The
reality of it is too much for me. The
illusions, the betrayal, my journey as a child being nothing but in vain, it’s
all too much. I was led to believe that
I had done something significant for the world, but as it turned out, I was
just falling into his trap. Ever since
the day I defeated his illusion, he has had his eye on me. He was drawing me out into the open to destroy
me. Why? I don’t know. Something I
did, it doesn’t make sense.
The truth
started revealing itself, confusing me even further as it did. He was not the father who I knew as a child:
distant and only in audible form over the telephone. No, when I was seventeen, I learned that the man on the phone was
my uncle. My father never kept in touch
with the family. My mother did this
only to protect my sister and me from distress. The reality of it is much darker. I still don’t know what that reality is, but I know it is
dark. I know this because my mother’s
voice trembles with uncontrollable fear at the thought of him. The fear evoked by my own father.
Throughout
my entire life I thought I would meet him.
The drama of our encounter raced through my head all the time: a father
meeting his son, the hero of the world.
Now I know that this will never be.
In fact, I now believe that it is – and has been – his will to destroy
me. I see it, I feel it; it is in my
dreams. When I sleep I see nothing but
I feel his presence, ridiculing me and pushing me toward self-destruction.
I wake up wounded and hungry many days, with a headache, but I cannot sleep that off, for sleep only makes me more fatigued and infirm. I live from day to day like this, suffering in the physical aftershock of a subconscious hell, always thinking of it. It’s been getting worse. I am close to the edge of despair. My mother cries every night, and I feel that I can do something about it, but then when I think about my “saving the world” when I was younger, I feel it’s only the illusion of capability instilled by that incident. That’s what my father tells me in my dreams. Without words, he says “your powers are an illusion; you are weak.” He taunts me and calls out to me. “You are weak. You are weak. Come to me.”
Even
though I am weak in mind and spirit, I have begun to put things together. I now believe in my heart that my father was
the puppeteer behind the illusion that was Giygas, and that he somehow has to
do with the Starmen. I believe he was
the one who set the obstacles in my journey as a child. I believe he is alive, and that I must find
him to fix all of this, before he eventually destroys me, and everything around
me.
The letter sat on a small nightstand, a worn-down pencil lying on top of it. Beside the letter, a small analog clock ticked near one o’clock in the morning. The bed that once embraced an adolescent hero now bore the weight of a fully-grown teenager. Around the bed and the nightstand were scatterings of clothing and papers for school, in addition to small bags from the burger joint in town, as well as comic books and a small television with a video game console hooked up to it. Other items in this bedlam included an electric guitar, a collection of CDs, and an autographed “Sephy and the Sharks” poster hung on the wall.
In the bed, the fully-grown teenager slept, almost completely different from the Ness who saved the world years ago. But he was still there, just older, and worn from the emotional tire he was feeling in recent months. In his sleep, he tossed and turned, as unclear images ran through his mind, and the taunting voice played over and over. In his sleep, he could feel his skin and hair burning, as the voice laughed and taunted him. In his dream he saw fire. The scare was too much, and he woke and instantly sat up, a terrified expression on his face. At that moment, his door broke open and flames flew in. Ness threw the blankets off of himself and stood up, grabbing for the fire extinguisher in his closet, still in shock and disbelief that his house was on fire. He engaged the fire extinguisher, but slipped on some papers on the floor as he began to run toward the fire.
A draft from the fire pulled at the letter Ness had written, and the letter went flying toward the door, igniting. It fell to the ground, and at that moment, the fire spread all around the room. Ness yelled in surprise, dropped the fire extinguisher, and ran out to look for his mother and sister. He threw open his sister’s door and called out to her.
“Tracy!” Ness’s yell yielded no response, so he ran in to check for her. She was not in her room. He ran downstairs, through burning wood and flames, to check for his mother. The door was open and flames had engulfed her room, but the blankets had been thrown off the bed, and she was not in the room.
Ness ran outside into a hard rain. Standing no more than ten feet from the door, it slammed on him, and on the door was hung a sign with large, red lettering.
COME TO ME.
Ness looked on in disbelief for a moment, then yelled again, charging the door. “What do you want with my life!?” he exclaimed. The door burst into flames, throwing Ness back into a ditch of mud made by the rain. At that moment, the roof exploded into flames and began to fall into the house. Ness ran back to the road and watched his house and all of his belongings perish in the flames. Sirens from the south, in the valley, could be heard, as Ness cried on his knees. He still did not know where his mother or sister were. Three police cars pulled up in front of Ness’s house.
“Squad three, squad three, large fire, send hoses! I repeat, send hoses!” The rushed radio commands of the Onett police force could barely be heard over the rush of the fire and the intensity of the rain. The police chief, Captain Strong, dashed over to Ness.
“Ness! You okay?” He asked.
Ness could barely speak over the rain and fire in his tears. “My mother and sister!”
“Are they in there?” Chief Strong exclaimed.
“No… I don’t know where they are!”
“Did you check in the house?”
“Yes,” said Ness. Chief Strong went over to talk to the others, as the sounds of fire engines came closer from the valley. A large figure in a raincoat, holding an umbrella, drew near to the situation. The figure spoke in a hideously high-pitched voice.
“Good heavens! What in the dang hork is goin on here!” The figure ran over to Ness. “Ness! What in the name of Pedro Poopypants is happ’nin!”
Chief Strong approached the woman. “Excuse me, ma’am, who are you?”
“Who am I?” She asked. “Why, my name is Lardna Prettyman, I live right here next to this here house that’s burnin’ down! Look at you child,” said Lardna, flicking burnt ashes off of Ness’s head.
“You’d better stand back, ma’am, until we have this situation under control. You could get hurt,” said Chief Strong. Lardna began to move a distance from the scene, mumbling incoherently about the proper way to speak to a lady of such high caliber as hers.
The fire trucks arrived a few minutes later and doused what was left of Ness’s house, until it was no more than a warm smolder of burned wood. Ness was too shaken up to have a reaction; instead he remained on his knees, a tired and confused look on his face. Ness was questioned by the police about what happened, but he had no idea. All that he knew was that his house burned down, and that his mother and sister were missing. Chief Strong sent the word for a missing persons bulletin to be posted in the area.
“Do you have a place you can go to stay for now?” asked Chief Strong.
Ness began to speak. “I don…”
“Of course! He can stay with us!” chirped Lardna, having stepped back into the area. Ness looked up, not wanting to, but before he could reply, Chief Strong gave a firm nod.
“So it is done. Ness Franklin, we will contact you in twelve hours to get more things straightened out. You need rest.” Chief Strong signaled to his men to tape off the house area for investigation.
Lardna gave Ness a hug and nearly suffocated him. “I’m so glad you’re okay Nessie, I was worried you were gonna die in that there fire!”
Ness followed her back into the house, where her son Picky was seated at the kitchen table. Lardna stood in the doorway and gave her son a mean glare.
“Mom,” said Picky in a whiny voice. “Can I have a cookie?”
“No… you… may… not!” exclaimed Lardna. “Now go back to bed, it’s ages past your bedtime.”
“Ness,” said Picky in a whiny voice. “Can I have a cookie? Please?”
Lardna grunted, and Picky went flying upstairs. “I apologize,” said Lardna. “You can sleep in Pokey’s room, he’s away at some boarding school somewhere.” She led him to Pokey’s room, which was clean and sterile, having not borne a resident in many months.
Ness spoke in a tired and strained voice. “Thank you, Mrs. Prettyman.” She smiled and removed her raincoat, to expose her red polka-dotted pajamas. “Now I’m gonna get back to bed and watch some more TV. Can’t miss the rest of the Laverne and Shirley marathon!” She dashed off, saying something about Squiggy being a hunk.
Ness laid down in Pokey Minch’s bed, and was instantly uncomfortable with sleeping in the place of his arch-nemesis. However, something more powerful was making him unsettled. It was the presence. The presence of his father, the one that haunted his dreams. It was more powerful than ever. Ness tried to fight it, and to go to sleep, but he kept tossing, and was growing closer to pure despair by the moment. Finally, he tossed so hard that he fell off the bed, and landed on the floor.
Ness was too tired to get back up, and tried drifting back to sleep, still feeling his father’s presence. He was almost asleep when he noticed something while looking under Pokey’s bed. “Wha…”
Ness put his arm under the bed and reached for a glow he saw. He pulled out a small, purple, glowing stone. His eyes grew wide, as the presence overtook him. In his head, the visions of his nightmares spun circles and filled his head. He threw the stone to the other side of the room, but it was as if the stone did not want to let go of him. It was calling to him from the other side of the room.
“The… Sound Stone…” Ness could not believe it. The Sound Stone had returned. The last time he saw it was years ago on his journey. Now it had returned, and was haunting his life. He scrambled over to Pokey’s closet and looked around in it, pulling out a large aluminum baseball bat. He grabbed the stone and walked out of Pokey’s room, and outside of the house.
Ness wearily looked for a large rock outside. Fifteen feet from the house, he saw a rock buried in the ground. He went over and placed the Sound Stone on the rock. With the aluminum bat, he mustered all of the energy he could, and dropped the bat on the Sound Stone.
The Sound Stone made the sharpest, loudest, and shrillest noise Ness had ever heard. It shattered into hundreds of pieces, landing all around the area, smoking and burning. At that moment, a huge flash of light crossed Ness’s vision, and instantly his head became clear, and free of the presence of his father.
The light in Lardna Prettyman’s room went on, and the muffled sound of her saying “Good heavens!” could be heard. Ness looked at the house for a moment, then ran. He ran away from that house, past the remains of his house, and down into the valley. He ran into the forest, and found his way in the dark to a severely marked and tagged tree with a rope ladder attached to it. He climbed the rope ladder and entered a tree house that was built into the upper part of the tree. He shut the door and collapsed.
Ness fell asleep within two minutes in the tree house. Although the roof leaked rain onto his cold body, and the wind blew in from the windows, he was drawn into a deep sleep almost instantly. And in his sleep, he was no longer haunted by the presence of his father.
He dreamed, instead, of his journey long ago, when he traveled the world with three other people he had never met before, and had seen very little of since. He thought about all of the places he had been, and how the experience of seeing the world was so enlightening. He dreamed of eating steak, his favorite food, and playing guitar. He dreamed of starting a rock band, called the P.S.I. Rockers. More important than what he dreamed was the fact that he dreamed, and dreamed of something other than the cursed presence. The curse was broken. Ness enjoyed the best sleep of many months that night, even with the wind and rain.
Ness was still sleeping when the late morning light broke into the tree house’s window. The birds chirped in the trees nearby, and the sound of Saturday morning activities in the small town of Onett could be heard in the distance.
“NESS!” A shout stirred Ness from his sleep as he sat up.
“Wha…” Ness could barely mumble so fresh from his state of slumber.
“You’re here!” shouted a familiar voice. “Hey! Ness is in here!”
Three teenage boys stumbled into the tree house, barely fitting comfortably. “We tried calling you this morning,” said one of the boys, “but your phone wasn’t working. We wanted to see what was going on.”
Ness was a little more awake by this time. “What do you mean what was going on?”
“About the incident last night! By your house!’
Ness remembered everything that had happened and frowned. “Didn’t you see?”
“See what?” asked his friend.
“What do you mean ‘see what?’ That was the incident. My house caught fire!”
The mouths of the other three dropped instantly. “Your house caught fire?”
“Yeah…”
“That’s not what I saw,” said Ness’s friend.
“What… did you see?” asked Ness.
“Well,” his friend started, “I was out for a late walk when I saw a big car driving by your house.”
“When was this?” asked Ness.
“Around one in the morning.”
“And?”
“And there were people in the car.”
“What people?” asked Ness, his tone becoming more frantic.
“I thought you were going out, but it was peculiar that you’d go out this late, so I was worried.”
“You were worried?”
“Yes, because the car was driving really fast and really erratically. And then this morning when we called your house, the phone wasn’t working.”
“So you thought something had happened to me?”
“Yeah, that’s why I’m glad we found you.” The three of them laughed, but Ness remained serious.
“Tommy,” said Ness, “I want you to think really hard about that car. Who was in it?”
Tom thought for a moment. “Uh… several people?”
“But who!” Ness was very frantic.
“Someone was driving, and someone was in the passenger seat…” Tom was trying to think.
“Was there anyone else!” asked Ness.
Tommy spoke. “It looked like there were people in the back… yeah. Actually, now that I think about, they looked like they couldn’t move.”
“What did they look like?” Asked Ness.
Tommy replied. “They looked like… two women. One small, one grown.” At that moment, the wind blew and took Ness’s baseball cap out the window with it.