Chapter 3

"Time to act I guess", this time I was talking to myself. Every time I would make a step, the mirrors would reflect my movements, synchronized they would show what I lately called my body doubtedly.

Soon I noticed one that was a bit tilted, wavy and felt like it had leaked down a bit. It was far in the corner of the room. I walked toward it. Just a room with a lot of mirrors. I got there and looked at it. "A failed mirror? Among all the others?", I thought. "Stand in front of it", Clarence said. Yeah, I did. My "distorted" reflection... "Now, look into it". "What?". He was silent. I looked at it, more concentrated, not at my reflection, but the glass, the tilts, the mirror itself.

Was it my imagination, or the affect of the place, but I saw some kid running. I backed off rapidly, though there was nothing to get scared of. I took a look again. The same kid, now running to some others. Now it was more of watching a movie. The set appeared, and I could see the weaher, rather windy and about to rain. The kids had their coats on, and their back-packs on their backs. Though it wasn't something that had been happening recently. Reminded me of England, during world war two.

The kids, litte school kids were running towards a huge building, which i realized was the one I was in right now. They walked down to what looked like a horizontal water-mill in the basement. Each time one of the 3 wings would move, a hole in the ground would open where one after another the kids would jump in. The water down there in the hole was not just transparent, but even blue, so clean and tempting. The kids then would be telling their mates they swam through a tunnel, and get out on the other side of the wall, and just walk back. That easy. Soon more kids attended the place, and it took them hours to swim and play together. The mirrror then fast moved to show a boy, who was telling everyone he'd seen something in the water. And he couldn't help it, his skin had gotten all pale, and I could see his blue blood-vessels just looking at him. He was extremely calm, and just telling whoever was close about what he might have seen. Some time later more kids would state seeing something as well. In school, during the classes, during the brake and even walking home after it they would talk about something that was swimming in the water, something light blue, very flexible and silent.
All those who hadn't swem were terrorized and frightened, the parents of both the swimmers and the frightened had no idea how they could help them. Soon the news spreaded about the factory's water being highly toxicated, and they closed it, anyone who's try to get close to it would be arrested, and the ones who had already done so were wanted. The police started chasing them, little kids, they wouldn't even resist, and no one knew where they would take them, they just felt soulless, completely emotionless. Any report about seeing someone with the sindroms was paid for.

Soon the town was in chaos.
I was pretty much realizing that what I was doing now was insane, but I had learnt during my long life-years to cope with, and get used to any kind of absurd. I watched further.
There was a party at someone's place, but the military forces crushed in, and caught one of the members of the event. Some of the guests wanted to stop them, and get the person back, but the the police was never unarmed. They took him, half carrying, half dragging him. He, I suppose, had no idea where they were taking him, all he said was he wasn't one of "them".
When he started resisting they hit him in the head. When he woke up, he was in some building, with 2 other guys, no, one was a girl. The guards were running back and forth, there was something going on. Some of them came back to the arrested and led them through a tunnel, at about the middle there were two other exits. They would either keep going streight, or take either the right, or the left doors. There was only one light-bulb hanging down from the ceiling, but it made the corridor look pretty warm and actually reminding of home.
The guards of the place were in a hurry. They opened the right door, got the arrested three inside, and locked it. Told them not to attemp to run away, and they would be back for them. The room didn't look like a jail though. It was just a regular room, with little furniture only, one light-bulb again. The three started talking. Starting from the far end, then each found out that the other two hadn't swam in the water either. Relief.

The building was silent now, no people on the other side of the door, no movement at all.
After a couple of hours one of the guards came, opened the door, and gave them a key. They asked him what it was for, but the man didn't answer, and only warned them not to go out of the corridor.

He ran away. The three got out of the room, so the only room that might need a key to be opened was the left door. Surprisingly the door led to a yard, that had walls really tall, and another entrance/exit opposite to the where they got out from. [makes sense?]
They went to that door as well, opened it, it was tiny, but contained a lot: food for at least 3 months, clothes of the same type, uniformes I guess, and a lot of armory, too much to shoot each and everyone in the town.

Things got blurry in the mirror, and I could hardly see the sillouettes of the guys. What I saw next was them going out of the building, and seeing people just frozen in their places, on the streets, just standing there and blinking. They then started wondering around, just walking, looking for anything alive. They each went to their houses, got all the neseccary private things they had, saw their parents and siblings dead-frozen in their houses, and never went back again.
Life than would drive them crazy, especially at nights, when they could hear something move and crawl on the other side of the great wall.

Day by day they would turn insane, and talk less and less. Only once they went out of the territory of the building, which now was clearly the factory. And a woman that had been standing there, only half a mile away from it for over a year looked streight in front of her, only blinking, and said when they were passing by, that one of them would soon enough lose the ability to hear and see, but another one would help him out for at least 15 years. Those were the only things she said. Regardless of their visits to her every day for a couple of times she wouldn't say a word anymore.
The mirror blocked the view.

Chapter 2

"Hmm, this doesn't look like a safe place really..." the two voices were talking...
"Yeah but I assume there's nothing to be afraid of either," sad the other voice.
"Aha but well..." the voice was about to say something when the second voice, my voice, the real voice,  interrupted hysterically, "Shuttup!" There was a sudden silence that lasted a few seconds and the voice went on, "That noise... I think it's your stomach." It was Clarence with his very sarcastic voice as always...

"Will you shuttup!" I yelled out loudly  not being in the mood for such jokes. "Not being in a mood" was actually me being in a room i had now clue about nor about that monstrous noise coming out of the door. Had hardly realized the noise had stopped, when it launched again twice louder, faster, sharper... and it seemed like moving. towards me? I'd thought it was some sort of a machine. but it was getting closer, not it maybe, but the sound, it was close, almost on the other side of the door that I stood in front of. I'd learnt not to ever take risks from everything I'd been through in the previous years of my insane life. I had a couple of unbreakable rules that mostly helped me avoid trouble, and even death. I was not going to open that door no matter how my curiosity seduced me. The door started shaking from the noise. That thing was surely nothing I would ever want to have a look at. I jumped back towards the window automatically just to realize the window was barricaded, quickly grabbed the chair I felt off awhile ago (I couldn't really tell how much time passed since I woke up here) and with some sarcastic comments of Clarence saying, "Hey, that's one hell of a hungry stomach you have!" I jumped out of the window to the emergency stairway.

Another of those uncontrollable movements? I was starting to think that my body was less obedient to me, and Clarence was starting to take over both my physical self and mentality. The stairway was rusty, though I wasn’t quite paying attention to anything while running up when I suddenly stopped in front of a broken stairs, just one more step and nobody would ever find me. No human at least. The next thing I knew was me being followed by something I couldn't even try to imagine. From the sounds the "thing" [be it an insane human, a furious animal or a death machine] made, and the might it tried to push the door open I could pretty much tell it was huge, and hated me. I froze for a moment, trying to figure out if it was still coming after me. One thing I hadn't taken into consideration was the thing had been stuck in that place for maybe a long while already. Why hadn't it tried to break free before? So, it was hungry? for human flesh? or only me? so it was chasing me let's say, and what for?? think, think! Or may be it was living there and was angry to see someone in his area. Thank you biology. May be it was him who took me here. The ideas were hording my head when I realized it was no time for thinking - it was time for acting. The corridor was long and abandoned, no signs of life, no light either. 

Now the thing was silent. And there was nowhere to run, just a long corridor, and I didn't know what would be waiting for me on the other end. If I stayed here, that beast would chase me easily, I wouldn't even make it till the first half of the corridor. I knew I'd be safer away from the window in case that thing would have already broken the window and would be climbing up the stairway however going into the deeps was another unpleasant idea I could come up with. I had nothing else to do so I stepped forward. I had no desire too look around me not to spot anything more frightening than the ideas i was coming up once I would think of those horrific seconds i jumped out of the window. I had walked a few feet only when I suddenly stopped in a big shock: a sound reminding a heavily distorted guitar was coming from the deeps. The rejecting arguments flew into my head... It was impossible, nobody would play there, it couldn't be a stereo system either, was it in my head? I found it was gone when the ideas stopped coming in. Whatever it was there surely was something wrong. Now that it was quiet, I started relaxing as well, and finally looking around. The place was rather old, full of junk. The rooms were huge, the ceilings high. Once they had all been white, and there had been windows, and glass on them, isolating this place from the outer world. I couldn't figure out how this building had been used before something happened, and people just left it, for ever. It reminded me of some place I used to pass by all the time when I was younger. Only that I was on the other side of the wall, and had always wanted to get in. I never found the door, and the windows were placed too high and were too tiny to try to get in. Well, the beauty was what was inside, the statues I would see: a head of a horse, a body of a person, and much more, i assumed, was hidden in the back. Back to the present. Now I was more than calm, I started walking around, wandering and wondering. Clarence was gone, no signs of the animal, and I was feeling like my self again, looking for adventures, solving mysteries, saving the day. And no one would ever know about it, I wasn't a leader, I never followed either. I was a loner, and a loner I would stay. The sense of loneliness and rejection had stopped stinging me a long time ago, and I was still going on.

The door looked locked and surprised me when i turned the handle and it squeaked open. The room was all dark but shiny. It was empty and yet something was shining on the floor and on the walls. It looked like melted metal only that it wasn't looking like metal. It was extremely reflective like a mirror. After a few steps led by amazement and confusion I was looking at my own self. "Is this me?" I looked terrible, all in dust and dirt., torn clothes and... "Wait! these are not my clothes!" It was something old, rather oily... The white t-shirt had some greenish substance already rotten on the chest area, something like vomit, good that it didn’t smell that way at least, the pants were torn jeans, oily as it could be, on shoulder pads. Looked like back in the past it was a worker's suit... "What is this place?" I asked myself desperately. I was confused... Confused enough to whisper that sentence even though I was trying to make as little of noise as possible. "Check the pockets," Clarence suddenly reacted, "May be there's a winning lottery ticket to an unforgettable trip. haha" he laughed in a very disgusting way. In fact he wouldn't be that of a unpleasant voice if he wouldn't do that sarcastic stuff at the very dangerous and shocking moments. My heart started racing while my hand moved. I couldn't hold my hand straight, it was shaking. My mind trying to convince me not to get into the pockets, the incentive of curiosity overcame it and I was at the very entrance of the loose jeans' right pocket.

"Come on, Harry, check your pocket finally," he started again, almost bursting in laughter but I was too distracted by my own fear and imagination to shut him up again. "Fine, I'm gonna do it, and there's gonna be nothing, and there has to be some kind of an optical illusion in the room!" I was ready to believe any scientific explanation made up on the spot, but never magic, even though I could feel the clothes on me, and, hey!, I had a voice in my head, that spoke to me, out loud already. Exceptionally I decided to satisfy my curiosity, and reached into the pocket to find only a blank almost gray-brownish old piece of paper, and some ancient pencil looking thing, that either needed to be washed and then sharpened, or just thrown away, as I could feel my fingers sticking to the mould, that had grown vastly around it for decades. "There, asshole. Happy now?!" I said exhaling. "I was more looking for a black glass-looking stone from that damn book that would let me own your body!"... He laughed. Ahh, joker, I ignored him, wrapped the pencil with the paper, and put it back into the pocket.

I closed my eyes trying to concentrate, and go back to process everything that had happened in the previous 24 hours. I speechlessly revised what I had been through: first the voice, not that of a major problem; then me appearing in this place, more troublesome; the animal running after me, deadly; and now being in these clothes, hysterical... Didn't want to think what was gonna happen next. Opened my eyes after some time, and looked down at myself again. Uh, the same clothes, and I was still in the same room.

Chapter 1

Woke up under the huge tree in the little forest by the small town, where I had been staying for the third day now. It was early morning, and I needed to start moving... The breeze was fiddling around with the hair, but it was warm enough to postpone the road and have a short walk along the countryside. Unfortunately, when I got to the gas station that was in a half mile from where , there wasn't any food that could fill my stomach left to buy, so I headed back to the forest searching for some organic food. Back than the days of being out and about taught me how to get food not from outlet stores or markets but as our ancestors did. What made the act of collecting food exceptionally interesting, entertaining, as well as effective was the fact that I could take my  mind away from the issues i had and dive into something "entertaining"... and of course being busy would always awake this second voice that was in there all the time, I could really talk to my own self, go thru and analyze the whole situation and whatnot, but what was really depressing and even dreading, was the fact that I didn't know who to believe, and what to believe in. The voice would only appear in a time of need, but it would never give me straight answers. All we knew was they'd leave us alone only when they found the thing they were looking for. And people would go missing, kids kidnapped and the property burnt. We didn't have anything, only places to hide in that soon would be discovered. So the question remained, "whom am I talking to?"... was it my voice or was it something else: it'd talk to me as if it was and yet would say stuff I would never think of, had never heard of... Was I making it up or no I don't know, but a strange thing about it: I wouldn't even try to look for the person, whom the voice belonged to, as I wasn't just "hearing" it, and though I could figure out what it was saying, the voice was a paradox, didn't have a sound, but spoke. "You're not crazy!" the voice accidentally said. "Ahh who's that dammed dude?" I thought quite subconsciously while struggling with the little plant I was trying to tear off the roots. "You can call me Clarence." A minute of dull silence got me. it was quite unexpected, "did I say that aloud?" I thought. "enough to be heard in your head." The voice was calm and yet quite sarcastic. It was the first time the voice was not just advising, but talking to me, having a conversation! And it had a name. Who named it? so it wasn't me, who made "him" up? It had been in others' heads as well? How did it get into my head? Did demons really exist? out of my mind and imagination? Should I even talk back to it? A friend or a rival? "Oh so many questions, eh?" the voice continued, "tell me you didn't mean all that making up thing?"

I didn't reply immediately, I was more than scared, my heart was racing, and I could feel my vein thickened on my neck. Another second, and I would even die from a heart-stroke or nervous breakdown. "So, another enemy?", now I had to fight it as well. "You don't have to fight me. I'll be around as long as you're alive, as soon as you're dead, and you can't escape me!"-it answered. Around me.. what could that possibly mean? "I assume you meant in me?" I tried to keep myself balanced and not show my weakness, my fear, such a vain step, someone being in my head and hearing my thoughts would feel my fear even before I would let it out as an expression on my face. He didn't answer. "Is he gone?"... "You didn't think I went away did you?"... the voice said, and yet it was something different. "Ahh quit it, that voice was more than enough for me, let alone pretending and answering for him myself" A little grin appeared on my lips as I analyzed my own smartassness.

What my life lacked was permanence.... sometimes I even wondered if I really did exist.... no past, no friends, no educational or medical records, no passport, no fingerprints, I would wash my hands with bleacher every day, so that my palms were as smooth and wrinkleless as the surface of pocket-knife I kept. I was a real tramp, but I wouldn't be able to stop until I freed everyone from the thing "they" were looking for. And yet I myself couldn't quite understand what I was thinking about: who "they", what were they looking for... But one thing was clear enough, having no records at all was quite a myth. In the beginning of this "new stage" in my life I was trying to keep track of all the events and the time-line of getting into deeper problems and continuing living, but gradually I stopped paying attention to writing long, detailed novels with a very complicated plot, and burnt it all the day they took my happiness away.  Soon I was too busy saving my life to process my past, and eventually I lost most of my memories about where I had come from and what I was meant to do. Even now i wouldn't stay in one place for too long - couldn't risk it. That brought me to zero friends, but friends... what was it? A word i never got to understand.

But there was no need in friends any more, the last time I thought I had one was in third grade, when the boy sitting next to me spoke up for me, when the teacher was accusing me for killing the class-pet. Now I don't even remember his name, let alone the face. My only allies now were the fear of danger, and the ability to manage my anger, judge everything cold-heartedly. No friends to care about and for, no responsibility for anyone but myself. This was scary itself. I couldn't remember anything from the past but I was sure I had past. "To survive thru, you need to connection to anything personally, just you. You need to step over your loser friends, wanna be mates and just people, it's just you!" the voice said, "now listen here, if you don't want any troubles, start running, where I show you!" he said quickly. "Show me? How can..." didn't finish my question when my right hand accidentally jerked up and showed me the direction, stayed for a second and felt down as if it was numb. "C'mon, you gotta learn trusting me..." the voice faded in my head as i started running hearing my breath getting louder with every step I'd take, eventually draining my heartbeats. Where it [the voice, my body and my fear] was leading me to I didn't know, but I was running, so fast, that I thought if I'd stop my heart would stop as well. I wasn't feeling like myself at all, my feet were running, out of my control, and I wasn't feeling like a human anymore. Was it the adrenalin in my blood? Or was it that.. Clarence?, who now I thought was either a part of my mind [a part of my body for sure] or was he someone else's soul, a real person, with independent mind, but no body maybe. I cared about nothing, I was free, I was fast, and I was wild. "What now? Where should I run? For how long?" The questions where hording me automatically but it wasn't Clarence. He wasn't there, didn't answer. "Shall I go back? My horse, it'd be more comfortable to escape with something that sure knew hot to run." I figured out it wasn't quite far from the direction I heading to. Bad idea whatsoever. When I got there, the horse wasn't there, not a slight track of it... nothing was there as if it was all in my mind, as if I just imagined it. As soon as I set down, I got paralyzed, couldn't move my legs, my arms, my lips wouldn't obey me, felt like my mind was separated from my body.

It felt like I had been passed out for more than 7 hours, when I woke up and realized I had fallen off the chair , and it was still daytime. Suddenly I figured out it was Clarence that was controlling me, and when he? I? we? were running, I was the one to get into his head. Those were his memories..... his horse. I never had a horse. Two souls in one body. But I was the owner of my body, I lived there since my birth.... Didn't I?  "The question here is... do you even have a birthday?" Clarence's sarcastic voice hit my head. It was a room of about 50 square feet. The room was lighted by one weak bulb hanging from the middle of the ceiling on one twisted wire. The room had no furniture, at least nothing that deserved to be referred to as furniture: a one half broken desk, a closet from what I could tell and the chair I had just fallen from. There was this disturbing noise coming out of the long corridor behind the door [which i assumed was one since the door was locked and the window had this fence and a piece of wood barricading it]. The fast question hit me, "where am I?"

I wanted to get closer to the window, to take a look at the surrounding buildings, to figure out what part of the city I'd ran to. I had this nasty feeling that the shit I was into was bigger than I thought. I made a step towards the window, but the sound that had already stopped in the next room burst out so incisively that I rapidly changed my mind, and turned to open the door. It was locked.