1.2|CLAIM YOUR ELEUTHEROMANIA

1.2|Claim your eleutheromania

 

Allie looked terrified within the Veteran's Affairs office. “This can't be it,” she muttered to herself.  Where was she? What was happening? Was this the afterlife, had she successfully put herself under?  She hadn’t felt the usual feelings of comfort and security. Instead, she felt like something was wrong.  The room didn’t feel right, the atmosphere didn’t feel right. It felt as if she were in some strange dream, a dream where she was alone in a room filled with things she did not want to see, and she had no power to save herself from them.

"Protas, you need to come back to me." The Analyst held out her hands, grabbing Allie's hands and holding them gently. The room became hazy, faded. Allie blinked away the haze, trying to see what was going on.  The Analysts voice was soothing, calming.  "Just keep listening to my voice."

"This is all real, isn't it? I'm dead?" Allie said.

"No, this is a dream." The Analyst said. "You need to wake up." squeezed tighter.

Allie panicked. "This can't be real, this can't be real. I'm so sorry. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry...." her head felt like a cinderblock, everything heavy and tight. The room faded back in, the dream receding into distant memories, and memories sorting once more. "I'm.." She looked over a mirror, her short wavy dark locks stopping right above her shoulders. She wore a loose slate-tinted tee with puffed shoulders, a striped white bodysuit with thin black strips in concentric rings across the sleeves and leggings. Pointy knee-length ugg boots pointed in perpendicular directions as her legs trembled.

"I'm okay now, I'm okay now," Allie... no, Protas said, giving a dour look at herself. She ran her hands through her hair and looked around, as if feeling what was real.

"Got a little lost there did we?" The Analyst asked.

"Yeah, it gets pretty intense." Protas rubbed her temples, the look of a surly damsel struggling to hold onto her bearings. "But, I remember all of it as if it were me. As if it were always me."

"And you've had these memories since you were a kid? Since.. the incident you mentioned." The Analyst asked. There was a long silence, the soundwaves dissipating into an air of discomfort. "Technically yes."

 

"I haven't seen 'The Light' in two years, since I was honorably discharged after my injury in Jarkovia. And now my memory has gone haywire. I don't remember how I got here, I don't know how I died. I have memories of being other people, but I'm not the person I remember. And when it gets too weird, they fade into the clouds."

Protas shrugged, the heavy look of a sulking child plastered across her lips. "The most recent one I remember being my wedding day. I remembered being married to a man, a wealthy industrialist. I remember walking down the aisle in a golden latex gown, I remember loving him and the taste of his lips, every date we had together. And then-"

"When did it all start?" The Analyst stopped her story short. "The first incident."

Protas sat in a swivel chair, one leg dangling over the armrest and leaning on it. She stared intently at her nails, the manicure that she had been working on last week had already lost its luster.

"The memory I was seeing had to do with a guy I met when I was twelve. A friend, we were both a little weird, he was into black metal and we listened to some of that stuff. I was into the horror stuff, a dark fairy tale world, a world of monsters and heroes and dark magic. We didn't speak a lot, but we were always together. I made this, cheap queenly costume and went to go see his living-pod. But I saw this, weird light shaped like a person. They grew so bright, they began to spread out and this electric stuff touched me. My body glowed and, I teleported into the sky."

The room was silent, a heavy weight that the only thing that could bring, was Protas. "I floated for a while, like an angel. But then I fell, thinking that I'd die. Except when I hit the ground I didn't, exactly 'hit it' per say."

"What? Could you clarify?" The Analyst typed away on her digital chart.

"When I fell down I, just, phased through. Like I was a ghost or something, fell through the ground. It was confusing and, there was this noise, this loud crackling noise and it was making me angry and everything just went black. When I woke up I was on the ground again."

"A crackling noise? Hm.."

"It sounds like this, 'CRRRRRRRKSSSH!' It just got louder and louder."

The Analyst stopped writing, her keyboard frozen at the first letter she had typed. "I see. I'll just put 'miscellaneous noise' in the report."

 

"Anyway, after that it kept happening. Sometimes I'd turn into.. light. I couldn't interact with anything. Couldn't eat or lay down to sleep. My body kept getting zapped around everywhere. I was flunked out of school because of it. Barely finished my training at Correctional Bootcamp. And then in the military-"

"Ahem." The Analyst raised her glass spectacles. "We take G.A.T.E. Confidentiality very seriously." She cleared her throat.

"I have a G.A.T.E. form here somewhere." She closed out her tablet and paused the recording. "But why don't we just keep this next minute off the records."

"Right. I was supposed to deliver supplies on a routine reconnaissance mission, when it kinda, happened. We were attacked by a Lavalite hiveship, it was headed right for us. I was supposed to pilot us to safety when I, well I zoopity zapped. I poofed. I just, disappeared in a flash again, and was out in space. The hiveship specifically. My body phased through the asteroid for awhile, and my entire squadron was taken captive. I wasn't found for another 6 weeks. That lead to my discharge and, I needed 16 months of therapy from the previous Psychometric Councilor of this office before my piloting license and military pension was reinstated."

The analyst resumed recording. Protas stopped her recount. "But this has been happening, every time, since I was a kid. It started when I was twelve, and I still can't remember how." They tapped away on her keyboard. "Can you tell me, what you do when you teleport? What do you feel?

"It hurts. A lot. Like being sucked into a whirlpool made of sticky glue and cement all at once." She folded her arms.

"Are there any specific correlations or causation?" The Analyst lowered her glasses curiously.

"Like I said, whenever I teleport I just feel so lonely. Like no matter where I go, I feel like I'm being left behind. I feel like I have to protect myself. I don't trust any people. I feel like my emotions are just this big giant black hole of nothingness that just drains me."

"That's not what I asked. What triggers your spacial dislocation?"

Protas looked at her angrily, trying to be a little calm about it but it not quite showing. "My hands shake, my heart races. I grow sweaty and nervous. I panic-"

"Adrenaline, perhaps?" They asked.

"I guess?"

"But you haven't had an incident since your discharge."

"Yeah.. Meds have kept me sullen, If abit borderline. I don't feel the highs of any highs, but I haven't fallen through any walls or ended up on the moon suddenly as a sunbeam so, tradeoff."

"Yes, yes." The Analyst leaned back in her chair. "I know it sounds like a lot to deal with at once, but, if we could focus on those memories you keep having. You reported experiencing them even as a young child. But you were only recently diagnosed with dissociative identity psychomania"

Protas's face fell, something like sadness and apathy swirling into the greys of her bluish-grey tee.

"I knew someone who had that, back in my Academy days. She was a very troubled young lady, she had all the bad luck of the genetic world, but as a child she had to deal with far more than that. And even after her release from C.B.C, she still went out and got herself in situations like that. Which is why I can't help but believe that this has something to do with her. She kept ending up in situations like that, she went missing for days at a time. The psych manor was concerned she would commit suicide, as her life wasn't going well and she couldn't stand how people treated her. I think this, the memories, is a side-effect, a very unfortunate one that she could be having. So, in order to protect her rights, we had to keep it secret. I'm sorry for that." The Analyst explained.

Protas leaned her head back abit. "Ah.. Did she look like me?"

"Pardon?"

"Like me. All the girls in my memory, the ones I sometimes get lost in, a lot of them look so familiar. Some differences but, it feels less like I'm living as another person, and more remembering another life practically."

The Analyst paused to think for a moment. "I'm not sure that is a good thing."

"Maybe you should take a break, go find some food. Get something to drink?" The Analyst suggested. "And then, when you feel up to it, you can fill me in on your old case. I'll contact Medical as well, I'm sure you're ready to get this all fixed up. Just try to remember to eat and drink in between sessions."

Protas stared into the empty middle distance and then nodded to the Analyst. "Okay. But I need to ask, before we start my Psychometric field training.." the girl took a deep breath, "And if I were to trust you again, what would happen if the memories started leaking into my consciousness and I somehow went back in time, how will that affect my current self?"  The Analyst looked over at her tablet, but didn't move it.

"What if the memories got so stuck in my head that I can't separate out my old life from my current life? Will I be able to start my practicum?" Again the Analyst didn't even look up at her. "We've got meds for that. But, I'm afraid those pills won't quite cut it. It'll take a while, and a lot of therapy, to get your thoughts straight, or straight enough. We need to find the root of all this as we can get a handle on it, but we can start you here next week. Session concluded for now." The tablet turned black, she set it aside.

"It won't be easy, I imagine it'll be abit of a balance for you. But oh, you're a

pilot aren't you? I'm sure you'll keep on your toes."

"Right. Nifty." Protas folded her sleeves and looked away nervous.

"That said.. we can help you and work through these issues while you get some hands-on experience. This sort of duality is convenient. Keep up with the books, read my case-files, pour my coffee, watch how I work, that sort of thing. You already have Psyche configuration credits from your darkguard cadet training, so it'll just be learning few workplace modifications for a few months. We'll get you accredited in no time."

The Analyst offered her hand and Protas took it hesitantly, before the girl got up, giving the analyst a small smirk, "And we'll be able to help." They turned to look at the window behind her, hands folded behind her back demurely.

"Why do you want to sit in this chair where I am anyway?" Protas checked her Comm's messages, the text littered with heart emojis and winkie faces.

"I want to help out a friend. That's all." Her heart sped up. She looked at her engagement ring, a hint of melody in her singing through the bleakness. She read a few of the messages, smiling wryly and responding back with a <3, giving the sweetest, softest of smiles. Protas stood up. She folded her striped sleeves and reached for the door. "See you next week." She turned to the empty chair, the Analyst looking out the window. "And don't be late.