Chapter Four

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As you could probably guess, my mom was naturally pissed off when I tried to convince her that I had totally no memory of me ripping off the overhead fan.

"I felt nothing and saw nothing." I protested. "The only thing I remembered was that some lunatic was yelling some mumbo jumbo nonsense in my head!"

"You just turned your room into a garbage dump. How can you possibly feel nothing?" She insisted. Her hands were busy bandaging my wounded knuckles.

"Well, except for my head." I admitted. "It hurt like hell all along."

My mom wasn't that pissed off at first, though. The moment she rushed into my room after forcing the door open (the doorknob was smashed off entirely), she stopped right in her tracks. Her mind was apparently trying to process what befell her eyes. Upon seeing my crumpled self weeping in a pillow, she had hurried over and took me in her arms. "It's alright. It's over now." She murmured comfortingly in my ear. I snuggled into her arms and wept like I had always did after a nightmare when I was younger.

Mom was speaking again. "What gave you the urge then? Anything that you were watching, any threatening sounds, images..." she prompted.

I tried to recall. Oh right, the Master Sudoku! I made a mental note to check on it when I got back to my room. Then I remembered that my room was wrecked and my computer was toast.

To mom I said, "I don't think so. One minute I was surfing the net; the next my head started hurting and before I could figure something out, I was already lying on the floor with my dead Pikachu."

Mom stared at me skeptically, as if she was trying to see past the obvious truth I was telling her. "Trust me, mom." I added. "It wasn't me. It was someone else. Someone that was inside my head. Or at least, something."

I could tell that my mom wasn't buying my confession, but she sighed anyway. "Whatever." She had finished bandaging my hand, and gave it a soft pat. "Here you go."

"Thanks." The pain didn't hurt that much anymore, just a dull ache that throbbed on and off under the bandage.

As she trudged off towards the kitchen, mom called over her shoulder. "I'm making some cupcakes. Grab one in the kitchen if you're hungry."

"Sure."

"Oh, and before I forget," Mom spun around and gave me a grim look. "Your probation period had been extended by a week."

I groaned. "You've got to be kidding me. Two weeks of total boredom? C'mon, it's just an accident."

She wasn't finished yet. "And besides, you'll be dishing out cash of your own to clean up the mess you've made in your room. Non-negotiable."

Great. Just what I needed to make my sem break even more miserable than it already was. How much more devastating could it be?

I was struggling to get the two brand new parts of the ceiling canopy fixed together when the doorbell rang. Muttering a curse under my breath, I shuffled down the ladder. I had to answer the door for my mom was out working. The fan would have to wait.

For the rest of the room-wrecking day and most of the next morning, I had busied myself dashing to and fro from the nearby utility shop, buying the necessary part to fix my room. A pre-measured piece of glass for the broken window, some plywood for the computer desk and several other miscellaneous stuff. If you're wondering about Pikachu, too bad, but I decided to dump it. It's too old for me anyway. A few more years and it'll be infested by mites.

Then, I forced myself into carpenter mode as I fixed all the broken furniture manually. Miraculously, I succeeded in mending the comp desk, the bookrack and the broken window without any major problems. Well, if you could exclude the additional cuts on my hand I obtained when I handled the plywood and the sharp glass.

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