"How are you doing today, Timothy?" Dr. Williams asked me from behind the protective glass.

"Much better, thank you." I answered him. My nose itched, but I wasn't able to scratch it because of the straitjacket I needed to wear when I had a session. It was horribly irritating. I tried to scratch it on my shoulder, but I just couldn't reach it.

When Dr. Williams looked at me with a concerned frown on his face, I hurriedly stopped. I didn't want to get medicine for another thing.

"I am still very sorry about what happened." It burst out of me like a river that found its way through a blockade. My heart beat fast, and I hoped that my relationship with him would get better again.

Dr. Williams gave me a crooked smile and nodded. This was better than nothing.

"Do you think I could, maybe..." I started asking while my throat felt clogged up.

"I can't, Timothy. You know that you could be dangerous. The straitjacket is not only for my protection. It also protects you from yourself." Dr. Williams answered me in a resolute tone, and my hopes of getting out of this irritating jacket plummeted to the ground.

I looked up at his face, only to see the nearly healed wound on his forehead. I couldn't remember anymore, but apparently I wounded him in one of our sessions.

I felt extreme guilt press down on my shoulders when I thought of how I hurt Dr. Williams. And how I hurt all those other people.

"It still doesn't seem real, you know." I confessed my conflicted feelings to him. "I know that every fact points to me..." I had to pause for a moment, not really wanting to believe what would come out of my mouth next. "It points to me being a murderer."

I tried to swallow, but my mouth was as dry as a desert. "I mean... I don't even remember anything. How is this even possible?"

Dr. Williams took a deep breath, and leaned forward. "These symptoms are typical for dissociative disorders. Memory loss, potentially alternate personalities, your anxiety, these hallucinations you experienced... I could list many more reasons, but the diagnosis is very clear."

My mind blanked out for a moment, and I looked at him in confusion. Alternate personality? Me? How come I never...

"This was most likely caused by your trauma regarding your mother." Dr. Williams interrupted my thoughts. "As we have found out in previous sessions, your mother subjected you to emotional and physical violence."

"We did? She did?" I asked him, not really remembering any of it.

Yes, we did, Timothy." he answered me with his endless patience. "And today we will talk about your other trauma. When you saw how your father killed your mother."

"He would never do that!" I shouted in anger, but something tugged at the back of my mind. "Would he...?"

"Think about the last birthday of your mother before she died. How old did she get?" Dr. Williams asked me with his soft voice, his eyes piercing deep into my soul.

"Sixty three." I answered in a daze.

"And what was the present you brought her on her birthday?"

"I brought her flowers. And a vase. She really loved them."

"Are you sure this color will fit with many different flowers?" I asked the florist with a skeptical face. The vase was a deep purple. Whatever my mother would put inside, the vase would definitely stand out much more.

"Just trust me, my friend." The guy named Alen told me with a confident smile. "She will love it. All the grannies practically bounce on this color. It is, in fact, the last one we have in stock. You would be a fool not to snatch this one."

I was flabbergasted for a moment by his salesmanship. But for some reason, I still bought it.

"She will love it, my friend!" The florist shouted through the closing door while I stepped out on the sidewalk. I looked down at the purple vase with red and blue flowers inside. It just looked horrible and didn't match at all.

"What is wrong with me?" I asked myself with consternation while looking through the window of the florist's boutique.

"Everything is wrong with you!" my mother screamed in my ear. I managed to catch the ugly vase that slipped through my fingers for a moment.

I looked at the ugly reflection of my mother, who clutched her long nails deep into my shoulders and looked down on me with a scornful gaze.

I closed my eyes, took a few deep breaths, and counted to ten. When I opened my eyes again, the image of my mother was gone.

A sigh of relief escaped my tense body, and I hurried to get away from this place. These visions got worse and worse. I would have to talk to Dr. Schwarz about raising my medication.

It wasn't far from my parents house now. And I couldn't be late for her birthday. Even though it was the only day I saw her every year, I still couldn't get out of my old habits.

I would love to just leave her and all my horrible memories behind. But for some reason, I couldn't cut ties with her. So here I was, going through voluntary torture once again.

I fiddled with my shirt, not wanting to give her any ammunition to criticize me again. And then I rang the bell. I heard her ugly dog bark in an aggressive manner, and I couldn't suppress flinching a little.

"I swear, she must have trained him to do stuff like this." I muttered under my breath while waiting for my mother, or more likely, my father, to open the door.

Without any forewarning, the door sprang open, and my smiling father opened the door for me and hugged me tightly. I nearly let go of the vase because of this idiot.

While feeling his strong grip, I did my best to act like I was happy to see him too. It wasn't like I had horrible experiences with him too. It was just that he never did anything to stop my mother.

"Stop it, Timy!" My father screamed with an agonized voice.

I looked on in shock as he beat my mother with a golf club, breaking every bone in her body. She was dangling from a rope and gasping for air. Like a fish on land.

Please, Timy, stop it!" My father still screamed in a high and panicked voice while he continued beating my half-dead mother.

"Let's stop here for a moment, Timothy."

I looked around, disoriented for a moment. Where was I? I tried to move, but something held me back. I tried to free myself in a panic. But I noticed that I couldn't free myself.

"Please calm down, Timothy. Remeber. You are in a psychiatric hospital. I am Dr. Williams. We are going through your traumatic memories. They are not real." I heard a soothing voice from somewhere in the room.

I gradually calmed down again. I focused on the here and now and managed to pull myself out of the memory.

"That was a horrible one." I mumbled under my heaving breaths.

"I can only imagine what this must have felt like." Dr. Williams spoke in a tired and sad voice. "But I think, that this memory is somewhat incomplete. In one moment, you told me about how your father greeted you. The next moment... Well, you know what happened then."

He paused for a moment, seemingly trying to find the right words. "If you are still ok with it, I would like to go back there again." He looked at me with serious and worried eyes. His eyes were a deep hazelnut brown. Such a calming color.

"Yes, I can manage it. I want to find out what happened." I answered him with a resolve I never imagined I could have.

"Good Timothy. We are making progress." He said with an encouraging voice. "Try to focus on what happened to the vase. And try to stay in one memory. I think you may have mixed the two together in the end. It doesn't make sense that he shouted for you to stop while he... did what he did."

I nodded, still not quite sure where I got this resolute will from. But I dug into my memory again.

"Come inside, Timy. It is so good to see you." Dad told me in his quiet and gentle voice and led me inside. I had to maneuver the vase out of the way, or else he would have thrown it to the ground with his uncoordinated movements.

"Just put it here, my boy." He mumbled and pulled the vase out of my hand. "You know she.. well, she doesn't like purple all that much this week. She saw a young woman with purple hair, you know."

My heart sank to my stomach. That was just my luck. While my father gently pushed me down the hallway, I somehow had the feeling that I had to take the vase with me. But why?

All thoughts about the ugly present were forced out of my head, when I heard the familiar heavy breathing of my mother.

I swallowed and turned my head to look at her. She was sitting in her wheelchair at the end of the dining table. Her hair was messy and greasy as always, and her skin looked dry and thin like paper.

"Such a messy appearance." she ranted with her breathless voice. She took a cigarete from the table and lit it with her trembling hands.

"Dear, we have talked about this. Please don't..." my father started speaking but was interrupted by the sharp voice of my mother.

"Don't call me dear, you stinking swine! Go in the kitchen and make yourself useful." She snarled at my father, looking for any sign of resistance.

He flinched back, like he was physically hit by her, and hurried to the kitchen.

"Sit down," she told me, pointing to the chair right next to her.

I pressed down on the overflowing panic and sat on the uncomfortable wooden chair. She puffed some smoke in my face, which nearly made me gag.

"Happy birthday, mother." My voice was shaking just a little while I was saying this, but she pounced on it like a bloodhound.

"What is this shaking in your voice, Timothy!" she screamed at me with her raspy voice. "Can't you even wish your dear mother a happy birthday without sounding like a child? huh? What would the neighbors think about us if they heard us?"

I just sat there like a deer in the headlights, not able to say even one word.

"Answer me!" she screamed and coughed, spewing some phlegm over my face.

I took a deep breath, trying to steady my emotions and my voice. I have talked to Dr. Schwarz about this. I would be able to do it.

"Mother, I just said something nice to you. I would appreciate it if you wouldn't be so harsh to me." My heart felt like it would jump right out of my chest, and it felt like there was not enough air in this room.

"You say I am harsh. I see. You are ungrateful." Her voice was cold and silent. Just like always, before she got violent. "You are a naughty boy, Timothy. And you know what happens to naughty boys."

"I am not a child anymore!" I shouted with a shaking voice but didn't dare look her in the eyes. I saw her reaching for her crutch.

"Say it, Timothy, what happens to naughty boys?" She demanded in a hard voice, the crutch now in her shaking hands.

"I will not play your games anymore!" I shouted back, this time with more power in my voice. I wouldn't let myself be treated like this anymore.

"Say it!" she shouted, and I felt a sharp pain in my head.

"Stop it, mother!" I screamed in fear. I tried to stand up and back away, but somehow I tumbled to the ground in front of her.

"Say it!" she screamed again, and she beat me again and again.

"Please mother!" I shouted while holding my hands over my head.

But she didn't stop. She beat me again and again. Through a veil of tears, I saw my father standing at the entrance to the dining room. He stood there like a statue, not even moving his eyelids while staring at the scene.

"Say it!" my mother screamed and somehow managed to hit my head. Intense vertigo overcame me, and I tried to crawl away.

But it was no use. She hit me. Again. And again. And she never stopped screaming.

"SAY IT!" she roared with insane anger, the crutch held up high with her shaking arms.

"Stop it, Timy!" I heard my father scream from the side.

I looked down at his crumbled figure on the floor in confusion.

"What...?" I asked in confusion and looked to the side.

There was my mother. She was floating in the air, her limps bent out of shape at unnatural angles. She was grasping for air and coughing up bloody bubbles.

"Don't kill her!" my father screamed, and I looked over to him again.

There he was, beating my mother with her own crutch. She wasn't moving anymore. She was limply hanging from the rope with a blue tongue hanging out of her mouth.

But my father didn't stop beating her. He beat her until the crutch broke apart. He held the sharp tip of the splintered plastic crutch in his hand and turned to me with tears in his eyes.

"Don't come closer!" he begged me in a shaking voice while threatening me with the broken crutch. He was shaking like a mouse, trapped in the corner of the room.

I looked down at my hands and back to where my mother was again. My father lay on the ground next to her, the broken crutch sticking out of his gut. He lay in a dark red puddle of blood, the crutch still tightly gripped in his hands.

"Can you explain what happened in there?" a soft, female voice asked me while a blanket was pulled over my shoulders.

I looked up in confusion, only to see a woman in a police uniform standing in front of me.

"Timothy?" she asked me. But something about her voice was wrong. Why did she sound like a man?

"Timothy, can you come back?"

I gasped for breath while realizing that I had been trapped inside my memory.

I looked around the room and pinched myself to make myself aware of the here and now again.

"I am back." I told Dr. Williams in a shaky voice. "What does this all mean?" I asked him, not really wanting to hear the answer.

"Timothy," he began with a complicated and upset look on his face. "Is it possible that... Do you think it is possible..." he trailed off, not able to finish the sentence.

"What, doctor?"

"Is it possible that you killed your parents?"