1 Chapter 1 - Awakening

In the moment before consciousness, there is a glimmer of light, just before the oppression seeps in like an insidious dark fog; slowly blocking out the glimmer before it can inspire any actual hope. The air grows heavy. breathing is hard. Moving his body in any other way? That will take some time to build up energy.

He hears other teens playing in the yard. They kick a ball around. He imagines broken shins, face planting in the dirt, a ball smacking upside the head on its way to a scored goal. Some get angry at him, some laugh, and some just shake their heads and look away with embarrassment. In his imagination, he needs to go to the hospital, as he has a concussion, but everyone just leaves him there, lying in the street.

His mind withdraws to the previous day.

So strange. He was doing his best to remain unnoticeable, stumbling slightly as he forced his body to go through the day while its energy was depleted. He has discovered that everyone assumes he is stumbling because he is drunk, and he has taken to swishing a swig of alcohol to fit into their belief on those rare occasions that he has enough energy to reach his mouth with a bottle.

Suddenly, there was a woman right square center in his view, even though he always did his best to avert his eyes from everyone. The woman looked straight at him with a subtle challenge that began the rumbling of something he hadn't felt in so long, he didn't have a word for it anymore. Her eyes were fierce, bright, penetrating, unyieldingly compassionate, confident, uplifting - and even though she was right there, and her other features were quite beautiful, his mind refused to focus on anything but her eyes. He averted his gaze again, only to find her eyes again directly in his field of view. A finger he could only assume belonged to her pointed directly at his forehead, and as he felt a soft touch, he heard the words: "Open your eyes" echo like a wind in his mind. He blinked, and she was gone. Oh no! On top of everything, he is beginning to hallucinate! Not only is the whole world against him, but now, so is his own mind!

This morning, as he remembers this and processes through the implications of having such hallucinations as a late teen, the weight of everything steals his breath, the shadowy call of sleep drags down his will, and the question burns brighter:

Does he even dare to open his eyes?

His parents need him to keep trying. They have distanced themselves lately, but who could blame them? Trying and trying to help him get out of this miry pit, but they can't help, and if they hold on too tightly for too long, they just get pulled in too. They have distanced themselves out of necessity, and still they do keep trying. They don't deserve this. The echo of the whisper of the woman's voice repeats in his mind.

He opens his eyes.

"System install in progress…" blares triumphantly in his head. His body jolts reflexively from the shock, followed by exhaustion with a vengeance. Great… more hallucinations, now he's hearing things. He strains to lift the mountain of his scrawny body into a sitting position.

"congratulations... COURAGEOUS System installed."

"WHAT!?!?" he yells out loud, and then his body starts doing something it hasn't done for many years: he starts laughing.

"Art, is that you? Are you ok?" his mother's voice comes with the banging of feet hurrying up the stairs.