WHO AM I- chapter 3

A little boy is sitting near a river bank, dirt is all over his arms and feet. His little hands take a pile of dirt and rubs it on his feet, he notices movement in the water, so he gets up to get a better view.

His eyes stagger from left to right trying to find what made that noise. He then notices his reflection in the water and smiles, but it doesn't smile back. Stepping even closer to the river bank he stoops down and smiles again at himself, but it has the same nonchalant face as before.

Fear slowly creeping into his heart, he quickly stands up and steps back, looking behind him where his house is. Taking one more look at the river, he waves at his reflection, but it does not respond. He then runs towards his house and slams the door shut.

"Carl what did I tell you about slamming the door!" his mother shouts from the kitchen trying to get his attention. "Ma! You won't believe this" he says while running towards the kitchen, his mother takes one glance at him and gasps with surprise.

"Look at all that mud you got into this house, go wash yourself off" she turns back around and continues stirring the pot of soup. "But ma, I have something really exciting to tell you, I promise it's not made up" he jumps with joy, spilling more mud off of his legs unto the floor.

She stops him from jumping by holding both arms down. "You can tell me anything you want, once you are finished washing up okay" she helps him take his overall off and hands it to him to place in the dirty basket.

With his towel wrapped around his waist, he marches to the bathroom to wash up. He looks into the full length mirror and fixes his hair with a smile. "Why don't you ever smile back?!" he roughly asks his reflection, it just stares at him with a cold look then turns away.

" Whatever!" he says while going into the bathroom and turning on the shower. "Carl what's taking you so long in there, food is ready" she says while turning on the television, looking for something for both of them to watch.

He comes running to the living room full speed. "I'm readyyyy!" with a huge smile he jumps onto the couch next to his mother. "You forgot your soup, it's on the counter" he slides off and goes to get it, carefully walking back making sure he does not spill any.

"Soooo, mom remember that I told you I made a new friend yesterday?" he says while blowing his spoon filled with hot soup. She nods her head while continuing to look for something to watch. "Well he's not very nice you know, whenever I smile at him, he never smiles back" she turns to look at him and takes a napkin from the table to wipe his cheeks from soup remains.

"That's ok Carl not everyone likes smiling, maybe he's going through a tough time, you should ask him what's wrong" she gets up and goes to her bedroom to get blankets.

Carl continues eating his soup, he stretches for the remote on the table, which makes the bowl lean and fall off of his legs. It splatters all over the floor, couch and his legs, he was about to scream from the burning sensation on his legs, but a hand covers his mouth.

"Don't" he's face to face with himself, starring himself in the eyes. Before any movement could be made his mother walks out with two blankets in her hands. "Didn't find anything to watch?" he stares blankly at her not knowing what to say.

She hands him a blanket and sits next to him, covering herself with the other one. "Are you ok?" she glances at him and then at the television, finally finding something to watch. " Have you ever spoken to yourself in the mirror? And it didn't speak back" he asks starring at her intensely.

She begins talking, but he doesn't hear anything because he's in full on shock, that his soup is in his lap and not on the floor. "And that's why you shouldn't speak to yourself Carl", she puts on the movie and makes herself comfortable on the couch.

Carl is speechless as he goes over what happened before his mother came back, he was sure that his soup fell down and that he was starring face to face with himself five minutes ago. Unsure if he should mention that to his mother or not, he puts the soup on the table and lies on her to watch the movie.

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"And that's the first time you noticed something was wrong?" Aaron says while writing in his notepad. Carl takes a brief moment to think about something, he puts his hands on his legs and rub them back and forth. "Uhh I think so, that's the furthest my mind can go when it comes to that"

"I think the answers we are looking for is way further than that" Aaron gets up from his chair and walks to his cabinet filled with books, he pulls one out and rests it on his desk. "Ever heard of lucid dreams' Carl?". Carl sighs and bends his head downwards "I know about them yes, izzie told me it can be that as well", Aaron pulls another book from the shelf and walks with it to Carl.

"Here take this, it may help you figure some things out" he hands the book to him and walks back to his chair to sit. Carl looks at the book title which reads *in my own world*, he flips through the pages and sees pictures of different objects and writings next to them.

"You really think this will help me?" he says starring at the book in his hands. "It won't fix everything, but it will clear a lot of this up" Aaron says while he writes down a few things. Carl gets up and puts the book in his briefcase, he takes up his trench coat and says his goodbyes to Aaron.

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Izzie is standing in the middle of a bridge, that goes over a small pond in the secret garden of her mothers' house. She's deep in her thoughts about what happened yesterday with Carl, feeling defeated she slumps herself on the floor of the bridge and rests her head in her palms.

Short flashbacks of her seeing him talking to someone on the couch, to him pushing her down and storming off to the room. She shakes her head, pulls out her phone and calls Aaron, "Hey, i'm just calling to see how today's session went", Aaron whispers something back, but she could not hear what he said.

"Aaron? Did I call in a bad time?" she stands up and begins walking back to the house. "Oh no, I was just taking some groceries out the car" his two hands are filled with grocery bags and the phone is between his head and shoulder.

"I was asking if today's session with Carl was ok" she says pacing the garden. "Carl? I haven't seen him in months, I was about to ask if he's ok" the phone falls from her hand onto the ground. She rests her hand on her chest as her breathing quickens, her body hits the ground with a loud thud. She slowly tries to reach for the phone, but a footsteps on her arm stopping her from getting up.

She turns to look up and sees Carls' face looking down at her with a smirk on his face. "Not so fast" he says while he bends to pick up the phone and ends the call. "Seems like you need a little help there" smiling ear to ear he steps off of her arm, "That's enough Dave" Tia said as she walks up to him.

Izzie slowly tries to get off the floor but struggles, Tia notices and stoops to her level. "So it's you, who've been keeping him from his family" Anger fills her eyes as her hands forms two fists. Izzie is speechless as she looks up at Carl. "Carl who is this?" her voice shakes as her eyes switches from Tia to him.

"Carl?" he raises one eyebrow and scuffs, "please don't tell me that this pathetic thing, thinks that you're Carl" Tia says while standing back up. "She's not worth it, let's go Lana is waiting on us" Carl holds tias' hand and walks her back to the house.

Izzie quickly grabs her phone and searches for carls' number then calls it, she hears his phone ringing from a distance. She quickly spins her head in the direction of both of them. Carl takes his phone out of his pocket hangs up and continues to walk.

She sees' her mother through the window looking straight at her, motioning for her to come closer. Looking around she makes sure no one else is there, she then walks up towards the window and sees a paper being pressed against the glass that says, "please don't go home."