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.