I; Labyrinth

13; The Hunter and the Dreamer

Dr. Perry Hunter

I was born in a world of confusion. To such an extent was this confusion that I was quickly whisked away through a thousand years of my time. 

In a certain year I had come to the world, blue and light. 

The 2020's were suitable enough for any ten-year old-a period of discovery through revelations and human chemistry. 

Growing up that way had proven too fine for words-being an only child, thus enjoying all the niceties family love brings to such a young person. However, loneliness eventually caught up with my lucky curse-that of believing being alone is an excellent phenomenon to survive. A living paradox, if you don't mind. 

Loneliness-this, lonesome...state of rare contact bordering on the others' surface soon reached my childhood as early as the age of nine. 

'It' (he) started as a simple murmur constantly growing and reshaping itself (himself) within my skull. 'It' used to say the strangest of things, yet-despite my reluctance-I grew to accept it.

At some point, the acknowledgment of its existence became too excessive for any prepubescent, as it soon started saying terrible, repulsive things to me. 

Could I have been labeled a psychopath? I'd ask myself. What is that anyway?

Despite all this, I finally decided to inform my parents about my disturbance. They listened to me, but reluctantly decided to have me seen by our local psychiatrist.
He asked me many questions and gave me some tests. My results were positive for obsessive compulsive disorder.
So that was my illness. A disorder which consists of dark thoughts...evil ones, followed by rituals to keep the thoughts from floating into your mind like thundering, vagabond clouds.

Nevertheless, that particular diagnosis did not explain one thing...the voice. I am sure I mentioned it to him. Yet he only prescribed me with a few tablets to take once every morning before breakfast.

Now that I'm remembering many things from my past, I can recall not informing the doctor about my inner voice. I had decided not to in order not to pester my father, whose sister had been diagnosed with schizophrenia once and was therefore taken to 'hospital', never to be seen again.
How could doctors keep patients locked up forever in times like these, where technology is at a  cutting-edge level and so many medicines have been discovered?

They even found a cure for cancer in the year 2019, so why should mental illness be any different?

Moreover, even now whilst I think, there is a constant murmuring lurking in the catacombs of my mind. It's painful, frustrating...rude!

I sometimes wish to end it all, to kill 'it'; the master of my mind, followed by myself. But I can't simply leave like that.

'You made a deal, stick with it,' groans the voice, 'you've made your bed, sleep in it!' it cries.

And 'it' is completely right. I had made a terrible decision...all those years ago. A thousand, to be precise. A decision that was made due to coercion by external agents, such as Jason, the cat, the impending end of the world-

"Doctor Perry Hunter!" exclaims Jason, tumbling into my office yet again.

'Don't say a word,' warns my inner voice.

"I see you frowning," Jason begins to provoke, tapping his wiry fingers on the wooden desk.

I glared at him in response, only to shy away no sooner than I had started to do so. He made me feel so dreadfully uncomfortable.

"Well?" he asked coldly.

"I-I am working..." I replied nervously.

"Hmm...on what exactly? And for whom, exactly?"

"Well, I finished the blueprints...for you, I mean..."

"Yes, we've established that," Jason responds firmly. His eyes were like dark pits filled only halfway with two scoops of eye...does that even make sense? No. It doesn't make sense. None of this makes sense.

"Just let me make one thing clear..." he said sternly, taking a few steps closer to me, "I hate you with passion and I am fully aware that the feeling is mutual. However, you work for me, as you always will do, right until you take your very last breath! Do not cross me, or I'll take you back, understood?"

I nodded with emptiness. I did hate him, I just couldn't express the true feelings from inside for fear of reversing everything: my success, my health, my voice (not the inner one, but my throat's voice).

How I wished I could seize him by the throat and strip him of his vocal folds! But it was too much of a risk.

"Yes, master," I replied anxiously.

In that moment, as Jason left the room smirking, I realised something odd and profoundly disgusting in the right corner of his mouth: a red mark smudged backwards towards his lower right cheek. 

What was blood doing on his face?