This will be the first thing that I have ever written and then released for public perusal. It is an anecdotal backstory of my Fursona and I hope you enjoy it.
I'm happy to have people read and critique it. Feel free.
--- --- ---
Turning, the grey and black wolf dressed in a blue polo tucked into a pair of comfortable jeans held up with a subtle belt took in the room around him. A small smile crept onto his face as he remembered where he was. His eyes alighted on a couch in the corner before darting to the large window that gave this room its ample light. His entire body spoke of reservation and introspection. He moved slowly as though studying everything around him. His eyes darted from here to there not from panic, but from a thirst to learn about what they beheld. As his eyes moved however, that smile disappeared.
Otebon remembered this place. It was funny that he would dream of this tiny room. This was where he would come when the pain had become too great. Here there was silence and solitude. It was a place away from their insults and jeers. It had become his secret hideaway. Somewhere he could focus on nothing but the crushing sound of silence and the numbness of his body.
Otebon rarely felt pain, or much of anything for that matter. The doctors had said that there was some problem with his nerves, some chemical imbalance or electrical dysfunction that made the very breeze that tickled the skin of others pass by without so much as a noticeable effect on Otebon. Such a strange medical curiosity was not accepted well in the Lord of the Flies-like world of children. Such a condition was taken much like a logical or intelligent view on the world was in that realm: shunned and ridiculed.
When he had first found this small corner of the school, Otebon had been overjoyed. No longer would he be forced to be alone in the middle of a crowd. He could retreat into his own private world and spend what little free time he had outside of classes alone. Now, however, this place held only fear for him.
He went to the window and looked down on the ground below, reveling in the familiar landscape of his High School. Almost as soon as he gazed out onto the world below, he froze. The movements of the people below were very familiar to him. The angle of the sun was just right. The time was exact…
This was no dream, this was a memory…
There goes Samantha and Becky, Otebon’s mind tracked as he stood there frozen in terror. Subconsciously, he counted three seconds out in his mind before adjusting his gaze slightly. Right on cue the door opened, letting his favorite teacher, Mr. Metcalf, out of the building. His favorite football team just won. It’s the only chance he gets to wear that ridiculous tie… Otebon knew exactly what came next in this memory, but he did not wish to proceed. He willed himself to wake up, but couldn’t. His mind screamed to be free of this torture, but there was no response. Something held him here.
That’s when he heard the sound of a book being dragged across a table.
As much as he willed it not to happen, as much as his mind wrestled for control of his own body, as much as he fought to stop it, his neck slowly turned to look back to the couch that had been placed in this hidden lounge for the French Club many years ago. He didn’t need to ask who he would find laid out on that seat. Otebon knew that face as intimately as he knew his own, though he had only seen it clearly once.
“It’s nice to finally be able to see you,” the midnight-black furred Wolf said with a terrible smile on his face. He had picked up Otebon’s book and was flicking through the pages, contempt visible in every line of his body. His clothes were the twin of Otebon’s, but somehow changed. There was nothing that Otebon could point to that made his clothes different than those, but where his expressed quiet reservation, his doppelganger’s displayed open and aggressive disdain.
Otebon remembered the first time he had seen this creature. His first action had been to inspect his own grey-furred body immediately (which his body did without his permission). With the exception of coloring, they could have been twins. Their height, approximate weights, size, build… Everything was exactly the same, except that voice and the eyes. Where Otebon spoke in a voice tempered by respect and laced with logic, this black Wolf with electric blue eyes sounded like a snake; soft and treacherous.
“Who are you?” Otebon’s mind already knew the answer, but his body still asked the question. This had swiftly become a nightmare. Otebon had always feared the loss of control and now here he was watching himself be controlled. He watched as this horror story unfolded in front of eyes unbidden. “How did you find me?”
The Wolf laughed and threw the book to the floor with a crash. “You already know the answer to that one, don’t you?” The Wolf slid his feet from the armrests of the couch and to the floor, a sardonic smile plastered to that all-to-familiar face. “I can see the gears turning in there Otebon. So,” The Wolf stood and threw his arms wide. “Who am I?”
Otebon had always known that his obsession with his own mind would cause him irreparable harm one day. When one delved deeper and deeper into the mind in search of answers and mysteries the strain would break off pieces of the searchers psyche. Those separated pieces would undoubtedly grow along their own paths, begin gather their own quirks, form their own mental landscapes, and assume their own personalities…
“Now he gets it,” the strange Doppelganger said with a loud clap. “I am you, but the side of you that you buried long ago. I’m that ‘other half’ you’ve kept locked away from everyone else. The side you threw all of your dark desires into. I’m who you could be; who you know you should be. I’m you,” he waved his hands dismissively, ”without all those pesky limitations.”
Otebon fell back in fear, hand coming up defensively. The mirror image advanced, a hungry look smoldering behind his eyes.
“You’re good at looking at the big picture. Just imagine it Otebon… No moral codes. No right. No wrong.” Each statement emphasized with a step forward. “No attachment. No need to wear that mask of yours anymore.”
Otebon felt the pressure impact of a wall behind him and realized he had been herded into the corner farthest from the door. If his double had been physical, there would have been little chance of escape, but this creature wasn’t physical. He was a figment of his imagination; a splinter of his mind. Running would be futile.
How could you outrun your own shadow?
The black Wolf took one final step, bringing him face to face with Otebon, a predatory smile growing on his face. The Wolf’s hand came up and laid lightly on Otebon’s shoulder as he leaned in and whispered into Otebon’s ear.
“No more sanity. Just darkness, forever.”
Otebon watched himself as his body pushed the doppelganger away. The black Wolf only laughed.
“I see you’re not quite ready for me just yet. You and I will meet again however. Soon… very soon. Call me Luc.”
--- --- ---
Otebon’s eyes shot open as he jerked from his sleep.
He sat up in bed and breathed heavily, his head in his hand. With a guarded eye, he looked at the glowing face of his alarm clock. It was 4:26 in the morning… on a Thursday…
I’ve got two and a half hours before my lab starts, Otebon sighed. There’s no way I’m going back to sleep after that one… Today’s going to be fun…
Slowly, ponderously, Otebon crawled out of bed. He rarely dreamed, so when he did he always tried to remember everything about the event as he could, even if it was a nightmare. In fact, he hadn’t dreamt consistently since Luc had appeared to him.
Unbidden, Otebon’s subconscious mind, perpetually searching through thousands of databases and making millions of connections a second, pulled up everything about Luc. Facts and suspicions flew through his mind, but it was the name that was the most interesting thing right now.
Luc: French version of Anglicized name “Luke”. Greek name meaning “from Lucania”. Was the name of a Saint and Doctor that traveled with Saint Paul. Related: Latin for “light” and used as in names such as “Lucifer”: The Bearer of the Light.
There in the dark, Otebon groaned as that fun-fact flashed through his conscious mind. Even through it was the only dream he’d had in months, Otebon almost wished he’d not had it. One more night of Oblivion would have been nice. Now that his mind was focused on the conundrum of Luc, he could already feel the familiar itch.
Ever since that day in High School, Otebon had felt… something else following him everywhere. Sometimes the feeling was well outside of what he could perceive and he could imagine that he was alone. Other times it was an itch that prickled his skin and made him edgy. There had even been times where Otebon had thought he’d seen Luc’s smile, grim and terrible, flash out of sight or heard Luc’s voice whisper in a crowded room. Every time he searched however, he never found anything. There simply couldn’t be evidence of a ghost.
Quickly grabbing some pants and a shirt, Otebon headed downstairs. He moved as silently as he could, so as not to wake up the other people in his townhouse and soon entered the kitchen. The thought of a nice, warm breakfast first and foremost in his thoughts. He reached into the fridge for some eggs to make an omelet and promptly stopped. The itch had come back and was now almost unbearable. The last time Otebon had felt this way, someone from school had followed him for half a mile so that he could try to plant a knife in Otebon’s ribs. It hadn’t been the first time either…
He hadn’t heard anything, but he was sure someone else was in the room with him. Otebon closed his eyes and took a single breath, exalting in the cold air of the refrigerator. He focused inward, ears straining to hear the soft sound of breathing, fingers searching for the vibrations of footsteps through the vibrations of the refrigerator. He heard nothing, so he took another breath before standing.
“Good morning Otebon,” Luc said, that sarcastic smile plastered across his face. “Sleep well?”
Otebon spun and had to take a few deep breaths to steady himself. It wasn’t that he was startled by finding Luc there. The feelings of being followed and having someone watching his every move had been growing over the past three months. 87 days, 14 hours, 12 minutes, Otebon’s subconscious absently noted as his eye flashed to look at the clock on the oven. The feeling had started the day he’d met Amy. Luc smiled.
“Yes…,” Luc said as he stood up from the table where he’d been sitting. The half-light from the refrigerator gave a pale twilight caste to the kitchen table and chair that had been carelessly leaned back against the wall. “Amy… Isn’t she just wonderful?”
Otebon took one more breath. “I don’t have to listen to you. You are a figment of my-“
“Do you really need to say that every time you think you see me lurking behind a corner?” Luc exhaled with great irritation. “When will you just accept that I exist? It would be easier on the both of us.”
“But you can’t!” Otebon whispered so that his roommates wouldn’t be disturbed. Sure they were his friends, but there were times that Otebon caught sideways glances and happened upon awkward pauses in the conversation. They accepted him, but they knew that Otebon had some strange quirks; things that made them wonder if Otebon merely presented a mask to the world.
That wasn’t far from the truth.
“You simply can’t exist, Luc,” Otebon said. He closed the fridge, plunging the kitchen into darkness. He felt no fear from Luc; this specter would not harm him. He feared what this wraith represented and what he could influence. “You are a break in my mind, nothing more than a divergent personality. You are the result of a-”
Luc’s face twisted into a rictus of fury. “Stop saying that!” Luc yelled and Otebon flinched. As much as he knew that Luc’s voice couldn’t wake up anyone, the fury was almost palpable. “How could you still believe that? After everything I’ve done! You like to sit there and say you make every decision based on logic, but when the chips are down, who do you turn to? Where would you be without me?”
Memories began to assault Otebon’s mind, each clamoring over the other for attention. Otebon was returned to times when Logic had failed and instinct had prevailed. He remembered instances where emotion had roiled in his mind, emotions that had destroyed Reason. He remembered how the calm of training and reflex fell over him in times of distress. Thoughts of darting blades, knives that would have ended Otebon’s life in the past, flashed through his mind. In each and every case, Luc had been there. When Otebon’s Logic stumbled, Luc took control. When he had been attacked and assaulted by those that didn’t understand, when Wit failed to divert their ignorance, Luc had taken control. He had chosen where and when to strike, not Otebon…
And when Otebon truly relaxed with Amy and let go, Luc had shown himself to be quite the amorous boyfriend…
Otebon brought down his mental walls like a guillotine; shutting out that line of thought. When he was with Amy, quite possibly the girl that Otebon loved, Luc would always be there, smiling. She was the one person that Otebon could feel at ease with, but he couldn’t allow himself to relax too far. He couldn’t allow for a lapse in his defenses even now.
“And so we come full circle,” Luc said. Otebon couldn’t see his opponent in the dark, but he could imagine the wide smile that no doubt marked Luc’s face. “She is quite wonderful, isn’t she?”
Otebon reached a hand out to the side. Two inches to the left, three down the part of his mind that had memorized this building months ago guided. The light over the stove flicked into being, revealing Luc was no longer in front of the kitchen table. Now he was leaning against the wall, mere inches from Otebon.
“Yes,” Otebon said in a voice cold enough to freeze water. “Amy is the best thing to ever have happened to me, and you have no part in this.”
Luc laughed loud and clear. “But it has everything to do with me. I’m the one she wants. It isn’t your Logic that’s responding when she holds our hand. It isn’t your Reason that makes your heart flutter when you see her. And it surely isn’t your-“
“Silence,” Otebon hissed, conscious that his rising voice might wake his roommates. “You do not exist.”
Luc stopped laughing, if only tap Otebon on the back once before letting his hand slide quickly down Otebon’s back. An intense pain sprang from that slash, causing Otebon’s mouth to open in a silent scream.
Otebon reacted as he had been trained. He pushed Luc away (a useless gesture his subconscious added listlessly) as one hand went to inspect the damage. Through his numb fingers he could feel a long scratch and seeping blood. In a combat-ready stance, Otebon drew his hand in front of his face to see it covered in his own blood.
Luc raised his own hand to show Otebon a few ruby drops of blood apparent on his claws. “You know what’s funny about me? I’m not actually your creation. Originally, I was just an Essence floating through Aether. I was nothing. I couldn’t rightly be called a dream, or a thought, not even a wisp of Imagination. I was simply the potential to become Something.” Luc’s eyes then focused on Otebon’s, holding him in place. “Then I found you and that marvelous brain of yours. Your mind is very unique in one aspect: it can make an Essence become something more. When I found you, I fed on your divergent mind. I devoured your insecurities, I emulated your fears, I used what you discarded and made this body. Right now, I exist primarily in your mind and share your body, but there are still some things I can do to affect the world around us…”
Luc laid a hand on the wall before turning to walk away into the shadows left by the meager light coming from the hood above the stove. “Remember this one rule, the more power you give me, the more power I have. Soon, I’ll be able to walk this world. I might even do it in your body…”
Luc’s voice faded as he disappeared, leaving a thin trail of blood on the wall and Otebon alone in his small island of light. For a long while, he didn’t move. He simply couldn’t.
It was all a game, he thought to himself. It was all just a ploy. That was just a trick of the mind that I should take as a warning that I should take a break. I work too hard. I need a day off… yeah. That’s it. I need a break… But try as he might to just write off this morning’s strange experience, he couldn’t ignore one thing. Unsurprisingly, the logical side of Otebon’s head began to count a new source of worry even as it began to list the necessary steps to correct it.
Three… Four… Five… Six drops of blood on the floor. Need to clean the wall before anyone wakes up. Apply pressure to stop the bleeding as soon as possible…
Topic: To See a Ghost By Otebon Albrecht (Read 1109 times)