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The Engineer · (09-21-2017)

I can't breathe, Jesus I can't breathe....

The Engineer's hair is matted by a cold sweat. His eyes are terrorstruck, his pupils oblique orbs in a sea of milky white. Dr. Bennie tightens his grip on his client's arm, now more to stabilize him than get his attention.

You're fine, you're going to be fine, it's a panic attack. You need to sit.

The Engineer's breaths are coming quick and shallow now, chest heaving in discordant rhythm with the thudding of his heart. Dr Bennie helps lower him to the floor. Engy's back slides down the wall as he tries to bring in gulps of air. His fingers clench on the doctor's arm.

What the fuck is happening to me?!

You're waking up from a very long sleep. I understand how shocking this must be to you, realizing that who and what you thought you were for the last 25 years is a lie you've been telling yourself.

It does....**gulp**....it doesn't make any fucking sense....

Engy curls his legs up to his chin, and places his hands on his head. The fetal protective position of a child.

It does. Dexter...

Don't fucking call me that!

He shouts, but still doesn't look up or emerge from his huddled position on the floor.

It's your name. But if it upsets you I'll stop. Look, the fact is you have been lying to yourself. Or perhaps it's more accurate to say you've created a psychological cocoon for yourself. A means of dissociating from intense and horrific trauma. Have you heard of multiple personalty disorder...dissociative disorder? True examples are actually very rare. But in each case a person's mind fractures into discordant persona's as a defensive measure against some trauma. Because if you aren't YOU when the trauma happened, then you don't need to be afraid, or ashamed....

Why...why are you doing this to me....?

Engy intones breathlessly from within his shell.

My boy, I'm not doing ANYTHING to you. I'm helping you peel away this fortress you've built around yourself. I'm breaking through that to get at the real you. You have been suffering from a dissociative fugue for most of your life. But instead of breaking into many dissociative persona's you simply devolved into one. You became what you were at 12 years old. Your development was arrested by the severe psychological harm of years of mental and physical abuse both by your parents and the Court of Thelema. You're not an imbecile Engy, you've been a CHILD.

What the hell's a Court of Thelema?

Aiwass worshippers. They're the ones who put you in the tub.

Engy's legs fold against his body even tighter now, drawing up the bride over the moat. Keeping the memories out. He starts shaking his head emphatically.

No, no, no...

You remember it all now, don't you? You need to face it.

NO! I....I....

You need to!

I FUCKING CAN'T!

He lifts his head now, and black tears have begun to trace their way down his cheeks. Bennie has to stop himself from reeling in surprise. He gathers himself quickly.

You're so close. You have no idea how close you are to a major breakthrough. You're not a boy, you're a man. And a man confronts his fears. Engy...what happened to you that day in the tub?

Stop....please stop....

The words pour out as not so much an order, but an entreaty. A plea for mercy from the headman with the axe.

What the Court of Thelema did to you was wrong. You were too young to understand. It was barbaric what they did. But I represent other interests who also believe in Aiwass. We want to help you uncover your full potential. But we don't want to INFLICT this on you, Engy. We want to work WITH you. Gods man, how much sheer POTENTIAL you have! You think the success you've had so far is the limit? My boy, it's not even close. You want the power to destroy the Kings? The power to be Universal champion? Hell, think higher! You want the power to shape nations? To become a demi-God amongst men? You can be! You can! All you have to do....

Dr. Bennie surreptitiously pulls a tape recorder from his pocket, his the record button, and sits it next to Engy.

....is remember. The day in the tub. What happened? Tell me.

Engy sits quietly for a long moment, bringing his breathing under control. But even he can't deny that something HAS changed within him. A clarity of focus he never had. A clarity of memory.

And just like that, there it is. The singular event that shattered him. That rendered him a simple, simpering child for the next three plus decades of his life.

There it is.

Engy is seated, nude, in the moldering rusted bathtub. The scary grownups in the hoods surround him. His parents...oh God he can see their faces now. He SEES them! They're so....so nondescript. So bland. So uninspiring. People that evil, you should just be able to tell, right? They should have a deformity, a demonic spark in their eye, some signifier that sets them apart from the rest of the human race. A warning to the rest. But there wasn't. And that made it worse.

The people in the hoods began chanting. The words made no sense to this child that he was. But he can remember now, clear as day. Aiwass. Thelema. Blood and Sword. Vox Aeterna. Vox Aeterna. The words descend into a jumble of awkward syllables and nonsense words, the mangled tune of a dead and dark language from the dawn of time. The Engineer can recite them now. And he does.

Finally, the chanting ends, and another figure enters. It's a woman who was beautiful once. But now her body is a patchwork cacophony of fresh bleeding wounds, symbols and runes carved into the flesh. She's losing a lot of blood, but her face is placid and devoid of emotion. It's the first time he's ever seen a naked woman in person.

She dips one leg into the tub, and then the other. The boy marvels at the paradise between her legs. It didn't look anything like his mother's. She starts to bend at her knees, lowering herself down onto him and despite his terror his physiology reacts and with a gasp he enters her.

It doesn't take long. And when it's over, she leaves just as perfunctorily as she arrived. A job done, and the boy was left feeling adrift and wondering what this strange scarred woman's name even was.

But then the hoods retake their place at the sides of the tub. It seems even more claustrophobic now, as though more had been spawned out of the dark place between dreams in the interim to form a more complete hedgerow of inhumanity around the tub. And the terror returns. The boy tries to retreat into the stained porcelain of the tub, praying that the cold unfeeling sheen beneath his bare flesh will deign to take him and release him from this nightmare. But, of course, it doesn't. The chanting begins anew, and one of the hoods appears with a bucket. The boy pleads, throwing his hands up in a vain attempt to ward against what's coming. Gore spills forth from the bucket, blood, guts and entrails, weeding around his insufficient fingers and slopping onto his tub like feed in a trough. The boy screams and screams. Another bucket, more blood and gore. Another bucket, and another. Filling the tub. The boy fears he'll drown in this sick and two of the hoods hold him down, hold him down and then hold him UNDER. Blood goes up his nose and into his eyes and ears. It tastes like iron and vomit, and it takes him a moment to realize that the vomit is his own.

He panics as he realizes he's drowning. Trying to fight off the arms holding him down, he digs his nails deep into a hairy forearm. His efforts grant him some purchase, and he is allowed to rise. But only for a moment, before going under again. The boy's baptism continues for what seems like hours, each time his red hued vision taking in the hoods, the hoods and his parents, and then...one final time, standing amidst the hoods is a black mass. No, more than black. Pure absence or color, form, function or matter. A monster out of time. And somehow, he knows this is Aiwass. The last thing he sees before succumbing to unconsciousness is Aiwass, offering him an apple.

But this is where the memory breaks. Somehow, teetering on oblivion, in these precious few fractions of a second, the boy instinctively knows the apple is his for the taking. The boy looks down at his body, now a fully grown adult body covered in blood.

He takes the apple. And the black comes.

The Engineer comes to on the floor of Dr. Bennie's study. His eyes open slowly. Dr. Bennie is standing over him, hitting a button on a tape recorder, his face dripping with satisfaction.

How...I.....uh, Jesus....

Rest now Dexter. Rest. You performed exceptionally well.

I took it. The apple. I took it.

The doctor leans over him, petting his sweat drenched hair. His smile is oddly warm and inviting.

I expected nothing less. Goodnight, my boy. Goodnight Dexter. When you wake up, you will be a new man.

Dexter Bright once more touches the void, and disappears into it.

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