I've been lacking initiative to write for a while, but I've had a story idea for quite a while and have finally decided to start it, and wanted opinions on the following beginning excerpt of it. This is only part of it the beginning, obviously, may or may not post more depending on how I progress and if my initiative continues. Feedback and constructive criticism is appreciated.
Prologue
A lady sat in front of me with a very soft face, as if she understood my circumstances without even talking to me. “Do you know why you’re here?” she asked calmly followed by her staring and smiling at me. “‘Cause my mom made me?” I asked back. She slowly nodded her head and wrote something down on a piece of paper with other things already written on it. After some awkward seconds of silence, she responded, “Kind of hun. She let me know that you have some past issues and that you’ve been having some vivid dreams.” I rolled my eyes. “Wasn’t a dream, I’m very certain. And I don’t necessarily have ‘issues’, just some depression. No big deal. I got help,” I said. She then shook her head slowly and jotted some more things down on her paper. I bounced my knee anxiously and she watched it for a few seconds, causing me to stop abruptly. “Hun, you do understand that a dream, or whatever you’d like to call it doesn’t solve mental illness”, she commented. “I’d call it real, and you make me sound like I’m schizophrenic”, I returned, and added, “Anyway, what’s your name?” She blinked quickly a few times and answered, “Deborah Vix, been a psychiatrist with youngsters for many, many years. You can call me Dr. Vix though. Mental illness doesn’t always refer to things like that hun, anything that affects your mind and health in a not so good way and is diagnosed can be referred to as that. Now, please explain to me how this ‘reality’ of yours occurred 2 days ago. Don’t leave out any details, tell me just as it was. I am not allowed to tell anyone of what you tell me unless it puts you or anyone else in harm’s way, after all, it’s just me and you. Do remember that your mother is paying for every minute you’re here, so I suggest you utilize the time.” After taking a deep breath, I gathered my thoughts and began.
1
I sat in my bed, tired. I looked to my right at my clock and saw it was a few minutes after midnight. I don’t understand why I feel the way I do on some of these nights, a particular amount of sadness that lingered deep inside me and never went away, mental exhaustion, and a mind that felt like it was cluttered up with hundreds of thoughts that weren’t existent. I had no reason to feel this way, things had happened to me in the past, but the past is the past, it shouldn’t affect me now, should it? Maybe it’s because I’m tired, I decided even though I didn’t believe it. I never really tell anyone when I feel this way, so many people are skeptical of it. It’s thought to be just a mindset, just something I convince myself of. That I want attention. But it’s more than just being sad and tired, it plagues my mind on a daily basis, and they’ll never realize that I would never wish this upon myself, even if I was that desperate for attention.
I shifted in my bed and felt something hard underneath my leg. I pushed my arm under the covers, messing them up along the way, and retrieved what ended up being a book. One I’ve been reading for weeks, but couldn’t focus enough to read. I’ve had to read each sentence 3 times over, and since reading makes me tired, I only finish one page a night. I wanted to go to sleep though, so I guess one more page wouldn’t hurt. I’ll leave a dent in the book tonight, I thought sarcastically. I took off my glasses, took my wavy brown hair out of its bun and let it fall uncomfortably on my neck, it standing up a bit from being on top of my head so long, and went on my side to read my book.
I was seconds from falling asleep when heard a snap and a large bang. It sounded muffled, but I was too tired to realize where it came from. I shot my head up, struggled to put my glasses on, and looked around, shocked. “Who’s there?” I said quieter than I intended, my voice deep in tiredness. I was answered by what sounded like falling clothes, and then a grunt of defeat. I wasn’t in the mood to die tonight, so I quickly decided to hide in my closet. Because no one can find me there right? As I neared the closet, the door shook, and another grunt came from inside. I now wished I had paid more attention to where the sounds were coming from, because seconds later, a lady fell out of my closet. She lay on my floor, sprawled out with her legs against my wall. I took a brief look at her, and she definitely didn’t look like she was ready to harm me, that’s for sure. She was an old lady, her grey hair tied back in a large bun. She wore red lipstick and had pale skin. Her dress was floral and had a belt, and she wore boots, one of which with a hole on its front toe. She pushed herself onto her knees and to my surprise, got up with a jump. She leaned backward in an arch, cracked her back and looked at me, scanning me over as I stood before her. “Don’t you know how to help an elder?” she retorted while brushing her legs off, but when she looked back at my face, she gave a big, white toothed smile. I looked on with my mouth gaped open and eyes wide, shocked by the fact that an old lady just walked out of my closet and was perfectly okay with her intrusion. She put her finger under my chin, pushed my bottom lip up to press against my top lip gently and commented, “Whatcha tryin’ to do, house those moths from your closet in your mouth?” and added, “That closet is a mess, surprised I didn’t find Narnia in there. I could barely move, goodness, of all the place in this room I’m sent to the closet! I would of woke you up in a more polite way, but too late for that.” I still stared on in silence, my feet glued to the ground. She gave me a glare and said, “Aren’t you going to speak? Welcome me to your house maybe?” I was surprised by her feeling of entitlement but stuttered back, “I.. I don’t know your.. your name.. Why’re you in my room, in my house? I’ll call the police.” I didn’t move though. I wanted to hear her response. She just laughed. “I’m D.O.T, stands for Director Of Thoughts, you can call me Dot. And the police? They’d be running to your house to just see you standing here, talking to yourself.” This confused me, and the look on my face must of given it away because she spoke once again as if answering my unspoken question, saying, “I’m not a dream. I’m an illusion. Big difference; a dream is not real, that is, unless you make it so. A dream is created in your sleep by your mind, based on things that have influenced you, or bothered you. An illusion, meanwhile, is created by your mind, a trick on your mind that is. I’m only existent to your mind, and I’ll be your illusion. I’m going to deceive it out of its current state.” I blinked hard at that, and rubbed my eyes until an eyelash went into my eye. “S-so I’m hallucinating?” She smiled and said mischievously, “In a way. You’re awake. You aren’t going insane. I’m really here, just to you. To your brain, who is interpreting me to be here. Don’t worry, it’s not you, it’s me.” And she walked over to my bed. “What about my parents? What are you going to do to me?” I asked frantically. I was struggling to wrap what she said around my head. She started walked towards the wall my bed was against and kept walking, up that wall and onto the ceiling while responding and chuckling, “They don’t hear me, they don’t see me. Only you do, remember? Only got until the morning though, gives us only, what, 7 hours? Can’t stop time, I’m not that good. Your mother gets up at 7 for her job, doesn’t she? Thank goodness you’re not with your father, he works early into the morning. And, I’m helping you.” She was now standing directly above me. She then dropped onto her hands and slowly bent back onto her feet. “Why now, of all times, you may be thinking? Because I see you’re troubled, and it’ll only get worse, very worse soon. Your mind is fighting itself, and soon you will give into it. It’s up to to you though. If you refuse to go with me and accept my help, as many have, I can not help you. You have to let me into your mind. I can’t push myself in, or I’ll worsen your case. I know you can’t afford to get professional help as of now, which is why I’m here.”
I don’t know what went through my head, what convinced me, what you’d do in this kind of situation, I don’t know if you’d run away or freak out or just yell at her to get away. You probably wouldn’t accept the fact that a random old lady is talking to you about entering your mind and essentially discussing that if you don’t go with her to expel your demons, you’ll never be okay again, possibly even die. You’d think you were insane, and run to your mother and explain to her that this random person was talking to you in your head, and you’d let your mom drag you to a psych hospital. But for some odd reason, I felt calm while she explained my situation to me. I needed help. I wasn’t going to live like this any longer. The depression was grueling, exhausting, and plaguing. It was nagging and never went away. It made me anxious and clogged my thoughts up, caused me to not want to be around anyone and not want to do anything. It made me tired and made me sad. I wanted it to end. If I couldn’t do it any other way, I felt an unusual amount of faith in this mystical lady, or illusion as she referred to herself. Whatever came over me, I nodded to her and said, shaking, “I trust you.”
*I'd like to add that any constructive criticism is taken into account and I do edit accordingly, but I am mainly editing on Google Docs, which is where I'm writing its main copy. Editing suggestions, unless small and grammatical, will only be on the main copy.*
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Originally Posted by selth
