• The Seen.
    Prologue


    When you say that I am crazy, I need to know what you mean. When you even say crazy, what do you mean? That I jack off sitting in some lonely, god forsaken ally crying, but all the while laughing in hysteria? Or that I was smart enough to see past life into another world? That I have seen past most blonds my age, past more than you can imagine? The works of it all keep me tethered to the choices and finalities of my fate.
    And yet, I can still see no reason why I couldn’t win. In my last crazy day of understanding I sought a way out of the grasps of them. The seen, their Seers. Closing in and I left, leaving an empty trail. Not ever wanting them to grasp my mind and use it to there will. While no one else ever saw their evil, when I did… That was when life got hard.
    Most of what I say makes no sense to most people. The Seen, their Seers, and the Saw, were all lost to me. Empty promises just waiting to take me and make me one of theirs. They in the known world disguise them selves as psychiatrists trying to ‘help’ people. To take away visions, make free minds, their own. When they knew I had seen past their lies the visits got more frequent.
    I had to get out, and so…I did.




    1
    Diagnosed



    They are behind me. I know they are. I can’t hear them, but I know they are there. I have to get away, leave. I can’t stay here, I can’t end up like Nina. My mind is my own. Nothing matters but getting away. If feels like there are a thousand tiny pebbles in my bear feet. The branches and nettle of nearby bushes and trees cut me like hundreds of knives. But none of that matters, all that matters if getting away. I have to get away. Maybe if he hadn’t of come, maybe if I had never seen him, never heard the voices. Maybe if there had been another path with the outcome happy, normal…I just want normal.
    I think it all started when I was four. Michal would come around a lot. We would play with dolls and tea cups. He would hide and I would seek. I would run and he would shout. We would laugh and sit together in a tree, talking and talking, till the stars twinkled and the moon shined.
    So it was really surprising that my mother couldn’t see him. It was so obvious that he was right next to me, or on the couch. But alas she lacked proper vision like mine.
    I could see lots of things.
    I could also hear voices, sometimes they were mumbling un-detectable words and other times screaming things I couldn’t decipher.
    Michal and I were best friends and he followed me to school a lot. My friend Nina couldn’t see him either. But then again, I couldn’t see her Tim. Neither could Michal. But she insisted he was there.
    So we would play together, when all the other kids would say we were crazy or weird we would brush it off and just go ahead with the earlier plans.
    But when neither Tim nor Michal went away, and they both started to appear to both of us, our moms got scared. They were both single, Nina’s dad had died of cancer when she was about one; mine had run off with another woman. They took us to a doctor and we were diagnosed with schizophrenia.
    We stuck together and were closer than ever, we would talk about it a lot. No wonder no one could see them, it wasn’t lack of imagination, it was lack of schizophrenia.
    Now that I could see Tim, and Nina could see Michal, they kept warning us not to take any pills. Ever. We listened because they looked grave, serious… Scary almost. They would accompany us to the Physiatrists office and such. They would follow us on the monthly doctor check ups. They made sure that we weren’t scared when we heard voices or saw shadows. They would hold our hands or play with our hair. They would calm us down when my mother looked at me funny.
    But it wasn’t until we were ten that they told us about them. We never imagined, or saw for that matter, them coming. They were called The Seen. They had spies, or seers. Most of which were doctors, physiatrists or even pharmacists. What they did was take people like me, a schitzo, away, make my mind they’re own. Use my sight into the world beyond that of the normal eye, to their own welfare.
    After that we didn’t like them, The Seen. They acted kind, like a mother. They had misguiding disguises, old and wrinkly like a grandma. But we could see it in their eyes. Hear in there voice… They weren’t normal, and they wanted us desperately.
    But they couldn’t have us…