Lost - part 4

"I tried going home after my conversation with the boy by the tree, but it wasn't the same. I talked with my daughter and her husband about what had happened to me and all that I learned, but they did not believe me. Who would? I wouldn't have believed it either if I had not sat outside in the free air and talked with one of them.

"They tried to get me back into the hospital, but I could not go back there again. So, I left. I went into hiding and lived off whoever would help me. And that's what I've been doing for the past few months now."

The man slumped slightly after finishing his story, visibly affected by the relating of the tale as well as what he had been through. I looked at him with a new understanding and compassion, almost wanting to reach over and lift him up and take him in my arms.

"So, where is your Antonio now?" I asked.

Suddenly, a fire seemed to come into his eyes as his gaze shot up at me. "He hasn't returned," he said distinctly. "They said they always bring them back, and my Antonio hasn't returned."

"He's still not home yet?"

"No. And I will find them and find out what happened to him. And if he is not okay, they will wish their species had never been created."

I could see in his heavy breathing and determined look that he was serious about his threat.

"I must go," he said. "I have many places to look and the more time I spend sitting the harder it will be to find them." He stood and started to walk away. I rose from my seat and almost called to him to wait so that I could offer my services to help him, but something made me stop. From what seemed like thin air appeared a host of children that walked behind him, as if they were an entourage following their king.

The dark night had fallen and within a few moments they were out of my view. I began to wonder if what I had just witnessed was real, but I knew myself too well to think this a hallucination. I grabbed my bag and slung it over my shoulder as I started walking away.

"Crazy man," came a voice at my side. I looked down to see a small boy who was walking beside me. I stopped and he looked up into my eyes. I almost gasped as I seemed to be looking into that same void that the old man had described in the boy by the tree.

"What?" I asked.

"He's a crazy man, no?"

"Sure," I said.

"Good," he said, and then walked away.

I watched him leave until he was no longer in sight. Then I turned and ran after the old man.

The end

Lost - part 3

"I think he came in with one of the attendants. I don't remember seeing him ever before, and since this wasn't a place where they put insane kids, I figured he must be somebody's child. I couldn't imagine what type of parent would bring their boy into an environment like this, but I also didn't care. I was on the verge of giving up on life. I would sit in a chair in the corner and watch as men and women walked around aimlessly. I began to wonder how many of them were truly insane and how many were driven there simply from living in this place.

"My attention went back to the young boy who walked straight up to me. He stood there and held out his hand. Before being admitted into the ward, I would have asked him what he wanted. I would have tried to communicate with him. Instead, I stared at his hand, trying to decide if I really wanted to make the effort to move.

"'Do you want to know?' the boy asked.

"I looked up at him with a curious look on my face. Somehow I saw a glimmer of hope for understanding in him. Plus, what did I have to lose? I finally decided to take his hand and follow him.

"We walked towards the exit as I wondered what this boy had in mind. It wasn't until we started walking past the guard that I became nervous. However, the guard paid no attention to us, and before I knew it, we were outside in the free air. I took a deep breath and a slight shiver ran through my body as it tingled from the rush of oxygen. I could already feel my mind start to clear.

"I turned my head down to where the boy should have been to thank him, but he wasn't there. I quickly scanned around me and saw him walking away.

"'Wait!' I called. He didn't stop, but kept on walking. I ran and caught up to him and stood in his way. He waited in front of me motionless, as if I were a door that wouldn't open. I stooped down and looked into his face and was almost taken back by the emptiness in his eyes. It was almost like a void where the only visible part was the deep black of the pupil.

"'What's going on?" I asked.

"'Your time is done,' was his reply.

"'My time?" I asked. 'What do you mean?'

"'Anathoth wasn't supposed to tell you about us. We had to make it so no one would believe you if you were to talk, which you did. Now, everyone will take you for a crazy man.'

"'Who is Anathoth? I don't remember talking to him. What is it I wasn't supposed to know?'

"'Come,' he said. 'I will explain everything.' I followed him into a nearby park, and we sat under the cool shade of a tree. The grass was so soft underneath. I could barely remember ever feeling grass that soft. The years I had spent in the hard, white prison had dulled my senses. Now, everything felt more alive and vibrant than ever before.

"'We exist through you,' he started. I started to open my mouth to ask a question, but he held up his hand. 'Please do not interrupt. When I am done, you may ask.

"'We need you to live. As one of us is born, the new life is placed into one of your newborns. The two co-exist peacefully for the first several years of life. But we grow much quicker than you do. By the time your child has reached the age of 8, we have reached our maturity. Until then, the human child has complete control over his mind and body. However, once we reach our stage of adulthood, we must release ourselves from what has sustained us. It is almost like your incubators that you use for chickens. We would not survive outside a human body until we have fully developed.

"'Once we are there, we must find a way to leave. So, we take control of the child's body and go away from everyone. The process of freeing ourselves is not one to be witnessed by human eyes.

"'After the transformation is complete, the child is free to go, and we go on living our lives invisible to the rest of you around us.'

"I sat with a stunned look on my face. I couldn't tell if I was still crazy or if what I was hearing was real. I had so many questions that I didn't know where to start.

"'So, you're like parasites,' I said.

"'A harmless parasite, but yes.'

"'Harmless? Hardly. You take over a child's body, somebody's son or daughter that they love, and leave them alone somewhere in the world after you're done using their body. How is that harmless?'

"'We do not leave them there. After exiting their body, we lead them back home. That is how that girl that you ran into was able to find her parents again. She had been led back.'

"'I did not see anyone lead her to me. She seemed to come out of nowhere.'

"'We are invisible to those who do not believe. The human child's imagination is so immense that they can see us. Most adults refer to them as the child's imaginary friend, but we are as real as the kid says we are. And, when we so desire, we can make those we touch invisible as well. How else do you think we could have walked right out of that hospital?'

"'But you still look like a child.'

"'Yes, because I have not yet freed myself from him. I was instructed to come release you from your sentence beforehand. You had spent enough time in there for no one to believe what I am telling you now. I am sorry we had to do this to you, but we could not jeopardize our existence. Anathoth felt compassion for you and told you a riddle that would explain who we were. Though most adults would not have thought twice about such a thing, you did. And we could not take the chance that someone else would think the same way.'

"'You mean, Anathoth was the being that was inside my Antonio?'

"'That is correct. And it was his time to be freed. And now, it is time for me to go as well. I cannot keep this body any longer or we will both die.' He stood up and started to walk away again.

"'Wait!' I called once more. 'What do I do? Where's my Antonio?' But there was no response. He walked around a bend and was gone.

To be continued ...

Lost - part 2

I missed last week because of Halloween. Had too much fun. :-) Here is the continuation of my previous post.

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"I sat in the damp jail conference room. My lawyer sat opposite me, trying to make sense of what I was telling him.

"'So, you're saying that you have no idea where this girl came from, correct? That she just walked up out of nowhere and took your hand.'

"'That's right.

"'Ok. That part I can handle and probably convince the jury on because we can prove your whereabouts during the time in question. However, the next part where you say that you were on your way to the police station to give them information on your own grandson's disappearance is what I can't seem to grasp. You're claiming that children aren't being abducted, but are rather leaving on their own?'

"'I don't know if they're leaving on their own or not. I just have this feeling that something else is happening to them.'

"'And this because of what your grandson said to you before he vanished, right?'

"'Right.'

"'So, all the kids that have been found dead or mutilated or abused or whatever else really weren't abducted but just ran away?'

"'That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that maybe not all of them are abducted.'

"'You see? That's where you lose me. I could understand if you were saying that some run away instead of being abducted, because that is possible. But, when kids run away, they usually run to somewhere. They don't just disappear.'

"'I know, I know. My head tells me the same thing you're saying. But, I can't deny what my Anthony said to me. When he said it, it wasn't him. I mean, it wasn't like him. I just feel that there is something else going on here.'

"'I don't know if I can convince the jury of that.'

"He didn't. We went to trial and I sat there and watched as they found me innocent of the abduction of the little girl, but guilty of insanity as I tried to explain my theory. They lead me away to an asylum where I spent day after day explaining the same thing over and over again to different doctors and psychologists. The more they talked to me, the more I began to believe that I truly was insane.

"What a curiosity, no? I was a normal, healthy individual before I entered the psychiatric ward. And it was in a place that was supposed to help heal people from this type of condition that caused me to become crazy. I think they needed me to be crazy.

"Days turned into weeks and weeks into months. Soon, a full two years passed without any hope of leaving. I tried to retract my story, saying that I made it up, but they wouldn't believe me. They said I was just saying that to try to get out. Well, I was! I couldn't be in there anymore. I was suffocating from a lack of intelligent conversation. I felt each day that the walls were closing in more and more. The sterilized white everywhere seemed to mock me as I tried to remember what the outside world looked like.

"I finally resolved that I either needed to find a way out or I was to die in there. But, I did not know how. I was no escape artist. I had no idea where to even start when it came to finding a way to leave.

"Then help came. And in a way I never would have expected."

To be continued ...