1 Episode � Side B – Distortion (Prologue)

The ringing in my ears made me deaf to everything but the piercing sounds.

My eyes were blurry with tears and I gasped violently at the stabbing pain in my chest. I tried to scream out, but I was sure that not a single coherent word was said. Amid all the painful and disturbing sensations around me, I struggled to reach the burning necklace. As soon as I did, I mustered all my energy to not scream and pull the damned necklace off my neck.

The necklace didn't budge, even as the metallic pendant was crushed under my strength. Parts of the pendant pierced through my skin and the drops of blood evaporated into mists immediately.

My eyes began to lose sight. All I could see was a mist of red and black spots. I coughed and gasped violently. I could feel the blood boiling inside me and dripping out, only to be vaporized into red mist. My nose and tongue could only smell and taste iron, respectively. An unknown amount of time passed while being wrapped in agony and mists of blood.

And then…

I sprang up from my sweat-soaked bed in fear and desperation.

I heard myself scream and was dazed for a while due to the surrealism of this situation. The room was familiar, and the warmth of the sun felt soothing for once. I realized that I was back in my own room, in my old house.

The ringing in my ears hadn't faded when the nostalgic, deep, and clearly worried voice of Uncle Harry penetrated his clouds of confusion.

"Damien, are you alright? You were sleeping just fine earlier so I left you be. Did you have another nightmare?"

Harrison used his warm hands to coax Damien's tensed back to relax. Damien himself had never remembered the contents of his nightmares so he assumed that, yes, he did have another one and nodded. Harrison couldn't help the pity in his eyes but didn't speak up. Damien was very jumpy to all sounds after a nightmare and Harrison understood his best friend's son the best.

It was at least ten minutes before Damien calmed down enough to not outright sob or scream at every little thing.

"I'm sorry for startling you again, Uncle Harry," Damien's voice was soft and barely audible, but Harrison had heard enough to know what the silly boy was thinking about, again.

"It isn't your fault, Damien. You had no control over the nightmares, and neither me nor the others were bothered by you. You can't blame yourself all the time."

Damien peered at Harrison's reassuring smile before looking back down to his lap. Harrison assumed that Damien had tacitly agreed, so he patted the boy's back before standing up. Damien opened his mouth, wanting to say something but ended up keeping silent.

The gestures they were making suggested that Damien should shut up if he didn't want anything to happen to Harrison.

"Although it is a weekend, you woke up late so breakfast was cleaned up long ago. How about having lunch with us? You don't have anything to do at campus anymore, right?"

Damien nodded when Harrison glanced back at the quiet boy. Despite being twenty and ever so close to graduation, Damien was so quiet and docile that he was incomparable to the wild young adults of his peers. He seemed a lot more like an oversized boy to Harrison. He never knew what Damien was really thinking, but he had twenty years of experience in dealing with this easily frightened man-child.

Harrison went out of Damien's room first. Damien cleaned himself and changed his clothes. He looked a bit better than his previous spooked appearance. He left the bathroom and entered the large house where Harrison and the kids lived in. There were teenagers sprawled across the room playing games or doing other activities. The spacious living room seemed a bit cramped with so many people, but everyone was interacting harmoniously. Damien glanced down habitually before sighing in relief. Nothing terrible had happened if the ones he saw meant anything at all.

I looked at the faces in the warmly lit room. Telltale pin pricks signaling tears made me rub my eyes clear. The familiar faces of Sherlia, Alex, Michael, Ophelia, Lelo, Lila, Jimmy…They were all so young, so happy…He blinked his eyes. Damien instinctively tried to massage the building headache away as he narrowed his eyes.

"Damien, would you like pasta or bread with lunch?" Harrison's muffled voice came from the kitchen.

"Either way, it's gonna be vegetarian. Can't I have meat?" A teen boy answered instead of Damien. He whined for meat as he viciously taps on the game's controller.

"Veggies are healthy, Derek!" The youngest girl in the room added as she applied a layer of mascara in front of a mirror.

"Ally. Lila and I can't seem to match this skirt with any of our tops. Have any suggestions?" Sherlia waved a skirt beside the youngest girl with Lila following behind.

"Damien, I'm asking you. Don't let your siblings answer for you," Harrison's voice was full of amusement as he listened to his foster children's antics.

"Pasta," Damien replied as he entered the kitchen. He began rolling up his sleeves, "Let me help you cook, Uncle Harry."

"My best assistant indeed," Harry gave a remark with a chuckle before turning around and focusing on his cooking.

Damien often helped Harrison cook when he still lived in this house. He was the most sensible and responsible child when young. So much so that Harrison almost wished he would be a little more childish. Seeing how Damien is as an adult, he could feel the irony of wanting this child-like twenty-years-old man to act his age now.

Lunch consisted of the mandatory bowl of salad for everyone, a plate of spaghetti Aglio e olio, with the sides of crispy potatoes and stir-fried vegetables. Damien glanced at the food in satisfaction. He had cooked the spaghetti while Harrison finished all the side dishes. He was rather proud of his cooking this time. His calm face showed a hint of a smile.

"Alright, lunch is ready! Everyone, come to the dinner table!" Harrison called out everyone in the house to have lunch together.

Damien glanced around the room and decided to sit in a brighter corner of the large dinner table. He prepared to walk there when he felt a resistance from below. He froze and discreetly looked down. To everyone else, Damien simply looked like his usual detached self and went to sit in a dark corner. Only Damien himself knew. He swallowed the lump in his throat and followed the tugging he felt on his clothes. He then sat down on the seat chosen by them for him.

Harrison sat on the head of the table and asked everyone to pray before eating their food. After that, everyone grabbed their salad bowls obediently. Harrison nodded happily and comfortable silence fell on the table. After each bowl was emptied, everyone began eating their portion of the food to their liking. There were murmurs of chatter between bites among the teens and Harrison himself added a word or two in the quiet conversations.

Damien ate in silence. He felt that today was a bit weirder than usual. Even without them, there seemed to be something that simply felt wrong. He thought back to his earlier nightmare. Although his chronic nightmares were not yet cured, he hadn't suffered such a terrible one lately. At the very least, there weren't ghosts of pain and such extreme panic from the recent nightmares unlike earlier. He glanced down at them and contemplated if he should ask.

Before he came to a decision, a quiet whisper echoed behind him first.

"Much we hate it, we had nothing to do with that," the voice was low and soft as a velvet though neither male nor female. It had a deep-seated malice in its undertone.

Damien shivered from the underlying threat and nodded quickly, disguising the action as delving deeper to his food. He almost didn't want to continue thinking about it. Damien paused his fork's movement.

On second thought, if even they didn't dare to take credit for the weirdness of today, it might be worth considering the origin.

Damien mulled in his thoughts as his fork lowered. Suddenly, his hand twitched and Damien widened his eyes. I blinked and stared at the plate of food in front of me. My hand trembled slightly before decisively forking the spaghetti up and placing it in my mouth. The taste was familiar and drowned out the seemingly endless taste of Iron I had been enduring. I enjoyed the sensation of warm food and chewed carefully before swallowing. Afterwards, I glanced up and froze. On the dinner table were my foster siblings I truly missed and, in the middle, …

It was that bastard.

It was that treacherous, scheming little witch. The one who—

"Damien, are you okay?"

I stood up in fury and trembled in anguish, my mouth ready to curse out a storm. However, before I could utter out anything, the pain came back. It was the scorching heat, the mist of blood, the reality that was awaiting me.

"Argh! No—"

Damien grasped his head and tried to endure the headache but still fell back on his chair. It was a mind numbing pain from inside his head. Mixes of voices surrounded him, from the worried teenagers and Harrison to the chorus of whispers and screeches in their language. Despite Damien's ridiculous pain tolerance, he could hardly stay awake with that head-splitting pain of a headache and the incessantly noisy surroundings. His heart chilled down and he gasped. The tugging of his shirt was suddenly so vivid to his overly sensitive self. He didn't even know if it was them or some of his foster siblings that touched him, but he retaliated instinctually.

Damien wobbled off the chair and pushed anything holding him down away. Harrison was aware of how terrible Damien's situation could end up. He pulled each of his foster children away from Damien and barely saved Alex from being scratched by Damien. He slightly raised his voice for the children to back away and calm down while he himself walked to Damien. Harrison had faced many of Damien's sudden breakdowns and episodes while most of the teens currently in the house had only lived with Damien during their childhood.

Damien snapped his head in the direction of the loud sound, I drown in the pain and reluctance to return to reality. Damien gasped again as he fell back to his chair and clutched himself tightly instead. His nails dug deep into his own skin. It made him whimper, yet I couldn't differentiate the blood mist from reality and the thick drops pooling around my fingernails. Damien felt like he was about to break, and his whimpers slowly turned into sobs. He couldn't even hear Harrison speaking to him from some distance away.

Damien felt his head was exploding, his mind fracturing, and his reality distorting.

I didn't want to leave this wonderful dream but, the subtle whispers from them woke me up. It wasn't a dream. My mind flashed with panic before the pains of reality returned. Despite my yearnings, I cut off the connection deliberately. Damien felt slightly better, his sense of reality mending together and helping him go through the leftover pain.

"Damien Raphtale, can you hear me?" It was Uncle Harry's voice, "Hey, Damien, are you here?"

I memorized Uncle Harry's voice silently. Damien tried to nod.

Harrison recognized the cues and finally went a step closer, "Hey there, Damien. How are you?"

Damien shook his head lightly and loosened his grip on his own arms.

"It's alright," Harrison went closer and finally wrapped his arms around Damien, "You'll be alright, and we're all alright. Don't worry."

Damien cringed slightly from the sting of pulling his fingers away from the wound but still leaned onto Harrison's thoughtful warm embrace that avoided his wounds. Harrison let out soothing words and softly patted Damien's sweat-soaked back. The rest of the teenagers tried to help by either tidying up the dinner table, rescuing the food or adding soothing words.

Damien quickly forgot his pain and shook his head to tell his loving foster family.

"Thank you."