Assault

The week after Alex came back to school, was probably the most settled time of my life. Now that I knew I wasn’t crazy, I easily slipped back into my old lifestyle. Kids at school still looked at me weird sometimes, but now that I was no longer doing crazy stuff and no longer the center of attention, the general school populous forgot about me. It’s amazing how invisible you can become when you’re no longer popular. My parents and psychiatrist however had better memories. I spent a great deal of time trying to convince them that the voices were gone. I could tell that they didn’t completely believe me, but at least I wasn’t going to be sent to the nut house. The doctors said that they would monitor me for the next few days and observe my improvement. In the mean time, I spent my days poking in other people’s heads and finding out what they were thinking. I found out that my brother was actually cheating on some of his tests, that my dad was insecure and that Mr. Victor was a fan of Marvel Comics. It was fun practicing my ability, and as an added bonus, my headaches disappeared. By the end of the week, they were completely gone. The only thing that concerned me was my mom. When I was having a tough time, she was there for me, but now, she was once again cold and distant. Anytime I tried to read her mind, I only got trivial useless thoughts. It worried me for some reason. But I tried not to let it bother me.
There is no worse way to start the week than with Physics. It just sucked all the drive out of you. Alex took his usual seat next to me and scanned the room. He blushed as his eyes met Erica’s and he gave her a small wave. I could hear his mushy emotional thoughts flowing out like a river. For some reason, I felt slightly jealous. Back when Alex was a nobody, he may have been annoying, but at least he was all mine. Now I’d have to share him with Erica. Not that I liked him the same way that Erica did, but it was just the feeling of losing the familiar. “Wow. You must really like her.” I said to him.
He spun around and looked at me. “How do you figure that?’ he asked.
“Because, when you think of her, your thoughts are all sappy and muddled.” I replied

He gave me a serious look. “Stay out of my mind please.”

I shook my head. “I didn’t need to read your mind to know that you two have chemistry. I just needed to read hers.”

His eyes opened large “Allison, how dare you…”

“And I also know that she’s dying for you to ask her to the dance two weeks from now.” He was going to say something but stopped. “Now there was a useful bit of information.” I heard him think.

“See, now I bet you’re happy that I read her mind.”

“No, I’m not. You’ve seen enough Saturday morning cartoons to know that you shouldn’t use your powers for evil.”

“I’m not using it for evil.” I answered, somewhat sheepishly. “I’m just practicing to use my power. I bet you practiced a lot when you found out you could make snow cones.”

He gave me a smart aleck look. “Yes I did, but this is different.”

“How so?”

“Because making snow cones doesn’t violate someone’s fundamental right to privacy.”
I was just about to come up with a witty response when Mrs. Havelock called the class to order. “Well now,” she said, “I hope that you all have finished doing on your laboratory practicals, because there’ll all due for tomorrow.” The entire class groaned. “Yes, I know, I’m excited too.”
I snapped my fingers. “Aww, those. I forgot about that. Well I could just copy them from Alex.”
Alex slowly raised his hand. “Um, Miss Havelock, I wasn’t here for all of these labs.” I felt a cold lump settle in my stomach. This was not good.

“I’m aware of that Mr. Peterson, but when you came back from your little excursion, I do remember asking Ms. Dagger to take them to you. You did do them, did you not Mr. Peterson?”
“Yes…yes, I did” he stammered.
“Well you shouldn’t have a problem tomorrow.” She turned to address the rest of the class. “The lab would be open after school for a few hours after school for all those who haven’t finished. Failure to submit them would result in a loss of 50% in your term grade, as well as your partner’s. Now then let’s get on with today’s class.” He turned and looked at me. I didn’t need to ask, but I did anyway. “Did you do them?” I mouthed. He shook his head slowly. I felt like I was in a sinking life raft. “She’s gonna kill me.” He thought.
After class, I waited back and pulled him aside. “You had a month of doing nothing. You mean you didn't come to school a couple of afternoons and do them?” I asked him.
He didn’t answer. I probed his mind. “I spent most of my afternoons practicing to use my power.”
“You spent your time playing with your powers? Is that it?”I questioned indignantly. “What about last week?”
“I forgot.” He replied ruefully replied. Then his face looked up.“But here’s how I figure it. You’ve done them right. You can give me your reports and I’ll copy them over. I’ll change it up a little so that it won’t look like I copied.”
I didn’t answer him. My whole plan had just backfired. “You didn’t do it either, did you?”
“No,” I replied. “I thought you’d do it so I could copy them from you.” A sudden stab of pain hit me, causing me to wince. Alex looked at me with concern.
“You still have those headaches?” he asked.
“No. They went away when I learnt to control my power.” Honestly, this was the first time I had gotten a headache since I learnt to control my ability. “More importantly,” I said, trying to change the subject, “what do we do about these reports?”
Alex shouldered his satchel. “Well I guess we have a late afternoon later.” he said as he walked out of the lab.

We spent three long, hard hours experimenting with the supposed wonders of the physical world. We tried to work as quickly as we could, but by the time the janitor came to lock up, we still had a third of the experiments to do. Alex picked up his stuff and walked out of the class. “You see,” he said while we were outside, “we had absolutely nothing to worry about.” He obviously wasn’t keeping count. I shook my head. “We still have eight experiments to do. That’s about a third of our grade. We are so going to fail.” Another sharp stab of pain hit me. I winced and rubbed my temples. I could feel another migraine coming on. I instinctively reached for my aspirin. It wasn’t there. I had left them at home. I thought that I was over the headaches and didn’t need them anymore. I guess I would just have to wait this out. Alex looked at the lab and the looked back at me. “We could always go back.” He said, with a smile spreading slowly across his face.
“When?” I asked. “The reports are all due for tomorrow.”
He looked at me and gave an evil grin. A thought floated out to me. “We could always break in.”
“Oh no.” I answered firmly. “We are not going to break into the lab. That my friend is a crime.”
“Failing physics, that’s a crime as well.” Alex replied. I didn’t see the logic behind that, but I didn’t ask. “You think we’re gonna get away with this?” I asked. “There’re security cameras and alarms. How are you going to get past all that?” Alex walked back to the main breaker and froze it by just placing his hand in front of it. Power went out throughout the entire school. “And you were telling me about using my power for evil.” As I spoke, the power came back on. “Oh well, we tried.” Alex seemed undeterred as he proceeded to towards the door of the lab. “What, are you crazy? We’ll get caught for sure now. They’ve put on the generator.”
“When they put on the generators, they take off the security system.” he responded

“How do you that?”

“Last time I got put in detention, they made me work with the janitor. Now do you, have any other questions?”I held back on a response. This was a dark, calculative side of Alex that I had never seen before. Despite my distaste for the whole teenage rebel crusade, I had to admit, I sort of liked how he acted. He reached out and froze the lock on the door. He easily snapped it off. “You are digging yourself into such a deep hole.” I said, following him into the lab, “Do you know how this would look in your permanent record?” Pain seared through my head causing me to almost fall. I grasped the door frame to keep from falling. Alex spun around. “Are you ok?” he asked in concern. “You know I could do this and e-mail, the results to you.”
I shook my head. “I wouldn’t worry about me if I were in your position.” I followed him into the lab, and began taking out the apparatus. My hands were shaking. My vision was getting blurry and my stomach did feel all that awesome. Maybe I had gotten the flu somewhere. Let’s hurry up and do this.” I moaned “I don’t feel that great.”
“Well it would go a lot faster if you would help me.” Alex retorted, taking out the beakers. He reached over and put his hand on my forehead. “You have a temperature.” He said. “You sure that you don’t want to go home?”
I shook it off. ““I’m already committed. Let’s get this over with.”
Alex opened his folder, “Well then,” he said, “Here we…” his voice trailed off. I couldn’t hear what he was saying anymore. It was like a fuzzy cloud had surrounded my brain. My skin felt warm. I was shaking. The room was spinning. I felt something just on the edge of my consciousness. I turned my attention to it…and suddenly something reached out and assaulted my mind. I still don’t know how to explain it. It was as if someone had stuck their hand into my mind and was leafing through it. Call it mental rape. My very thoughts were being ripped from me. “Stop!!! Stop now!! Please! Stop!” I was crying and screaming. The pain was unbelievable. I was fighting with all I could but I couldn’t stop it. I was helpless before whatever this was. I was on the verge of going crazy when I felt something cold. I don’t know where it was coming from or what it was. All I knew was that it felt good. The assault was stopping. I could feel my mind returning to normal and whatever consciousness had caused this was departing. The last thing I heard was a voice. A woman’s voice. All she said were two words that chilled me to the bone.
“She’s ready.”
The next thing I remembered was Alex kneeling over me with his hand on my forehead. “Well, guess we’re not doing any work tonight.” I heard him say. An abrupt knock on the door of the lab surprised me. “Security, open up!” a voice yelled. “Security?? No it can’t be…” My head was still spinning. I wasn’t quite sure what was going on. I felt someone grab my shoulders and the next thing I knew, I was lying on something soft. I raised my head so that I could see what was going on clearly. I squinted hard. I could just barely make out the pink of the curtain in my room. Wait, my room? Wasn’t I just I the lab? I rolled over to see I was lying on my bed. My mind was sluggish. Just what was going on here? The ringing of my cell phone bought me back to reality. I picked it up slowly and answered it. ““Allison?” I heard Alex ask on the other end.

“Yeah, I’m here.” I replied slowly

I heard him sigh in relief. “Where are you?”

“I’m home,” I answered, bewildered, “In my room.”

“How did you get there?”

“I don’t know. I was lying in the lab and I felt someone grab me. Next thing I know, I’m here. What about you?”

“Same thing.” he answered. He was silent for a moment. The he said. “Get some rest. We’ll figure this out in the morning.”

“Ok,” I replied weakly. “Good night.”

“Good night.” I dropped the phone on my dresser and fell asleep right there in my uniform, the troubles of the day melting away an almost drugged slumber.

Redemption

Two weeks of therapy had done absolutely nothing for me. The voices kept coming and they wouldn’t stop. My parents took to daily session with a psychiatrist, pumped me full of drugs and had me participate in self-help groups. Nothing worked. I’d still hear them anywhere and everywhere I went. Sometimes they were talking to me; sometimes they were talking about the most random things. Sometimes they would sound like the voices of people I knew, some I had never heard before. I would have vivid nightmares about the weirdest things and wake up screaming. I didn’t care about the things I cared about before. My room became a mess and so did my appearance. No longer did I spend hours coming my hair or fixing my clothes. It was most likely one of the darkest times of my life. Everyone avoided me like the plague. A couple of the kids were nice enough to keep talking to me, but no one really wanted a loon for a friend. My mother, however, had strangely become the one person I could depend on. She would stay up with me during the nights and stroke my hair like she did when I was a kid. She’d talk to me and tell me that everything would be ok. For some reason whenever I was with her, I felt calm, as if I knew everything was going to be ok. I also got the feeling that she knew more than she appeared to. I don’t know why I felt like that. It was just a feeling. I would sometimes get crazy ideas that she had somehow caused all of this, but they were baseless thoughts. During that time, she was my only solace.
Two weeks after my first episode, I sat waiting in my home room, waiting for class to start. The doctors had diagnosed me with paranoid schizophrenia and said that if I didn’t show any improvement over the next week, that I would need to be transferred to an institution, a nice name for a nut house. I went to school early these days. For some reason, I didn’t hear any of the voices at this time. I sat wondering if crazy people knew that they were crazy. I know, it was a weird thought, but so were all my thoughts these days. My thoughts wandered and settled on Alex for some reason. I hadn’t seen him since I had gone to the hospital. I kept thinking of his goofy grin, the look he’d get in his eyes when he was day dreaming during class, the lame jokes that he’d make. Only then I realized how much I missed him.

Just then, I heard the door to the class room open. I looked up and saw, ironically Alex. I wondered for a second if I had summoned him here with my mind. “Wow.” I thought. “I must really be crazy.” I looked at him, and went back to my wandering thoughts. Alex gave me a weird look over. It was to be expected. Everyone looked at me like that these days. “Hey,” he said slowly, “you might want to fix that tie.” I looked down at my tie and adjusted it to suit before wandering off again. Alex sat down and waved his hand in front of my face. “Hey Allison, is everything okay?” he asked. I looked at him for a second. Then I remembered that he hadn’t been here for a while. I thought that this may be the one opportunity to talk to someone who was unbiased.

I looked at him and said, “It’s quiet here, isn’t it?”He gave me a shocked look. I didn’t blame him. I would give me a shocked look. I don’t know what I expected to tell him, but it definitely wasn’t that. Those words kinda just jumped out. “Yeah,” he replied, “It’s pretty quiet here.”

“When I’m here, I don’t hear them.” I continued. Again with the crazy talk. I was creeping myself out.

“Hear what?”

“The voices.” I replied, “The voices in my head.”

Alex raised his eyebrow and gave me a look. So it wasn’t aspirin in that bottle after all. I looked up. The voices were back! Maybe talking about them made them come back.

“Do you hear that?” I asked him, “It’s one of them. It’s saying something about painkillers.” Looking back on it now, I’d have to give Alex credit for not getting up and running out of that class room.

“Well, I think Allison has finally lost it.”

“There it goes again. It just said that I lost it.”

All of a sudden, Alex got a weird look on his face. Not like if he thought I was crazy. It was something else that I couldn’t put my finger on it. Allison if you can hear this, look directly at Alex.” I looked up slowly. The voices had never told me to do something before. Maybe now I was officially wacked. I looked up at Alex. What else could I do but listen to it? The people on TV always did what the voices told them. “Now I want you to raise your right hand.” Raise my right hand? I wondered if it was going to make me strangle Alex. “Come on Allison. You can do it.” I raised my hand. “Now, put it down and raise the other one.” I went along. “Allison,” it said, “It’s me, Alex.” Whaa? I looked at him. Alex was one of the voices? What the heck was going on? “Allison, you’re not hearing voices. You’re hearing my thoughts.” Suddenly, all came crashing down on me. These weren’t arbitrary voices. These were peoples’ thoughts. Drake, Erica, Annie, Mr. Victor. It all made sense now. I stared at Alex for a while and then broke down in tears. I cried my heart out. I wasn’t crazy. I definitely wasn’t crazy. Alex sat there while I cried, waiting for me to finish. “You have no idea how good I feel to know that I’m not crazy.” I said to him, drying my eyes.
He chuckled. “I can only imagine.” He said sarcastically
Everyone in school thinks I am.” I said. Then a thought struck me “How did you know that I was hearing thoughts? Why didn’t you think that I was crazy like everyone else did?”

“I didn’t.” he replied. “I just guessed.”

Guessed? “Why would you guess something so incredibly far-fetched?” I questioned, feeling my enthusiasm coming back

“Because, I had quite a few incredibly far-fetched things happen to me over the past two months.” He said. He removed a bottle of water from his satchel. “Look at this.” He poured the water over his hand. It froze before it hit the ground. I could feel my eyes open wide in shock. “I’m actually quite incredibly far-fetched myself.” He replaced the bottle. “We have special abilities Allison.”

“Why?” I asked.

“I really don’t know,” he answered, “but you have no idea how good I feel knowing that I’m not alone.” I gave him a small smile, one of the very few smiles that I’ve smiled in a while.

“I’m going to the café. Do you want to come along?” he asked. I nodded
“You know, you’re being awfully trusting of me.” I could feel my old confidence. Allison was back! “What if I go and tell everyone what I just saw?”

He smiled, “It doesn’t matter. They already think you’re crazy.”

“Two of them.”

I looked at Alex. “Two of what?”

“Huh?”

“You just said, I mean, thought ‘Two of them’. Two of what?”

“I didn’t think anything.” Alex suddenly got this guarded look and glanced around the room.

“What’s wrong?” I asked

“Nothing.” he replied. “Let’s go.” We walked out the classroom. Any normal person would be completely freaked that they could read peoples thoughts, but I would deal with that later. Right now, I was just glad that I wasn’t crazy.

Going Crazy

Standing in the halls between periods is a big mess. For some strange reason, the entire school population loses their civility. They push and shove and generally misbehave. All the noise and ruckus usually give me a horrible headache. Today was no exception. The noise of senseless adolescent clamor seemed to set my brain on fire, causing me to walk through the hall with my fingers to my temples. As you can guess, that’s a rather difficult way for someone to walk around a crowded hall. My books and backpack were knocked down several times before I was able to reach my locker. A sharp pain seared through my head as I put in the combination to my lock, almost causing me to lose my balance. “Mmmm. Looking good today aren’t we?” Came Drake’s voice through the hallway din. That was it! I was fed up with this kid! “Drake, if you’ve got something to say to me, say it to my face!” My immediate surroundings instantly became quiet. The crowd parted, revealing a scared and bewildered looking Drake, standing all the way across the hall. Drake gave me a weird look, stuffed his books into his bag and hurried off to his next class. The awkward silence ended and noise flooded the hallway once again. I stood confused for a second. How exactly did I hear Drake from way across the hall especially in all this noise? Another sharp pain struck me. “Alex…we co…Alex…Al…now t…Alex…Alex…This is…” I heard Erica say. I turned around to see her standing next to me putting her books into her locker, wear a big goofy grin on her face. “Wow.” I said. “You missed him that much huh?” Erica looked at me, with a confused look on her face. “Missed who?”
“Alex, of course. Who else would I be talking about?” I replied, “He’s all you’ve been mumbling about.”
“I have?” she asked. Her cheeks turned scarlet. “I…I’ve got to get to class.” She grabbed the books she needed and hurried off. I sighed. “Yup.” I said to myself. “She’s got it baaad.”
I took my math book out of my locker and walked to class. For some reason, the noise today was different. Everyone was louder, and most of them didn’t seem to be talking in complete sentences. Their voices kept overlapping each other in the most annoying of ways. I felt nauseated and confused. Maybe I had to go get my ears checked too. I stumbled down the hall to the classroom. Today just wasn’t my day.
I took my seat and got ready to start. My eyes fell on Alex’s empty seat. It had been a couple of weeks since Alex was found and the doctors had said that he needed time to recover from such a ‘traumatic experience’. I sighed. High school was a traumatic experience, but none of us ever got time off. Mr. Victor, the math teacher walked into the classroom, disturbing my train of thought. ‘Ah. Pop quiz time.” I heard him say. I placed my head on the desk and groaned loudly. “Do you have a problem Ms. Dagger?” I heard him ask. I looked up to see him and the rest of the class staring at me.
“Um nothing.” I said shamefacedly. “I’m just not that big a fan of pop quizzes.” A surprised mumble rippled through the class. Mr. Victor looked surprised himself.
“Pop quiz, Ms. Dagger? Who said anything about a pop quiz?” he asked.
“Didn’t you just…” I looked at him confused.
He turned back to address the rest of the class. “As I was about to say class, we were supposed to be having a pop quiz today. But since Ms. Dagger let the proverbial cat out of the bag, we will now be having a quiz that’s worth 15% of your term mark. Everyone turned around and gave me harsh looks. “That bitch...”
“I so hate her now…”
“I so wish she’d disappear next…”
The insults were coming fast and furious. I raised my arms in defense. “Ok, ok. I sorry!!” I shouted. Everyone’s eyebrows shot up. Mr. Victor looked at me gravely.
“There is absolutely no reason to shout Ms. Dagger.”

“What?!” I asked him. “They were just insulting me!” Mr. Victor gave me a strange look and began sharing out papers. I was genuinely confused. Mr. Victor had just announced to the class that hey were going to have a pop quiz and then chewed me out for repeating it. Then half the class calls me names that they dare not say in front of their mothers and he lets them get away with it. Maybe I was caught up in one of those conspiracy thingies that Alex keeps talking about. I sighed and took out my stationery.
This quiz was definitely wasn’t one of your usual quizzes. Everyone was so noisy, saying their working and answers out loud. For a test worth 15% of your exam mark, there was a lot of liberal cheating going around. I looked at Mr. Victor. He didn’t seem slightly fazed by any of the chitchat. What exactly was going on there?

“What’s the differential of cosine?” The girl next to me, Annie, asked.
“Negative sine.” I replied.
“What was that Ms. Dagger?” Mr. Victor asked.
“Oh.” I replied. “Annie had just asked me a question and I answered her.”
“Cheating and honest about it. A very contradictory mix Ms. Dagger.” He turned to Annie. “You chose the wrong person to cheat with Ms. Smith”
“No sir!” Annie replied quickly. “I didn’t ask her anything!”
Now, I was over my head in confusion. “Sir, isn’t this an open book exam?” The entire class giggled. Mr. Victor looked at me as if I was crazy. “I mean, the entire class been talking.”
“Ms. Dagger, this class has been extremely quiet for the last 15 minutes. The only noise we’ve had is your little episode.”
“What!?” I shot up out of my seat. “They’ve been talking loudly, all the time!”
Mr. Victor’s face became extremely serious. “Ms. Dagger, please sit down or you’ll have to have a little chat with the principal.” He said gravely
“Don’t…Don’t you hear them?” I looked around the class worriedly, trying to find support to my claims. All I was met with were blank stares.

I must be losing my mind!!!
“She’s crazy…crazy…crazy…She’s nuts…crazy…” The voices poured furiously over me. I covered my ears and cried out “No!! No!!”
“Crazy…crazy…crazy…” They wouldn’t stop. I dropped my hands and screamed out to the top of my voice. “I AM NOT CRAZY! I AM NOT CRAZY!!” I turned around and dashed out of the classroom. I ran the hall sobbing hard. The voices followed me. “Crazy…crazy…crazy…”
“No…no…no…” I kept repeating to myself, “I’m not crazy, I’m not crazy, I’m not crazy.” But the thing that scared me the most is that I didn’t believe what I was saying. I felt, somewhere deep inside that I was crazy.