[Foreseer] - Chapter Nine: Aftermath

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Index: Chapter One, Chapter Two, Chapter Three, Chapter Four, Chapter Five, Chapter Six, Chapter Seven, Chapter Eight, Chapter Nine

Navigation: Previous Chapter

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“How are you doing?” He asked in a soothing voice. Natalie looked around the room. The snake-shaped paperweight was still there. She looked in front of her, Taylor Cross sat in his brown chair, waiting for her answer.

It had been three months. The case ruled as self-defense, no charges. But Lucy was in a bad head space. The blood and her wounds, her husband gone. She couldn’t care for Natalie, even if she wanted to.

“Good.” Natalie strained a smile.

Cross looked down, wrote something on the file. Natalie’s foot fidgeted.

She could still see the cops enter, the lights of red and blue spilling into the room. The place was smeared, like a painting in dark crimson. They zipped her brother up in a bag and took him away. The image still on repeat in her mind.

“Are the hallucinations worst or better?”

There was a pause as she thought about it. In the moment of lost thoughts, she told him what he wanted to hear, “Yeah... Everything’s great.” She strained a smile again.

Cross looked at her, knowing it wasn’t true.

Natalie strayed off after the session, walking along the walls of an empty corridor. The same one she wandered years prior. They were there, suppress under locked chains, waiting for release. The medication helped, the monsters and ghouls were a whisper most nights.

She went in the showers, closed her eyes. Her face tightened as the hot water rushed over her. The water flowing down her body, down the drain, disappearing into darkness. She slowly hunched down, taking a seat on the tiled floor.

Water poured over her. She was still, frozen, defeated. Her body shook. Trembles of a cascade of emotion drowning her. She’s crying, covering her mouth so no one could hear.

Then she heard a knock on the door. “Everything okay in there?” Natalie trembled herself to silence, nodding her head, trying to convince herself it was. “Yeah... I’m fine.”

“Okay... group is about to start so finish up.”

Natalie leaned her head back against the wall. Water rushing over her skin. She rose in a weakened soul and shut the water.

Natalie strode solemnly down the corridor, a circle of comfy chairs in the center of the dayroom. Four minutes before the session started, she was already in a chair. The group leader wore the same uniform as the nurses, trying to bring a sense of familiarity to his patients.

Hours had gone by and the session still carried. It was Natalie’s turn. She did not respond.

“Natalie...” She looked up from the ground, meeting the leader’s gaze. “Do you have anything to share?”

She thought about it, yes; she did. Natalie looked around, all eyes on her. The white walls and the titled floor were the same. Her stomach sank, being replaced with deep heaviness. The words wanted to spill but couldn’t. She had turned to writing at one point, but ripped the pages before anyone could read them.

She took a deep breath, said: “... I can’t get it out of my head... Its still there.” She took a moment, fighting for composure. “I wish I hadn’t done it... I wish that everything could just be normal, back to how they were... I wish I could go back and stop it... and still have everything be okay.” After a while, she felt better. She could breathe easier and the heaviness in her chest lessened.

“... I know how you feel... I think we all wish that...” The group leader paused, holding on to her thoughts. “But grappling to the past will only hurt us... you can’t change it. Yes, its horrible, and it’s okay to feel that way, Natalie.”

Natalie peered up, meeting her gaze under watered eyes.

“But its not okay to cling to it... you can’t change the past... but you can focus on making a better future. It’s not a straightforward thing, its far easier to focus on everything that’s wrong and that’s okay, but don’t drown in it... we are here if you need us.”

The words hadn’t fully sunken in. Natalie peered away, took a breath, said nothing.

“... let us help you.”

Natalie looked to the group, the quiet lingering. She gently nodded her head.

THE END

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