“Dreaming about a Rooster means that you have to insist on what you believe, because you will probably get what you want, but do not be arrogant, listen to the opinion of who is by your side.”

— He simply sacrificed himself for you… Is it right? — asked Doctor M.

— I guess that’s what it happened — π12-45 answered.

— He didn’t know anything about you and he put you over his own life… Is it correct?

— I assume… yes, it is.

— How did you feel about it? Has it changed anything for you?

— I never felt so lonely. I slept on the dormitory by myself for a month or so, and the voices on my head were getting worse.

— I mean… Why you never do anything about it?

— Specify “doing something about it”.

— To change something. To no just watch things happening in front of you. You are merely a witness of those shadows, but never the one doing something about them.

— Doctor, doctor… No human was ever able to do something about it. Why I would be the first?

— You have done something before, like when you have done something about the butterflies. Didn’t you do?

— I did, but I was only able to do something about it, ‘cause the butterflies were easier to spot and small in size. If I tried to do something about the huge elephant shadow, it wouldn’t work in the same way.

— But you didn’t try!

— Try to be a small person, weak and hopeless, doctor. I saw no hope and I still see none.

— That needs to change! You have plenty of things to do! It isn’t over, is it?

— No. There are more. We are half way to describe all of them.

— And those animal figures… Have you noticed that you always describe them as something more animal than human?

— I did… I actually did.

— You are almost making a circus out of it!

— Circus? — π12-45 giggled. — I confess this is new. Well, no one has tried to hear me for so long. They mostly only heard about it for some time and then they let me out of any resolution. You think out of the box, doctor. You are really better than the others are.

— I’m proud of my work, yes. However, don’t run away from our talk and focus on it. Why you are always describing them as animals?

— Because they may be similar to animals, not because they are animals.

— And…?

— They are human souls trying to be human again and, in the process, they end up like a twisted human, with more limbs or less limbs than necessary, more or less eyes to keep looking at things, or they simply assumed an animal form, like the butterflies.

— Is that all you thought about it?

— That’s not what I think about it, that’s what I saw. The shadow is just the limit between the dimensional layers. If you could see how they actually try to form their bodies, you wouldn’t even recognize them as shadow things; you really would call them as twisted humans.

— Were you able to see it with your eyes?

— Well, it was something rare, to say the least. Most of the time they tried to possess someone and change their bodies to provide what they wanted or needed. Creating a whole body from thin air is harder than you think doctor. Why would they try something harder, if they could do something simpler?

— Interesting… Therefore, I presume, you saw more body transformations than body creations. Am I right?

— Yes. While I was on the reformatory, I could watch how the other boys who were considered criminals on a young age dealt with their problems…

__________

First, they never tried to make friends. If they ever tried to get closer to someone, it was because of some benefits, no friendship. Second, they mostly assumed they know what they are doing and don’t like to assume they made any mistake. Third, they have no patience. They want whatever they want for yesterday. In other words, they always acted as if they were adults. The ones who weren’t a major problem were sorry about what they did and acted more like kids, finally realizing how big the world really is and how small they actually are.

I would say, some of them would get out of the reformatory pretty easily, but that never happened.

Among the other twenty-five teenager boys who were living there and who were treated as dangerous, there was this boy called Sam. Sam was always getting violent about the silliest things, like “he blinked to me” or “he was breathing wrong”. If he stared at you, it would be certain that he would beat you down until your whole face had bruises or was wet with blood. Doctor Esther always had an injection ready in any case he needed to be forced to sleep.

I was the only one seeing it… There were some shadows, certainly more than one, looking like some kind of crest over his head, always talking to him, making him think he was the one in charge, and he never noticed those voices weren’t his own voice. They said things like “Look at Billy! Why his so annoyingly happy today?” or “Look at David… He is a trouble…”

No longer after I heard the shadows saying a name, Sam would try to find the best moment to beat someone down without anyone being able to prevent it. Billy was just a small boy compared with the others, dark-skinned like David, he said to me his family needed money and someone said he could do something to get easy money. Eventually, the so-called ‘easy way’ ended up with someone killing a police person and he was the only one caught. With no one to be blamed, Billy was the one who they said was holding the pistol. He did hold it when that happened, but he wasn’t the one who pulled the trigger.

Billy was a person who was easy to talk to, so we could try to ask something about each other and see if we could say it out. I didn’t try to say anything about me to him as I did before the death of David’s dad. I helped him to do things in the reformatory and he liked how he could trust in me. He said once to me:

— I can’t trust the others… They look exactly like the ones who left me… If you weren’t a good buddy, I wouldn’t trust anyone else!

— I understand. Trusting in humans is something hard: Or you decipher them or you die trying.

— How you got here? — He finally asked. — I don’t mean to bother you champ, I was just curious. You don’t look like the others.

— I guess that’s because I wasn’t sent here for the same reason…

— Do you want to tell me or not champ?

— I want… It’s just… Officially, what they say is I killed my cousin and another boy at the orphanage I was sent to after my dad died, but I don’t remember a thing about doing it and they even found drugs on my blood test. I wasn’t using drugs; someone made me use it.

— Who?

— That’s the question! There was no one who could have entered our bedroom that night and the only new thing that happened that night was… There was a rabbit there. Unfortunately, or I prove a rabbit could have drugged me or I was the culprit. No exception.

— Do you think it was the rabbit? — Billy thought it was funny.

— I know it wasn’t just a regular rabbit… It was something… like someone said to me, demonic. I saw how the boy who wanted to keep the rabbit was… he… he was bitten to death and they didn’t care to prove it was my teeth that made it… I’m sure it wasn’t… but then, my mouth was dirty with blood, so I’m forced to say it was my mouth that was used to kill them. If anything, I never wanted that to happen…

— I see… someone got you really good! — He was still happy with the idea about the rabbit drugging me. — What would you do if you could get the person who drugged you?

— I have no hope to find who did it and, if I ever found out who did, I probably will have no way to prove it. Simply like that, they want me to be here and feed the ‘demons’ with my presence.

— Those guys are nuts! You should be with your family now! — He thought again for a moment. — Do you have anyone who could help you?

— No. I’m completely alone now.

— But you must have someone… like a grandpa or a grandma. You never met them, right? Maybe they could help you somehow.

— I already passed some years at the orphanage and they never talked about finding anyone… I would like to meet anyone from my family… but just seeing how they treat me here as I really killed my cousin because I wanted… I would be lucky if they even look at my face!

— I guess you are right… — at this point, Sam was looking at us. — I never met my father. He would be lucky to meet me someday! I will get out of here, you will see!

Just by looking at us, I knew Sam was around, as I started to hear the voices of the shadows around him, “I must kill Billy… No one likes Billy… No one will remember Billy…”

I left Billy alone for a moment and passed Sam, to look at him from behind. I got closer and I put my hand where supposedly a butterfly would be like before. I felt some kind of goop when I closed my hand holding it and Sam screamed out loud while the shadows screamed as well. I left Sam holding his ears and ran away before he could see me.

On another day, I told Billy to run away from Sam, as he was the next one he could attack and we planned to tell everyone else Sam was trying to get them, so he would be occupied with the others reaction. Sam really had attacked three or four other boys, and he was sent to a closed room to calm down for a week or two.

When he was out, instead of sending him back to his own bed, they sent him to my dormitory, the one I was sleeping alone and no one else could hear me screaming. I knew I was in trouble with him near me, but I wasn’t hearing the voices saying anything and he just slept in his bed without bothering me. Sam also had forgotten about Billy and I was hoping that he would remain like that for a long time.

I remember when it happened because it was a full moon night and the moonlight was coming in through the windows.

At some point in the night, I started to hear the voices again, the same voices coming from the same direction Sam was. They were saying, “I need to kill David… I must kill David… He is a problem…” The voices were so loud I got up and walked to his bed and I said out loud:

— Can you shut those voices already? I want to sleep!

He looked at me with those sharp eyes of his and slowly got up from his bed.

— There’s no voice here — he simply said.

Moreover, the voices on his head kept saying, “He is crazy… He deserves to die… He’s better dead!”

— I can hear the voice on your head perfectly… They are saying that I am crazy, that I deserve to die and that I am better dead! Shut those voices now! — I demanded.

— You can’t be hearing my mind… — he was puzzled, but not less mad at me.

“He can’t be hearing my mind… He really is a trouble… I will kill him”, the voices said and I just copied them.

— Stop hearing my mind! — He shouted.

— Stop you from listening to them! No one ever does something to really piss you off and you are already mad at everyone! No one can be in peace like that! Why can’t you just go to sleep?!

— I will kill you…

I looked at Sam again; he was different from what I saw of him during the day. His eyes were glowing in the dark, blue as the moonlight, and more eyes opened above his shoulder, showing there was some kind of wings on his back, but they weren’t wings, they looked like malformed hands, and with those hands, eyes, a pair for each voice he was hearing and I counted twelve pairs altogether. I thought it was just three and each finger had a pair of those eyes and a horrible angry face.

I step back; he wasn’t acting normally, not even for someone who was possessed by a shadow. The voices were muttering pretty low at the same time and I couldn’t figure it out what they were saying. I thought for a moment and decided that I wouldn’t move. I had no hope, nowhere to go, no one to protect me, no one to cry for me for when I’m gone. I waited for the worst.

— I’m not afraid… — I said.

— You should be. I’m about to kill you — he said and the voices kept muttering.

— I’m not. I welcome my death, as there is nothing else for me to do in life. I lost everyone for those shadows that keep saying things on your ear. Do they want to kill me? I’m here for them to come after me.

Sam reflection was pretty fast and soon his fist was already on my belly, squishing my stomach and making me vomit.

— Is that all… — I spit on the floor — …you got?

— Don’t make me angry…

— Or what?! You don’t care to spare me! You don’t care if I could be your friend! You only care to hear your own thoughts and to forget about everyone else!

— I hate you! I hate you! I hate you!

— I don’t! — I said, before seeing his fist on my face. With that, I was on the flour feeling it hurt like shell.

— You are just a wise donkey; you know nothing…

— Duck you… — I forced to say. — All I know is that no one knows anything!

— Said the mouse before the cat killing it…

— I’m not a mouse and you aren’t a cat! I didn’t do anything to actually make you mad at me! — Even talking was hurting. — Only those voices on your head are mad at me, not you!

He was walking in my direction:

— There is no voice on my head your dirty liar! I’m not crazy!

— Said the person that was sent to a reformatory!

— I’m not the mad one! They were the mad ones!

— As if you would admit that you have anger issues! — I said being ironic.

— I don’t have anger issues…

— You punched me twice!

— Enough!

He got me by my neck and held it pretty tight. I was doomed on his hands and then he let me go. We both fell on the floor. My neck was hurting but, fortunately, he didn’t break it. I got my breath back after some time forcing the air in. I got up and looked at him, there was no more shadow near him and he was murmuring something so low I needed to get close to hear him:

— My thoughts… Where are my thoughts? I can’t hear them anymore…

— I guess you can finally think for yourself…

I looked at him, he wouldn’t move from there until morning and I just picked his sheet from his bed and covered him. Then I went back to my own bed. I could finally have some peace.