Post by oberonfrost on Mar 3, 2012 15:37:32 GMT -5
Kyle, South Dakota- August 4, 2011
“The sale is final tomorrow,” Arthur Curry said as he looked up at the lighthouse, defeated.
His father had built it when Arthur was just a baby, after moving from the sun-soaked coasts of Florida to the dreary winters of the northern United States. Arthur’s father, Tom Curry had been a career lighthouse keeper until the death of his son’s mother. When Tom lost her, it was like he lost everything. He packed up his newborn son and what belonging he could fit in his truck, and left his lighthouse and everything else behind. Arthur’s father had built this new lighthouse as a memorial to his lost love. It was his own Taj Mahal, a standing monument to a love as wild as the ocean currents and as eternal as the sea itself.
Arthur had never been to the ocean. Kyle, South Dakota was furthest you could get from any coastline in the United States. Tom could never bring himself to talk about the waves, the ships and the beaches ever since Atlanna had left his life, nor could he even consider taking his son to see the beauty and the majesty of the of the world’s oceans.
“Your father would understand, Arthur,” Clair St. Olmos said as she stuffed her cellular telephone back into her gaudy, oversized handbag.
Arthur nodded, he knew she was right about that. “That doesn’t make it any easier. I grew up here Clair; I feel like I’m selling my memories along with my father’s house,” he said as he pulled the last duffle bag onto his shoulder and headed for the truck. He paused as he climbed into the cab, looked back at Clair, and shouted, “Just send the check to the address I gave you.”
St. Paul Minnesota- November 30, 2011
Pain shouted through his nerves as Arthur was sandwiched between the firm Plexiglas that surrounded the rink and the taller, sweat-soaked left wing from the opposing team. There was an audible crack as the hard plastic of his shoulder pads crashed into the wall, followed almost immediately by another crack as his helmet also collided with the barrier.
The puck careened haphazardly down the ice, but it was the least of Arthur’s worries as he began to regain his balance. Even as he launched himself at the much larger player from the opposing team, the one who had knocked him into the wall and cost him a goal, Arthur knew this stunt was going to land him in the penalty box.
“And that is one of this year’s most promising rookie talents, Arthur Curry, taking a body check into the wall,” the arena announcer said over the speaker system. “Curry has been one of the leading scorers for the Narwhales since joining the team nearly four months ago.”
Arthur dropped his stick and flung his gloves to the ice, then dived for the wingman’s knees. Arthur caught him full force from behind, and his opponent tumbled forward, his helmet bouncing on the ice, then sliding away silently, as the puck had just moments ago.
“Ugh!” the announcer exclaimed into his microphone. “Let me take this opportunity to mention that in those same four months since joining the Narwhale’s, Curry has been involved in at least one physical altercation per game.”
Arthur knelt over his enemy, knees resting on the ice, and threw his own protective headgear down. Fist clenched, Arthur slugged the other man in the jaw twice, before his opponent really knew what was going on.
“Curry’s already getting a reputation for being one of the fiercest fighters in the league; he’s got a hair trigger too, as I’m sure number forty-six, Jeremy Hobart from the Green Bay Polar Bears, would attest right now,” the announcer continued on as the crowd became aware of the spectacle before them en masse.
The arena grew quiet as hockey players stopped, the crowd stood, and the referees skated toward the epicenter of the chaos. Arthur’s opponent heaved upward and rolled to the side, dislodging his attacker momentarily. Arthur’s fist sailed past the other player’s head and smashed into the ice, causing a long jagged crack in the surface. Whistles tweeted, as the two hockey players went after each other.
Arthur took a few blows to face before his opponent got the better of him with a punch to the ear and he collapsed backward. His unprotected skull bounced off the ice. “You got lucky, asshole….” Arthur gasped as his world went black.
Kyle, South Dakota
His father’s lighthouse looked taller than he remembered. It was in better shape too; freshly painted, white and black stripes curving their way up the face of the tower. “Dad?” Arthur called out, as he flung open the lighthouse door.
“Not your father, Arthur Curry,” a voice said, the speaker somewhere out of sight. “I am one who seeks an audience with the sea king. The true Sea King.”
The voice was female, that was all Arthur could discern. Nothing he had heard made any sense to him. “Listen lady,” Arthur started, his voice firm, but not yet angry. Before he could finish the sentence, try to explain that he had no idea what she was talking about, that he didn’t know anything about a ‘sea king,’ he felt the ground beneath his feet crumble away and disappear into a raging whirlpool below.
Arthur tried to swim, but his arms and legs were nothing compared to the swirling pull of the vortex sucking him down below the oceans surface. He tried in vain to spit the salt water from his mouth, only to find himself choking on more of the same the next second.
The salt burned his eyes and blurred his vision. Images flashed by despite the tears and sting, distorted by the rushing waters. None of it was clear: cities, millions of people, wizard towers and science labs and all of it hidden deep under the sea.
Arms heavy, legs beyond the point they could struggle to kick at the roiling tide any longer, Arthur resigned himself to a cold death, alone in the dark. He felt his body being tugged further down, choking as a torrent of icy salt water sluiced into his lungs. And he continued to fall, sucked deeper and deeper into the sea. Even as everything went black and frigid, Arthur Curry spiraled deeper into the sea.
St. Paul Minnesota, January 4, 2012
Eyelids fluttered open, and Arthur had to squint against the florescent lighting of the hospital room. Machines beeped and hissed, monitoring his heart rate, breathing and other vital functions. Arthur grabbed the wires and ripped the diodes, tubes and IV needles away and climbed out of his hospital bed. Nurses came running.
“Ocean,” Arthur cried out to the first one who entered the room. “Ocean!” he repeated as each of the three others came inside.
St. Paul Minnesota, January 22, 2012
Arthur Curry sat at a table, his hospital robe wrapped tightly around him. The other three chairs at the table were occupied by other residents of the hospital floor where he was housed. They were not good conversationalists. Mary Pat Emerson was a thirty-four, slightly overweight schizophrenic woman with three personalities: Mary, who didn’t speak and stared constantly at the pink bunny she carried around, years old, it no longer contained any stuffing; Pat was the most sane of three voices, a painter who loved to gaze for hours at the trees beyond the sanitarium windows; last was Emerson, the only ‘male’ among Mary Pat’s three personalities, he was the psychopath, obsessed with drowning and the effects that prolonged exposure to water would have on a corpse. Emerson was also the only one of the three who could carry on a conversation. As long as you wanted to talk about drowning.
In the second chair was Charlie Ritter-Dyster, the man couldn’t speak, had to drag an IV with him wherever he went. Charlie loved to play chess. He was terrible at the game, however. When things didn’t go his way, he’d often grab the pieces and toss them, one by one, all around the common room. Arthur had learned quickly not to play with Charlie, because no matter how frail the sixty-something year-old man looked, getting smacked between the eyes by a king hurt.
The last spot at the table was occupied by eighteen year-old Sylvia Wren. The staff referred to her as their own Alice in Wonderland. Sylvia was locked in her own mind, unable to comprehend the world around her, and instead existed inside a world created by her own fantasies. The nurses and orderlies wheeled her chair out into the common room daily, feeling that spending time with others, even if she couldn’t see, hear or interact with them, would be good for her. Sylvia was gorgeous, barely and adult and completely helpless. Arthur worried about her in a place like this. Even if the orderlies and nurses kept her safe from any patients who might take advantage of her situation, he couldn’t help but wonder who protected the girl from them.
They were the three most uncommunicative residents staying at the Peaceful Pines Sanitarium. The nurses always put Arthur with them, since he was also one of the more uncommunicative patients. The only word he seemed to be able to say since his concussion and short time spent in a coma was “ocean.” Ever since they’d moved him to Peaceful Pines Arthur felt like he was trying to swim against the current in a river made of swiftly flowing sand. The medications they forced him to take day and night dulled his senses and kept his mind in a perpetual fog. He’d actually lost to Charlie at a chess game a few days ago.
Two and a half weeks wasn’t a long time, as long as you weren’t a resident at Peaceful Pines. Tedious could barely begin to describe the way Arthur felt about how he now spent his days. Yet, while the medications dulled most of his senses, nothing could dull the desire, the need, the ache burning inside Arthur’s chest- He had to get to the ocean! There was no way, though. Between the orderlies, nurses and security personnel, there was no way out of the sanitarium. Even if he did manage to get out somehow, he was still over a thousand miles from the nearest coastline. For now, he would have to wait and hope that one day his tongue could form any word but “ocean.”
The Royal City of Atlantis, January 25, 2012
“Have the Cadre exterminate the slaves at the Noq’dum weapons depot,” Orm decreed to one of the many slaves tending to his audience chamber. The room was empty now, save Orm and the slaves that followed his every move. “You,” he said, turning and pointing his trident at another of the slaves in his entourage, “go to slave master Moar and have him assign a new workforce for the Noq’dum.”
The two slaves departed, making haste toward their destinations. Orm floated down into his throne as they left. He removed the gold-coral crown from his head, and with a thought encased it in a bubble, floating at his side. His golden trident, the true symbol of the Sea King, stood leaning against the wall in a corner.
::Heavy is the head that wears the crown! Eh, Majesty?:: Orm felt the words form inside his mind, like tiny bubbles fizzing on the surface of his brain.
The Sea King rocketed upward from his seat. “Get out!” he bellowed at the slaves, a blast of furious red magical energy spewing from his eyes and leaving a burn on the floor. Each slaves swam for their life, out into the hallway, but daring not to go too far from their master, for fear the next outburst of his arcane might be targeted on them.
“What do you want, Voice?” Orm said, remembering the last time he’d ‘heard’ from this mysterious, telepathic voice. It was more than ten years ago, just before his coronation. He’d felt the familiar tendrils dig into his mind. Voice had told him how he was not meant to rule the seas. She made him doubt himself, but nothing would steer him from his course. He had stepped onto the dais and he had been crowned the Sea King. His dear departed mother would have been so proud, to see him standing there, his long black hair flowing as the undersea currents swept it along.
::A free Atlantis!:: Voice formed the words one by one, louder and firmer in Orm’s mind. It was almost physically painful. ::And it is coming, Majesty.::
Orm seethed at the idea of anyone wresting this power from his grasp. He had been raised heir to the largest empire on the planet and he had taken control well before his time. Silently, he thanked his father for his sacrifice. He had given family, friends- his very soul to become the Lord of Atlantis. No one was going to take that power from him now. Not when he was on the verge of having all the pieces to the game. “I don’t know who you are, witch, and I may never find you; know this Atlantis is mine, from now until the end of time!”
::He will come, Majesty, liquid gold and fire swelling up under the sea, joy to bursting and a free Atlantis to come. He will ride with monsters, Majesty, the greatest and most feared of the sea-beasts will be at his side when he the true Sea King cut the head from the deep dragon and a free Atlantis comes!::
Orm felt Voice withdraw from his mind, but his rage was overflowing. “Who?!?” he screamed, letting a blast of force flow from his hand and through the wall across from him. The violent crimson energy split the wall like an axe splits a log to kindling, sending giant chunks of metal and stone falling into the passage below and crushing the slaves hiding there.
St. Paul, Minnesota, January 27, 2012
The medication made it hard for him to think. As more and more of the sedatives built up in his system, Arthur could feel his mind becoming foggier. He spent his days with at the plain wooden table with his four silent companions. His nights were spent in a room crowded with other male patients, some strapped down to their beds to keep them from wandering off and potentially hurting themselves or others. Even with the medications they kept him on, still the groaning and other noises the men made as the slept, or fought against sleep, kept him awake until the wee hours of the morning.
The next day, it would all repeat again. He would sit at the plain wooden table with this silent companions. Then something changed.
“Ocean,” Arthur said quietly, barely more than a whisper, as he closely inspected his quadrant of the table for hundredth time. He repeated the word over and over again in his mind, and every now and then, it slipped from his lips.
::Ocean,:: he heard in replied. The voice wasn’t like those he had experience all his life. There was no sound, no vibration along his ear drum or auditory nerves. This voice was inside his head. ‘I really am crazy,’ Arthur though, and put his head down on the table top, eyes closed.
::Ocean,:: said the same voice inside his head again; young, sweet and female, like the tinkle of glass bells in a seaside breeze.
::Ocean,:: said another voice, this one rough, like rocks tumbling down a cliff face before plunging violently through the surface of previously calm waters. ::Take me to the ocean.::
::Ocean,:: said a third voice, this one like bubbles popping in as they reached the surface.
::It has been so long since I saw the ocean.::
::Felt it on my skin,” intoned the first voice.
::Or tasted the salt on my tongues,:: the second voice added.
::Ocean,:: all three said in unison. ::Ocean! Ocean! Ocean!:: the voices began to chant, their tones mixing into a cacophony inside Arthur’s mind. Their voices melded, their chant almost like a song, ::Ocean, ocean, ocean,:: it beat like a drum inside Arthur’s skull, ::ocean, ocean, ocean,:: he could almost feel his sanity slipping away.
The chanting continued. Arthur screamed.
As Arthur’s scream continued, all of Pleasant Pine’s common room erupted into a flurry of movement. Charlie was up, moving like Arthur had never seen him move in the month they’d spent together. He had pulled the IV needle from his arm and bashing the stand against the wall of the common room. When the metal stand splintered and cracked in half, Charlie launched his fists and body at the walls, tearing through plaster and wiring toward the sunshine beyond.
Mary Pat Emerson was standing next to the carnage Charlie was causing, spinning in circles and toying with her pink bunny’s stuffing-less ear.
There was a noise, coming from close to where Sylvia was standing. Arthur couldn’t make out what it was over the sound of his own scream, a scream that no matter what he couldn’t seem to stop.
“The sale is final tomorrow,” Arthur Curry said as he looked up at the lighthouse, defeated.
His father had built it when Arthur was just a baby, after moving from the sun-soaked coasts of Florida to the dreary winters of the northern United States. Arthur’s father, Tom Curry had been a career lighthouse keeper until the death of his son’s mother. When Tom lost her, it was like he lost everything. He packed up his newborn son and what belonging he could fit in his truck, and left his lighthouse and everything else behind. Arthur’s father had built this new lighthouse as a memorial to his lost love. It was his own Taj Mahal, a standing monument to a love as wild as the ocean currents and as eternal as the sea itself.
Arthur had never been to the ocean. Kyle, South Dakota was furthest you could get from any coastline in the United States. Tom could never bring himself to talk about the waves, the ships and the beaches ever since Atlanna had left his life, nor could he even consider taking his son to see the beauty and the majesty of the of the world’s oceans.
“Your father would understand, Arthur,” Clair St. Olmos said as she stuffed her cellular telephone back into her gaudy, oversized handbag.
Arthur nodded, he knew she was right about that. “That doesn’t make it any easier. I grew up here Clair; I feel like I’m selling my memories along with my father’s house,” he said as he pulled the last duffle bag onto his shoulder and headed for the truck. He paused as he climbed into the cab, looked back at Clair, and shouted, “Just send the check to the address I gave you.”
St. Paul Minnesota- November 30, 2011
Pain shouted through his nerves as Arthur was sandwiched between the firm Plexiglas that surrounded the rink and the taller, sweat-soaked left wing from the opposing team. There was an audible crack as the hard plastic of his shoulder pads crashed into the wall, followed almost immediately by another crack as his helmet also collided with the barrier.
The puck careened haphazardly down the ice, but it was the least of Arthur’s worries as he began to regain his balance. Even as he launched himself at the much larger player from the opposing team, the one who had knocked him into the wall and cost him a goal, Arthur knew this stunt was going to land him in the penalty box.
“And that is one of this year’s most promising rookie talents, Arthur Curry, taking a body check into the wall,” the arena announcer said over the speaker system. “Curry has been one of the leading scorers for the Narwhales since joining the team nearly four months ago.”
Arthur dropped his stick and flung his gloves to the ice, then dived for the wingman’s knees. Arthur caught him full force from behind, and his opponent tumbled forward, his helmet bouncing on the ice, then sliding away silently, as the puck had just moments ago.
“Ugh!” the announcer exclaimed into his microphone. “Let me take this opportunity to mention that in those same four months since joining the Narwhale’s, Curry has been involved in at least one physical altercation per game.”
Arthur knelt over his enemy, knees resting on the ice, and threw his own protective headgear down. Fist clenched, Arthur slugged the other man in the jaw twice, before his opponent really knew what was going on.
“Curry’s already getting a reputation for being one of the fiercest fighters in the league; he’s got a hair trigger too, as I’m sure number forty-six, Jeremy Hobart from the Green Bay Polar Bears, would attest right now,” the announcer continued on as the crowd became aware of the spectacle before them en masse.
The arena grew quiet as hockey players stopped, the crowd stood, and the referees skated toward the epicenter of the chaos. Arthur’s opponent heaved upward and rolled to the side, dislodging his attacker momentarily. Arthur’s fist sailed past the other player’s head and smashed into the ice, causing a long jagged crack in the surface. Whistles tweeted, as the two hockey players went after each other.
Arthur took a few blows to face before his opponent got the better of him with a punch to the ear and he collapsed backward. His unprotected skull bounced off the ice. “You got lucky, asshole….” Arthur gasped as his world went black.
Kyle, South Dakota
His father’s lighthouse looked taller than he remembered. It was in better shape too; freshly painted, white and black stripes curving their way up the face of the tower. “Dad?” Arthur called out, as he flung open the lighthouse door.
“Not your father, Arthur Curry,” a voice said, the speaker somewhere out of sight. “I am one who seeks an audience with the sea king. The true Sea King.”
The voice was female, that was all Arthur could discern. Nothing he had heard made any sense to him. “Listen lady,” Arthur started, his voice firm, but not yet angry. Before he could finish the sentence, try to explain that he had no idea what she was talking about, that he didn’t know anything about a ‘sea king,’ he felt the ground beneath his feet crumble away and disappear into a raging whirlpool below.
Arthur tried to swim, but his arms and legs were nothing compared to the swirling pull of the vortex sucking him down below the oceans surface. He tried in vain to spit the salt water from his mouth, only to find himself choking on more of the same the next second.
The salt burned his eyes and blurred his vision. Images flashed by despite the tears and sting, distorted by the rushing waters. None of it was clear: cities, millions of people, wizard towers and science labs and all of it hidden deep under the sea.
Arms heavy, legs beyond the point they could struggle to kick at the roiling tide any longer, Arthur resigned himself to a cold death, alone in the dark. He felt his body being tugged further down, choking as a torrent of icy salt water sluiced into his lungs. And he continued to fall, sucked deeper and deeper into the sea. Even as everything went black and frigid, Arthur Curry spiraled deeper into the sea.
St. Paul Minnesota, January 4, 2012
Eyelids fluttered open, and Arthur had to squint against the florescent lighting of the hospital room. Machines beeped and hissed, monitoring his heart rate, breathing and other vital functions. Arthur grabbed the wires and ripped the diodes, tubes and IV needles away and climbed out of his hospital bed. Nurses came running.
“Ocean,” Arthur cried out to the first one who entered the room. “Ocean!” he repeated as each of the three others came inside.
St. Paul Minnesota, January 22, 2012
Arthur Curry sat at a table, his hospital robe wrapped tightly around him. The other three chairs at the table were occupied by other residents of the hospital floor where he was housed. They were not good conversationalists. Mary Pat Emerson was a thirty-four, slightly overweight schizophrenic woman with three personalities: Mary, who didn’t speak and stared constantly at the pink bunny she carried around, years old, it no longer contained any stuffing; Pat was the most sane of three voices, a painter who loved to gaze for hours at the trees beyond the sanitarium windows; last was Emerson, the only ‘male’ among Mary Pat’s three personalities, he was the psychopath, obsessed with drowning and the effects that prolonged exposure to water would have on a corpse. Emerson was also the only one of the three who could carry on a conversation. As long as you wanted to talk about drowning.
In the second chair was Charlie Ritter-Dyster, the man couldn’t speak, had to drag an IV with him wherever he went. Charlie loved to play chess. He was terrible at the game, however. When things didn’t go his way, he’d often grab the pieces and toss them, one by one, all around the common room. Arthur had learned quickly not to play with Charlie, because no matter how frail the sixty-something year-old man looked, getting smacked between the eyes by a king hurt.
The last spot at the table was occupied by eighteen year-old Sylvia Wren. The staff referred to her as their own Alice in Wonderland. Sylvia was locked in her own mind, unable to comprehend the world around her, and instead existed inside a world created by her own fantasies. The nurses and orderlies wheeled her chair out into the common room daily, feeling that spending time with others, even if she couldn’t see, hear or interact with them, would be good for her. Sylvia was gorgeous, barely and adult and completely helpless. Arthur worried about her in a place like this. Even if the orderlies and nurses kept her safe from any patients who might take advantage of her situation, he couldn’t help but wonder who protected the girl from them.
They were the three most uncommunicative residents staying at the Peaceful Pines Sanitarium. The nurses always put Arthur with them, since he was also one of the more uncommunicative patients. The only word he seemed to be able to say since his concussion and short time spent in a coma was “ocean.” Ever since they’d moved him to Peaceful Pines Arthur felt like he was trying to swim against the current in a river made of swiftly flowing sand. The medications they forced him to take day and night dulled his senses and kept his mind in a perpetual fog. He’d actually lost to Charlie at a chess game a few days ago.
Two and a half weeks wasn’t a long time, as long as you weren’t a resident at Peaceful Pines. Tedious could barely begin to describe the way Arthur felt about how he now spent his days. Yet, while the medications dulled most of his senses, nothing could dull the desire, the need, the ache burning inside Arthur’s chest- He had to get to the ocean! There was no way, though. Between the orderlies, nurses and security personnel, there was no way out of the sanitarium. Even if he did manage to get out somehow, he was still over a thousand miles from the nearest coastline. For now, he would have to wait and hope that one day his tongue could form any word but “ocean.”
The Royal City of Atlantis, January 25, 2012
“Have the Cadre exterminate the slaves at the Noq’dum weapons depot,” Orm decreed to one of the many slaves tending to his audience chamber. The room was empty now, save Orm and the slaves that followed his every move. “You,” he said, turning and pointing his trident at another of the slaves in his entourage, “go to slave master Moar and have him assign a new workforce for the Noq’dum.”
The two slaves departed, making haste toward their destinations. Orm floated down into his throne as they left. He removed the gold-coral crown from his head, and with a thought encased it in a bubble, floating at his side. His golden trident, the true symbol of the Sea King, stood leaning against the wall in a corner.
::Heavy is the head that wears the crown! Eh, Majesty?:: Orm felt the words form inside his mind, like tiny bubbles fizzing on the surface of his brain.
The Sea King rocketed upward from his seat. “Get out!” he bellowed at the slaves, a blast of furious red magical energy spewing from his eyes and leaving a burn on the floor. Each slaves swam for their life, out into the hallway, but daring not to go too far from their master, for fear the next outburst of his arcane might be targeted on them.
“What do you want, Voice?” Orm said, remembering the last time he’d ‘heard’ from this mysterious, telepathic voice. It was more than ten years ago, just before his coronation. He’d felt the familiar tendrils dig into his mind. Voice had told him how he was not meant to rule the seas. She made him doubt himself, but nothing would steer him from his course. He had stepped onto the dais and he had been crowned the Sea King. His dear departed mother would have been so proud, to see him standing there, his long black hair flowing as the undersea currents swept it along.
::A free Atlantis!:: Voice formed the words one by one, louder and firmer in Orm’s mind. It was almost physically painful. ::And it is coming, Majesty.::
Orm seethed at the idea of anyone wresting this power from his grasp. He had been raised heir to the largest empire on the planet and he had taken control well before his time. Silently, he thanked his father for his sacrifice. He had given family, friends- his very soul to become the Lord of Atlantis. No one was going to take that power from him now. Not when he was on the verge of having all the pieces to the game. “I don’t know who you are, witch, and I may never find you; know this Atlantis is mine, from now until the end of time!”
::He will come, Majesty, liquid gold and fire swelling up under the sea, joy to bursting and a free Atlantis to come. He will ride with monsters, Majesty, the greatest and most feared of the sea-beasts will be at his side when he the true Sea King cut the head from the deep dragon and a free Atlantis comes!::
Orm felt Voice withdraw from his mind, but his rage was overflowing. “Who?!?” he screamed, letting a blast of force flow from his hand and through the wall across from him. The violent crimson energy split the wall like an axe splits a log to kindling, sending giant chunks of metal and stone falling into the passage below and crushing the slaves hiding there.
St. Paul, Minnesota, January 27, 2012
The medication made it hard for him to think. As more and more of the sedatives built up in his system, Arthur could feel his mind becoming foggier. He spent his days with at the plain wooden table with his four silent companions. His nights were spent in a room crowded with other male patients, some strapped down to their beds to keep them from wandering off and potentially hurting themselves or others. Even with the medications they kept him on, still the groaning and other noises the men made as the slept, or fought against sleep, kept him awake until the wee hours of the morning.
The next day, it would all repeat again. He would sit at the plain wooden table with this silent companions. Then something changed.
“Ocean,” Arthur said quietly, barely more than a whisper, as he closely inspected his quadrant of the table for hundredth time. He repeated the word over and over again in his mind, and every now and then, it slipped from his lips.
::Ocean,:: he heard in replied. The voice wasn’t like those he had experience all his life. There was no sound, no vibration along his ear drum or auditory nerves. This voice was inside his head. ‘I really am crazy,’ Arthur though, and put his head down on the table top, eyes closed.
::Ocean,:: said the same voice inside his head again; young, sweet and female, like the tinkle of glass bells in a seaside breeze.
::Ocean,:: said another voice, this one rough, like rocks tumbling down a cliff face before plunging violently through the surface of previously calm waters. ::Take me to the ocean.::
::Ocean,:: said a third voice, this one like bubbles popping in as they reached the surface.
::It has been so long since I saw the ocean.::
::Felt it on my skin,” intoned the first voice.
::Or tasted the salt on my tongues,:: the second voice added.
::Ocean,:: all three said in unison. ::Ocean! Ocean! Ocean!:: the voices began to chant, their tones mixing into a cacophony inside Arthur’s mind. Their voices melded, their chant almost like a song, ::Ocean, ocean, ocean,:: it beat like a drum inside Arthur’s skull, ::ocean, ocean, ocean,:: he could almost feel his sanity slipping away.
The chanting continued. Arthur screamed.
As Arthur’s scream continued, all of Pleasant Pine’s common room erupted into a flurry of movement. Charlie was up, moving like Arthur had never seen him move in the month they’d spent together. He had pulled the IV needle from his arm and bashing the stand against the wall of the common room. When the metal stand splintered and cracked in half, Charlie launched his fists and body at the walls, tearing through plaster and wiring toward the sunshine beyond.
Mary Pat Emerson was standing next to the carnage Charlie was causing, spinning in circles and toying with her pink bunny’s stuffing-less ear.
There was a noise, coming from close to where Sylvia was standing. Arthur couldn’t make out what it was over the sound of his own scream, a scream that no matter what he couldn’t seem to stop.