and I trust these people more than I trust him.
    “Well—after the attack, once I woke up, I noticed I had a decreased appetite.  I thought maybe this was just because I almost died and all, and hospital food is nasty… but then I started feeling hungry and I had a strong aversion to food.  Even when it’s good food, food I’d normally like… I can’t hold anything down.
    “And just before I came here I was stopped and interrogated by Dean… I tackled him and—“  It’s getting hard for me to continue this story.  How can they believe it?  I scratch the back of my neck—big mistake.  I accidentally use the clawed hand and it hurts like hell.  I squint and grunt in pain and hope that I don’t look too strange right now.  But I think I know how to continue the story.
    “I think I was going to kill him.”
    Chase laughs.  “I think that every day.”
    “No, I mean like, really kill him.  I wanted… to kill and eat him.”  Silence, dead looks from everyone present.  I hold up the clawed hand for their scrutiny.  “This happened… I just spontaneously grew claws.”
    That gets a reaction.  Everyone looks a little bit disgusted by the deformity.  Brian exclaims, “Whoa, dude!”
    “…I’m scared of myself,” I admit quietly.
    No one says anything for a few long moments.  Brian, never ever having the ability to judge when it is a good time to make a comment, is the first to speak.  “Hey, let me see your hand up close.”
    I comply.  He holds it carefully, running his fingers over the claws.  A bit more of my human skin flakes off.
    “Oh, sorry.  Didn’t realize it’d do that.  But dude.  That’s just seriously fucked up.  And wrong.  But I don’t know what to tell you.  Sorry.”
    Ashley meekly asks, “Does this mean the ghost was right…?”
    I answer, “I don’t know.”  I’m afraid.  I don’t want to say anything for certain.  Of course I didn’t think it was possible for me to suddenly kill everyone because of a ghost’s prediction.  But after the incident with Dean and everything I had otherwise been thinking or doing lately, I could believe just about anything.
    With that, everyone feels bad about the whole thing and suddenly no one wants to be in the same room discussing this.  One by one they find excuses to leave.  Chase is the last to part.
    As he’s gathering his stuff, I try and find the right thing to say to him.
    “Hey, Chase, about computers today—“
    “It’s all right.  I mean, I wish you would’ve told me earlier…”  He slings his backpack over one shoulder.  “But I can understand why you didn’t.  Sort of.  You’re cool.”
    I don’t know what to say.  He doesn’t seem like he particularly forgives me, but how can I remedy that?
    He continues.  “Look, I just want to find a way to make you better right now.  Whatever that takes.  Let’s just focus on that, okay?”
    “…Yeah.”
    “All right.  See you tomorrow.”
    “See you.”
    Chase walks out of the room.  I sit there entirely alone for a while and stare at my hands.  I don’t want to get up, to keep going right now.  I just want to be normal again, but I don’t even know if that’s possible.
    I have a bad feeling about this.

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Scene VII
Nothing in My Time Training My Paranormal Abilities Prepared Me for This
???


    Who are you?
    I’ve been periodically asking this of my host for the past few weeks now.  I have still never received an answer.  He is intentionally ignoring me and it is really beginning to grate my patience.  Normally I give up after a few times each day, but today, I decided, I am going to get an answer.
    What is your name?
    No answer still.
    You know, it is rather impolite to completely ignore someone.  Have I done anything to offend you, or are you just this rude to everyone?
    No answer.  He is certainly committed to being rude.  Maybe I should introduce myself first.
    Would you like me to introduce myself first?
    No answer.
    I wait a little bit longer.  Still no answer.
    My name is Alistair.
    No answer.  I take a deep mental breath and prepare to tell my host my entire after-life story.
    I don’t remember where I was born or how I died or anything like that.  I just remember waking up and knowing I was dead.  I can’t speak anymore if I’m just… around.  My throat was slit.  But in the afterlife I was trained to help humans combat the supernatural forces of evil—
    Okay, look.  Finally, a response!  Exciting.  I don’t appreciate voices in my head, especially not right now.  I’ve been ignoring you in hopes that you’ll go away.  So will you just… go away?
    I send him a feeling of sadness and hope he feels it.  I never learned about possession, so I don’t exactly know how this works.  Time to explain that… I’m sorry, sir.  But if you’ll let me finish my story—I was training to fight evil, but my training was going rather slowly and unpleasantly.  One day a man approached me and said he could give me extra lessons.  I was enthralled and delighted.  We trained for several days together.  Then one day he arrived late.  Just as I was about to leave, a vortex to your world appeared.  I was eager to get to your world so I—I jumped through.  I blacked out.  I don’t know how long it’s been since then, but I recently came to and found I was in your body.
    …Well then get out.
    I can’t.  I never learned about possession.  I never got much past the theory classes, and then it was just theory for fighting demons and spectres.
    He doesn’t respond.  Maybe I can get him for more sympathy.
    I can’t even figure out how to control you to prove I’m more than a voice in your head.  I can’t even see anything right now.  It’s so dark.
    …Yeah, shut up voice in my head.
    My name is Alistair.
    No, it’s “Voice in My Head.”
    Listen, I can still hear what you hear… you seem to be having problems of the supernatural sort.
    You can’t help.
    Maybe I can.  I plead.  Just try to let me help?  Please?
    Suddenly he’s not answering me again.  It’s too late not to press on, though.  I do just that.
    Your friend—he had some sort of sudden deformity?  What did it look like?
    You’re a rather lame head-voice, you know that?  Shouldn’t you be telling me to go burn down buildings or something?  At least you should be able to see what I see.
    I already explained, I’m completely new to this sensation of inhabiting a body that is not only not mine, but also is already occupied.  I have no idea how to move around or anything like that.  When I find out, I’ll let you know.  I pause to separate my thoughts.  And anyway, I’m not a spectre.  They’re the ones who would tell you to “burn down buildings” or what have you.  I’m here to help you fight people like that.  I break up my train of thought again.  Now, can you describe the way your friend looked?
    He sighs heavily.  It was… black, and claw-ey and stuff.  And his skin was just peeling off like old paint.  It was kind of disgusting, really.
    Silence.
    …You still there, Voice in My Head?
    I’m just trying to think—I might have heard that before.  I can’t be sure.  Is there a library around here?
    …You want me to go visit a library now?
    I just need to see a book.
    You don’t want me to burn anything, do you?
    No, I just need to indentify what ails your friend.  Is that all right?
    …Let me text my mom, okay?
    I have no idea what it means to “text” someone, but I tell him it’s fine.  I hope it’s not bad.  Maybe he’s writing a letter to her?  But why would he be writing a letter to her right now?  He seems annoyed with me, so I don’t dare question him further, but I wonder these questions to myself.

~~~

    So that’s how you do it.  Good.  I can see what my host is seeing. Now.  The world certainly looks… different from the way I remember it.
    Where are we?
    The local library.
    No, I mean… where in the world are we?
    We’re in front of one of Rochester’s libraries.
    Rochester, Rochester…  I’ve heard the name before.  Is that in New York?
    No, this is Rochester, Minnesota.
    Oh.  I’ve never heard of Rochester in Minnesota.
    Yeah, most people haven’t.  My host goes to sit down in front of some strange glowing box.  In front of the box is a board with buttons on it; most of the buttons are labeled with letters and numbers, but some have words or phrases, and one is entirely blank.
    Okay, what am I looking for?
    I’m confused.  Shouldn’t you be looking in the card catalogue?
    Card catalogue?  He laughs out loud.  Some people glance over briefly.  He seems flustered but continues.  Those don’t exist anymore.  How old are you?
    They don’t?  This is… surprising.  Then how do you find books?
    You use a computer.  Before I can ask what that is, he explains.  It’s this thing in front of me.  See, you type what you’re looking for in here…  He hits a few random keys to demonstrate.  And it appears in this field right here.
    Sure enough, it has.  Amazing!
    My host gets my thoughts back on track.  So we can input a title, an author, or subject into that field, and it will tell you if they have it in the library.  So do you have a title I can look up?
    I ponder.  Well… the textbook we used was Jameson’s Guide to the Supernatural.  I think that’s where we read about something like your friend described…
    He inputs that title, presses a button on-screen using an ovular object to guide a little arrow around, and then a few matches come up.
    This system can be a bit of a pain to navigate… let’s see… hey, I think they have it.  Published… 2001.  Hrm.
    2001!?  It’s that far into the future?  And that’s old?
    What year is it, anyway?
    It’s 2011.  I guess the pub date doesn’t matter much.  And it looks like they have a copy in… fiction, JAM.  Goody…
    With that, my host stands up and proceeds to look for the book.
    It’s 2011.
    I died 1887.
    It certainly didn’t feel like a hundred-odd years in the afterlife.  Time must pass much more quickly there.  It’s quite frightening to think about, really.  I try not to dwell on it.
    Hey, is this it?
    He holds it in his hands in front of him so that