Cutscene: Introspection IV

– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –

The salad in front of him — a meticulous arrangement of greens, cherry tomatoes, and precisely sliced grilled chicken — appeared more like a well-composed still life than food. He stabbed at it mechanically, lifting a forkful of green to his mouth, the textures and flavors barely registering despite the flavor making his neurons spark with recognition.

Bringing his fork down to his meal again, he found the act of cutting into the fibrous tissue of the chicken required a precise manipulation of the opposite utensil that felt strangely cumbersome in his grasp.

Truthfully, both did.

The metal tool in his left hand hung rather limply despite his firm grip, the thin object extending downwards before widening, the end of it separating into much thinner sections.

It felt… limited.

Specialized?

He allowed himself a slight nod.

That seemed more accurate.

Across from him, his father's mouth moved, the words reaching his ears with a clarity that seemed almost unnatural. "I assume your afternoon was as taxing as I expected," Max Anders spoke, his tone carrying the casual dominance of a man expecting to be listened to, the vibrations of his voice traveling across the room and hitting the boy's eardrums with an almost palpable force, leaving silver eyes blinking as he felt his brain react, dissecting the phenomenon — waves transmitted through a medium, encountering the tympanic membrane, inducing a cascade of biological responses resulting in the perception of sound.

"Yes," he replied, the word a mere product of learned social response, devoid of any real meaning or emotion. His mind seemed to be operating on a different level, analyzing the interaction with a detached, almost clinical precision.

"You're quiet today," his father remarked, the words registering in his mind as little more than a series of vibrations, stripped of their intended significance.

"Just thinking," he answered, his thoughts drifting to the events of the afternoon, to the panic in Greg's eyes and the way Sparky's hands had shaken as they both tried to stem the flow of black blood from his nose and ears.

– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –

Sparky stared at Theo with wide eyes as he dabbed the tears away from his eyes with a clean napkin, several others stained jet black with the thick inky blood that had poured from his other orifices. The boy with gold eyes took in a deep raggedy breath as he clung to the far wall. "I think I'm having a panic attack."

His godbrother stared at the black blood for a moment, glowing blue eyes clearly fascinated, before his eyes flicked away from Theo and over to his best friend for a single second that seemed to stretch out for far longer and slowly nodded. "...yes. You are."

– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –

As if any of it matters, he mused, his brain dissecting the vibrations of speech and reducing them to meaningless noise, each syllable analyzed for its phonetic components rather than its semantic meaning, layered back together in a way that rendered the conversation almost surreal.

"And Gregory?" The sound waves from his father's careful speech pattern did little more than stir the air around him, the boy's mind visualizing them as mathematical models of waveforms expanding and contracting, the intricacies of the phenomenon more captivating than the actual content of the question. "What did you do with him today?"

"...he took me running," he answered, his voice a monotone that mirrored the numbness spreading through his thoughts, the memory of the wind rushing past his face as he ran, faster than he'd ever moved before, the world blurring around him in a kaleidoscope of colors and shapes. "Not much to talk about."

Forks scraped against plates, the sound grating against his heightened senses, each scratch and scrape magnified to an almost unbearable degree. The clock on the wall ticked steadily, a metronome marking the passage of time, each second stretching out into an eternity as he sat there, lost in his own thoughts, the world moving relentlessly forward around him, regardless of his internal stagnation.

He blinked, the action suddenly noticeable in a way it had never been before, an awareness of his own bodily functions that seemed to border on the obsessive. It was like watching someone else blink, he realized, the movement feeling separate from his own consciousness.

He blinked again, the sensation strange and unfamiliar, as if his eyelids were moving of their own accord, no longer under his control.

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A moment passed, the silence stretching out between them, and he realized that his father had spoken again, the words lost in the haze of his own thoughts. How long did I zone out that time? he wondered, his mind struggling to focus on the present, to pull himself back from the brink of whatever abyss he'd been teetering on.

"Mustn't waste food," the words sprung back to life in his mind, a perfect recreation of his father's tone and cadence, the memory so vivid that it almost seemed to override the present moment. That's new, he thought, a flicker of interest sparking in his otherwise numb mind.

He didn't look up as he finally responded, his gaze fixed on the fork in his hand, the metal cool and heavy against his skin. "Not hungry," he said, the words mechanical and rehearsed, yet honest in their simplicity.

His father's eyes narrowed slightly, a silent acknowledgment of the shift in their verbal sparring, the tension between them palpable in the air. A part of Theo found it funny how, despite his father's vaunted and self-proclaimed eye for detail and exceptional intelligence, the man hadn't managed to see the difference in the set of eyes staring him in the face.

The slight slimming of his face was one thing to ignore, but the eyes...

Am I so forgettable? Theo allowed the thought space to roam for a moment. Or did father simply never care?

"Will miracles never cease?" Max asked, his voice dripping with sarcasm as he stood to leave the table, his chair scraping against the hardwood floor with a sound that grated on the boy's nerves, the noise amplified by his heightened senses.

The latter then.

Soles on hardwood continued to click, each step a sharp, staccato beat that echoed in his mind long after the sound had faded, his father rounding a distant corner and disappearing from view, leaving him alone with his thoughts, the silence pressing in on him from all sides, a tangible presence that seemed to fill the room.

He sat there, unmoving, the fork still clutched in his hand, his mind racing with a thousand different thoughts, none of them quite coherent, none of them quite real. The world seemed to blur around the edges, reality and illusion blending together until he couldn't quite tell where one ended and the other began, the blue energy coursing through his veins, altering his perceptions, his very sense of self.

He wondered, not for the first time today, if this was what it felt like to go mad, to lose oneself entirely in the labyrinth of one's own mind. But even as the thought crossed his mind, he felt a strange sense of calm wash over him, a detachment that bordered on the inhuman, as if he were watching himself from a distance, observing his own descent into madness with a massive eye, detached from the emotions that should have been tearing him apart.

He watched silently as the maid entered the room, her movements efficient and noiseless, clearing the table with the practiced grace of someone well-versed in the art of invisibility. She finished her task and retreated to the kitchen without a word.

Now alone, he felt a peculiar relief, a momentary respite from the weight of expectations. His fingers tightened around the fork as he rose from the table, the metal cool and smooth beneath his touch, a silent testament to his burgeoning sense of control.

Ascending the stairs, the fork's presence was a comforting certainty, an odd companion that seemed to pulse with potential energy. Each step was measured, his awareness heightened to the point where each creak of the wooden stairs was a distinct note in the quiet symphony of his solitude.

He entered his room, the familiar space a haven from the world's prying eyes and his father's disappointed silences. Closing the door behind him, he relaxed, the mask of indifference he wore downstairs beginning to crack.

The fork slipped from his sleeve as he let go of the doorknob, an unexpected descent halted abruptly by a new force. His eyes widened slightly, not with fear, but with a cold curiosity as the fork stopped in mid-air, suspended at knee height.

He reached out, the air around him charged with an unspoken energy. The utensil remained still, obedient to his unvoiced command. Interesting.

As he extended his fingers, the fork ascended, aligning with the slow upward motion of his hand. The sensation was alien yet intimately familiar, as if he were exploring a forgotten aspect of his own being.

Turning his palm upwards, the fork mimicked the movement, a metallic disciple of his silent will. The drain on his energy - the blue circulating in his brain and nerves - was palpable, each moment costing him a sliver of strength, but the allure of control was intoxicating.

With a deliberate motion, he closed his hand into a fist. The metal obeyed, compressing into a tight sphere with a muted screech. The final shape was a perfect, smooth orb, gleaming dully as it hovered in the low light of his room.

A slow smile crept across his face, a rare expression of genuine satisfaction.

"Fuck yeah."

Theodor Heathcliff Anders felt… alive.