Dr. Reed tapped her pen to the sound of her clock as she looked over at me. Usually, those two sounds were partnered with the sound of those weird metal balls ticking back and forth. Their discordant frequencies always annoyed me. Thankfully, the balls weren't running. It was just the ticking of the clock and the ticking of the pen that filled the otherwise silence of the room.

  I was looking down at my hands, trying to avoid looking at the shrink in front of me. She had never been an important part of therapy. At least, not for me. Just being there, just sitting in the quiet, not thinking about it, about everything that had happened to me, was enough to help. I just needed to get over it. Get past it. Get past the demons that still haunted me, chasing me down the long, dark corridors of my own personal hell.

  As the memory flashed through my head again, I closed my eyes tightly. I shook my head, desperately trying to shake the dreams loose. Trying to erase that flashback before it could settle in. I was only sixteen years old. I shouldn't have memories that haunted my every waking moment. But when you've been through what I had been through, it was bound to happen.

  Of course, I hadn't been through it alone. I had had my friends with me at the time. They had gone through similar situations as well. Some died. Some were seriously injured.

  But none of them went through everything that I had. None of them had seen the look of lust in that man's eyes as he...

  I shook my head again, trying not to think of it. Trying to dispel the smell of the leather jacket as it filled my nostrils from the memory. He wasn't there. He wasn't anywhere near me, near Earth. He was long gone, long dead, and couldn't hurt me anymore.

  As the vision slowly faded, I glanced over at Dr. Reed. She had stopped tapping her pen, but she continued looking at me. Continued watching me. In these hour long sessions, I'd often try to guess at what she would say. How she would react to all the things that I was trying to work through. I knew how therapy worked. I knew talking through these issues helped. But talking through these, through these particular issues, was dangerous. Especially when talking about them to someone that could lock me up for the rest of my life.

  "Are you alright?" she asked.

  It was the first thing that either of us had said since I came in the room. Even the usual pleasantries of greetings had long since dropped from our usual habits. The doctor knew better, knew that I wouldn't respond. At least, no more than a grunt and a nod.

  "Fine," I mumbled.

  There wasn't much force behind the word, barely any volume. It seemed to reveal the lie of it. To betray my true feelings to this woman. But really, it was just from lack of use. I didn't talk much. Not in the real world. And as Desparia was blocked to me, not in my imaginary world either.

  "You know, you can talk to me," she said. "I might not know what it's like to have experienced what you have, but you can trust me."

  "Ha," I laughed. It was reflexive. Automatic. I felt no real humor. But to think that someone, anyone, could be trusted with what I had been through was quite laughable.

  Especially given where I was.

  I glanced over to the door leading out to the hallway. Blocked from my view, down the hall and around the corner, was the inpatient section of the floor. When Mom first suggested that I see someone at the hospital, mentioned the psych floor, I almost thought she meant to have me committed herself. But with Dr. Reed, it seemed like she wouldn't have to.

  "Ah," she said, seeming to see something in the subtle glance. "Despite what you might think, I don't have that kind of authority. Not without your parents' approval. Not as long as you don't say anything that would indicate that you're a danger to yourself or to others. And from what your mom has told me, I don't think that's the problem we have."

  "What did Mom tell you?" I asked.

  My eyes flicked over to her, trying to read something in her that would tell me just how much trouble I was in. Mom had always been the wild card in all of this. The one most likely to have me committed. Even back when I thought that Desparia was all in my head, I worried about telling her anything, lest she have me committed. And it seemed like Dr. Reed was telling me that was still her plan.

  "Well, your mother and I don't interact that often," she said. Despite her reassuring tone, that didn't reassure me much. "She said that you've been struggling with some things. Some things that might sound a little strange."

  "Yea, I'll say," I muttered.

  "Things that other people might think... almost crazy. Now, I don't particularly like that word, even in this context. I think it's a rather dangerous word. One that limits growth. Limits healing. And I doubt that there would be anything you could say that would sound the least bit crazy to me."

  "Ha," I laughed again, knowing how false that statement was. How naive.

  That thought was funny. The fact that this woman, this shrink, could be naive. That naive. While she didn't look old in any way, certainly not as old as my father does, clearly she was older than my mom. There were slight wrinkles around her eyes that stretched and flexed as she looked over at me. Her hair fell evenly around her face, hiding her ears and the earrings that were there. The solid black color of it seemed darker than natural, suggesting that she died it. It was darker than the emperor's was.

  The look of his dead eyes, staring up at me from the street, flashed through my mind. The accusation that was forever locked there, glaring over at me. Insisting that I was responsible for his death. That I had killed him, when it was the bus heading down Main Street when he rushed out in front of it. And yet, I couldn't help but think that I had some hand in his death. That among everything else I had to deal with, there was also that guilt to consider.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  After all, my friends and I had set out to kill him.

  And that thought, that reminder, had me shutting up even more. The reminder that I really was a danger to other people. That my power, my magic, locked as it was on that world, was dangerous. I had no control over it at times, and even when I did, it seemed to cause nothing but destruction. If I told her that, if I let that slip, I'd be committed for sure.

  "Well, she didn't tell me much," Dr. Reed said. "But its clear that you are struggling with some things. You have several triggers; I've seen them play out during the hours we've been sitting here. I'm not entirely sure what those are yet. What in my otherwise quiet and peaceful office makes you relive the trauma. Or where the triggers, or the trauma, came from. I can help you work through them if you would only open up to me. You don't have to suffer in silence. If you'll let me in... You might be surprised to find that you're not alone in your experiences."

  "Not alone?" I asked.

  That was it. That was the last straw. The last time that I'd suffer through silence with this woman. I just saw red as I glared over at her. The wrath instilled in me flared up, coming to the surface as I leapt to my feet. My hands clenched at my sides, turning to fists, begging to be thrown. This was the dangerous side of my "condition", as Mom put it. The part that scared her the most. That scared me the most. But when I was in it, when I was surrounded by it, I just couldn't stop myself.

  "Not alone? Not alone in my experiences? You have no idea what I've been through."

  "No, but--" she started to say. Her hands reached up, in the space between us. Reached towards me. I batted them aside before they came close enough to do so.

  "I've been to Hell," I screamed at her. "Literal Hell."

  "Now, I know that many people--"

  "No, I mean literal, literal Hell, lady. Hell with a capital H. Hell, as in the afterlife. Where the bad people go. I've been there. It's real. I've experienced it. And that's not even the half of it."

  Dr. Reed looked down at the pad in her lap, flipping through the pages that couldn't possibly have anything in them. Not after the long hours of silence that had been our sessions. And yet, it seemed like she was searching for something. Some hint in there that what I was saying was the truth.

  "I've seen the burning pits of lava. The scales that weigh a person's soul. The training fields where they work and torture the damned. The torture r--"

  My voice cracked as my mind turned towards the torture rooms. The dark void that fed through that otherworldly space between the training fields and them. The willow wisps, tempting me forward towards that void. The demonic dentist. The sound of the drill.

  When the office formed around me once more, I was sitting back on the couch behind me. My head was in my hands as they kneaded away at my forehead, trying to push the images out of me. Trying to bring me back to the reality around me. Trying to protect what was left of my mind as I fought away the memories. And as I realized that I was in that office, for a good, long second, I thought it was the other office. That the dentist was about to come in from the other room.

  It took me a moment to dislodge the flashback. I had to focus on the differences between the two offices. The demonic dentist's office and that of the shrink. The shrinks office was larger, with the desk behind Dr. Reed. It didn't smell of death and blood. The clock on the far wall still ticked, helping me focus. And when I realized that Dr. Reed wasn't the hygienist, that she didn't wear a mask hiding her demonic-ness, I managed to shake the last few traces of the nightmare.

  "So, Hell," Dr. Reed asked, once I settled back into the couch. "That's... a lot."

  "That's not... That's... Okay, that's about half of what I've had to deal with."

  "It's a start, I guess," she said, smiling over at me. "Perhaps you could talk through that?"

  "Talk... through... my time in Hell?"

  It... It didn't make sense. She wasn't running from the room. She wasn't telling me that I'm crazy. She wasn't having me committed. She... She believed me.

  No. She didn't believe me. No one could believe me that wasn't there. That hadn't experienced that nightmare themselves. No, she was placating me. She was allowing the point, rather than arguing with me. It was another trick. Another way that she could get through to me. Another way to have me open up.

  But I had to admit, at least to myself, it was a good one.

  "It's... a lot..." I said, hesitantly. "There's a lot to it. To how I got there."

  "So... you didn't die?" she asked. "That's usually how most people get to Hell."

  She started to write on the pad in front of her, using her crossed legs as a table. I looked down at the flowing pen, trying to see what it was that she was writing. Trying to decipher the letters that she was putting to page. The notes that were certain to condemn me to a room down the hall. When she finished writing them, she looked up at me. Looked towards me to prompt me to continue. To condemn myself further.

  "No, I, uh..."

  I thought about all the events that had led up to that moment. To the time when I fell down the whirlpool and entered the Inferno. It had all seemed almost silly at the time. If it hadn't been so scary, so dangerous, it might have almost been fun. What was worse was what came after. What happened once I left Hell, bringing it with me. I still hadn't put it down, put it behind me. That should have been what I was trying to do there, in therapy. It was what I was trying to do. But for once, for the first time in weeks, months, years, I realized that I couldn't do it alone.

  And I opened up, just a little bit.