[B][U]Chapter 15: March Twenty Ninth
[I]It was as any other morning. I woke up on the top bunk, above the always sleeping Jacob. I hopped out of bed, carefully climbing down a wooden ladder that connected the floor to my bed. I walked out of my room in simply my blue T-shirt and diaper, and proceeded to knock on my parent’s door. The strange thing about this morning though was that the door was locked up tight. I knocked.
“Mom! Dad? Are either of you two up yet?” I questioned loudly. There was no answer. I knocked again, a little louder this time, only to have the door open. But the face that greeted me wasn’t my dad’s, or my mom’s. It was a ghost. I felt my neck tighten, and my body was lifted up by a single hand. I was frightened; more so then ever before in my life. I looked at the dark figure, which stood there; only staring at me through tinted sun glasses.
“This is YOUR fault!” It yelled. The area around me began to fade, as did my ability to breathe.
“Not… Really… Asshole!” I said, gasping for air. “Fuck you… Kingsly!” I screamed as loud as I could. I kicked and screamed and thrashed around in his strong grip. Finally I decided to swing. And so I did; hitting the black giant square in between his sunglasses, breaking them in two. As they shattered, so did the world around me. All I was able to see then was his face. That menacing, evil face; only now, his eyes were white. Not white with pupils, no; white and cold as death in the snow. It was as if the grim reaper himself had shown up at my doorstep. I screamed loudly, and began thrashing more. I all of a sudden felt ice cold, like I was…[/I] placed into a bath of cold water.
I awoke suddenly, still thrashing and screaming.
“TRSITIAN! CALM DOWN RIGHT NOW! COME ON SON!” I heard my dad say. I looked up to him. I could barely see straight, but I could tell it was him. I stopped thrashing in the tub, seeing distorted bits of the wet, glistening tile in our bathroom. I was scared. I started crying hysterically. I couldn’t seem to get any proper words out.
“What’s his temperature again?” My father asked. My mother, who I hadn’t noticed, slipped a pacifier into my mouth. I started suckling on it like no tomorrow, afraid that if I let it drop it would be lost forever. After only a short time, a beep emanated from it, making me cautiously jump a bit while still sitting in the cold tub.
“One hundred and one point two degrees; he’s never broken past one hundred!” My mother cried after removing the electronic pacifier from my mouth.
“Do we take him to the hospital?”
“I don’t know John! I think we should just call the doctor and see what he says!” She said, trying to gain some composure. I was distraught, disgruntled, oblivious and dazed. What the hell was going on? Why was my temperature up so damn high!?
“Mommy!” I screamed loudly, but by that point she was gone. My dad was there, and my vision was coming back slowly. I had a pounding headache, and I had a terrible taste in my mouth.
“Shh, shh! It’s okay Tristian! You’re going to be fine, relax.” My dad cooed, embracing me in a hug. I was surprised. It wasn’t often that he would hug me when I had ANYTHING on me, be it water, food, or anything else, that could possibly dirty or stain or soak his clothing.
“Daddy!” I yelled, hugging him. I couldn’t talk right for some reason. My voice felt weak; as if someone had pulled on my vocal chords.
He proceeded to wash me, running my head under some more cold water before taking me out of the tub and drying me up. I couldn’t stand though. I just didn’t have the strength in me. I looked up to my father, who had caught me so I wouldn’t fall over. He looked back with sympathy and love.
“It’s okay, come on.” He grunted, picking my still damp body up and carrying me to my room. He laid me on the floor and began to change me. It wasn’t often that he changed me, or even really babied me at all. It wasn’t that he DIDN’T baby me; it just was never to the extent my mom normally went. With Jacob, he kind of had to, but with me it was different. My dad grabbed one of my thicker night time diapers and slipped it on me, powdering me and putting on some anti-rash cream. Once I was diapered up nice and snug, he picked me up again, this time taking me to his and my mom’s room. He sat me down on their bed, and brought a small waste bucket up next to me.
“If you have to throw up again, do it in there.” He commanded, kissing me warmly on my forehead.
“Again?” I questioned. I didn’t remember throwing up ONCE! I was a little scared to say the least. My mom then came walking in after treading loudly up the stairs.
“Doctor Reindel thinks that we should just let him rest, and give him some Motrin.” She said.
“Are you sure? Is there anything else that he said?”
“No. Just give him bed rest, some over the counter meds, and he should be okay. It’s just a flu that’s been going around lately.” My mom stated. I was relieved to hear I was going to live, but I was still upset.
“Where’s Jacob?” I asked, now lying down on their bed, trying to get comfortable by grabbing and hugging one of their pillows.
“He’s over at Rebecca’s house. Justin promised to watch him while you were sick. He was over here this morning when we heard you screaming, and he offered to take Jacob until you got better.”
(Meanwhile, across town…)
“Okay baby, want your baba?” Rebecca asked Jacob sweetly. Jacob was dressed up in a ridiculously tight baby blue bonnet and a pair of his footed Pajamas.
“But Rebecca, there isn’t anything in there!” He said, looking at the toy bottle she was holding. Rebecca had gotten the brilliant idea to play baby with Jacob, and of course, she HAD to be the mommy! Who else would?
“Baby; you said your first words!” She cooed. Jacob had started trying to be more ‘big kid like’ by following some of Tristian’s habits. One of these was to put his palm up to his face and sigh.
“I should have just stayed home with Twi Twi.” Said the silver haired boy. His red piercing eyes struck a chord with Rebecca.
“Jacob… Do you think- Do you think that Tristian likes me?” She questioned, looking down and away from the boy.
“Well he’s your friend, right?” He asked.
“That’s not what I mean. Do you know if he- like, like likes me?” She pondered, hoping desperately for an answer. Jacob just didn’t know though.
“I don’t know. You’ll have to ask him!” He said, looking around for something interesting to do. “I’m bored!”
“Yeah, so am I.” Rebecca began. She had a hint of something in her voice. It wasn’t love, or angst… but curiosity. The kind that didn’t kill cats, but made the cat shut up and stop meowing. The kind that made the neighbors barking dog stop, and the squirrels freeze where they stood. “Jacob… I want to know more about you! No one knows much anything about you here!”
“What’s it matter.” He said coldly. He shot her a look that simply told her “Don’t go there.”
“It matters!” She shot back. “You’re like a mystery! No one knows ANYTHING besides that you live with Tristian now!”
“That’s not your business.” He said. His voice began to drop in pitch. His babyish lisp nearly dissipated, and his fists clenched.
“Well, be that way you stupid brat!” She said slyly, coaxing Jacob.
“That’s fine. You can be that way too, you stupid bitch.” He said. His voice was much deeper now. He stood up, looking down at her on the floor. Rebecca was frightened.
“If you want to know, you’re going to have to… do things.” He boldly declared.
“W-what things?”
“I want a kiss, little girl.” He chuckled.
“This isn’t like him…” Rebecca thought. “This isn’t Jacob. There is no way.”
“Fine!” She said, standing up, and giving him a peck on the cheek. He rubbed his cheek.
“Hm. You’re terrible. But I guess that baby wouldn’t have gotten any kisses anyways.” He said sighing.
“Jacob…”
“No! Jacob isn’t home right now. It’s Jake.”
“Jake? Who the hell is that?!”
“Let me… explain. I can assure you that if you say anything about this to anyone you will die a slow, painful death. Is that understood?”
Rebecca nodded, not doubting the threat one bit.
“Good… I was no more than age eight when I started shop lifting. It was fun, for a time. But then I found something on the internet. Something I probably shouldn’t have.” He explained. “Some people think that there is a god punishing you every day for your sins. I think that we are all punishing ourselves; not some nameless cloud being in the fucking sky. And so I punished myself that day. I saw some sites that I had been linked too, and I was hooked. I couldn’t help it. I loved it. It became like an addiction… Soon after, around age ten, my father found out what I had been looking at. I didn’t care, and kept on keeping on.”
Rebecca listened intently, the two having shifted over to the bed.
“I was known for being the punk in my town. I never thought, only acted. I struck down anyone who said shit to me, or gave me a bad look. Finally my dad couldn’t take it anymore, and when I finally turned eleven, he started it. First it was just a CD with some music, but it grew. The CD had Hypnotic secret messages, and the regression process started. By the time I was fifteen, I was locked up in that fat ass old geezer’s private hospital! I waited there for six months… My dad tried to make me into a new kid, a better kid; a perfectly well behaved child. But that’s not what happened.”
“Who are you?” Rebecca questioned.
“I’m Jake. Side number two of the boy you know as ‘Jacob’. My father’s attempts to regress me were… unorthodox. If he’d paid ANY mind to the things I’d read and wrote, he’d understand. But that time has come and gone. Instead of changing me, and molding me into the ‘perfect child’, he simply made me into two. My baby side is Jacob. Between him and me, he tends to be the dominant one surprisingly. Think of me as a defense mechanism. When he gets too stressed or gets into something he can’t handle; I’m there to save our collective asses.”
“What went wrong?” She asked.
“He taught me too much. He still continued my day to day lessons of homeschooling from then on in, and I was able to still hold onto my adult side. The dumb bastard didn’t even realize it when my head split in two. I guess you can thank Jacob for that.” He said.
“I would go on but”- He started. He grabbed his head and squeezed it tightly. “NO! Not yet you stupid baby!” He said. He curled up into a ball of sorts, and after a moment or two, stopped. He looked relaxed now. He sat up and looked over at Rebecca who was tearing some. She was shocked, and scared. She didn’t know what to do.
“Is nap time over now?” Jacob questioned. He seemed oblivious to anything that had happened.
“Y-yeah… nap time is over now.” She said. Rebecca had been watching her father closely, and understood split personality disorder. Her father specialized in the prosecution of people who would try to fake criminal insanity. Split personality disorder sometime resulted in one side not even knowing the other existed, or even blacking out once the other side took over. Jacobs other side WOULD come back out if she broke her promise; she knew that too well. It was very overwhelming for her to take.
“Rebecca? I need a change!” Jacob complained, hugging her. She hugged him back. The feeling was… lukewarm.
(Back at Tristian’s house)
It was a long day. After I threw up several times, I finally started feeling better! My fever had gone down, and Jacob was picked up. My parents decided to keep us out of school for the next week, telling the school that we had chicken pox and wouldn’t be able to make it in. Since I hadn’t had chicken pox, this story was quite believable.
I still had one week of school before the trial, and each passing moment seemed to be like an hour. Every second passed slower, and slower, until time came to a crawl. Until April thirteenth, that is.