So I Tried A New Thing Last Weekend Where I Took An Entire Novel And Condensed It Into Four And A Half Pages. It's Official, I'm Amazing. I Don't Wish To Do Anything With This Story As Of Now (Since The Whole Thing Is Right Here In 3000 Something Odd Words). If I Do Go On With This And Actually Write Out The Whole Thing Or A Sequal Or Something, Well, I'll Let You Know. But For Now Enjoy (What I've Been Told Is One Of The Greatest Things I've Ever Written. I Hope You Think The Same).

Comments Are Appreciated (Bring On The Hate Mail! I Triple-Dog-Dare You!).

(Enter).

The Amazing Me

People always told me that I had an overactive imagination, which could have been true, but I never believed them. I thought it was perfectly normal for a kid to retreat into a made up world where they ruled and controlled anything and everything that happened. My world was called Viterramater, a combination of root words meaning life, earth, and mother. Viterramater was my mother earth and it did live, if only in me. No one wanted to see my world, calling me crazy, a delusional little freak, and to some a cock sucking little bitch (courtesy of my peers). My father turned me over to psychiatrists when I was eight. They tried to tell me that I suffered from schizophrenia, but I didn’t buy it. They tried to tell me that I needed medicine, but I didn’t take it. They also tried to blame my “problem” on my parents. They said I resorted to nonsense because Mommy and Daddy didn’t live under one roof. They’d never lived under one roof. My parents hooked up once at the age of fourteen, almost fifteen, and nine months later I was born. They didn’t like each other, nor did they hate each other. They were well enough friends and both did their part in raising the only kid they shared. I never minded it. There was no changing the fact that I was a bastard child.

The psychiatrists never blamed much on my father. He was a successful, well-rounded, married man with four kids other than me. He was a neurosurgeon. His wife was nice and treated me as if I was her own, and my siblings weren’t so bad. I liked them. They were a great audience when it came to story telling. But they were never real to them, only stories. I told them to believe, and they did, but children only believe in something for so long: Santa Clause, the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny, monsters in the closet and under the bed. Though I never believed in any of those things existing in our world (I knew they were hoaxes), I still believed that maybe, in some other dimension, they did exist and wished that we were real. I always thought outside the box. I never considered it a mental disorder.

My poor mother had the most shit dumped on her all the time. I lived with her because I didn’t like being separated from her. They always blamed her because when she wasn’t at the store stocking groceries, or picking up everyone else’s trash on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, she was drinking. She never beat me or neglected me like most commercials tell you will happen to you and your loved ones when you drink. She was a very happy drunk, very affectionate and sweet. She was fun. We always played games and, at night when I was younger, we’d look at the shadows on the ceiling and make out shapes and make up stories. The psychiatrists said that this was the cause of my “problem.” Instead of teaching me about the real world, she encouraged me to live in a fantasy world, in Viterramater. The truth was, my mother never knew about Viterramater. Before I ever got the chance to tell her, they revoked her drinking license and put her on Zoloft, telling her that she was depressed and used drinking as an outlet. She was never the same again. I was eleven, and heartbroken.

That summer, I discovered that I had artistic talent. I’d never tried drawing anything before. For school projects, I printed pictures off the internet, slapped them on a poster board, and left it at that. I didn’t see the point in drawing things I didn’t believe in. I discovered my talent out of boredom. With nothing to do and nowhere to go, I picked up a piece paper and a pen and tried to draw my lamp. It came out an exact replica. I showed it to my mother, she said it was nice, and continued to crochet, a hobby my current psychiatrist had told her to pick up. When she wasn’t working, she did nothing but. I went back to my room and drew more things: my bed, my chair, my bookshelf, my desk. They all turned out perfect as well. I then took it a step further the next day and tried to draw things from my mind. They turned out exactly as I had imagined them. Within days, my walls and floor were covered with illustrations of the different monsters that occupied Viterramater, and the many different lands and seas. I showed them to my psychiatrist. She told me that I needed to burn them. So I kept them. Who the fuck was she to tell me what I needed and didn’t need?

I was threatened once by my father. It wasn’t so much that he didn’t like my imagination, he was just sick of me pissing off my psychiatrists. That meant another person he had to hire to talk to his kid. I knew he loved me, so I understood the real reasons for his anger. He said if I didn’t get my shit together and stop talking about Viterramater, so help him God, he would. So I did. I stopped talking about it, and I got my shit together, then stashed it away. People stopped pestering me about my “problem.” They said I was cured, when I never had a problem to begin with. It worked, and I couldn’t believe that I hadn’t thought of it earlier. And in months, I was put in a regular school with regular kids. And there I met regular people, and made regular friends. No more kids who thought they were monkeys, carrots, and Michael Jackson. No more kids who told me I had a purple aura around me. No more kids who “knew what I was thinking.” No more crazy people. I was not one of them and I never would be.

When I was in ninth grade, my mother got a boyfriend. I didn’t like him. He was rude and treated me like some little gremlin that lived under the steps. We had no steps. We lived in an apartment in a boarding house on the edge of town. He’d come over, raid the fridge, yell at my mom for not having any food, then tell her he was sorry and they’d go off into her room. That’s when I’d climb out my window and take a walk for two hours. I didn’t want to hear it—the walls were thin. When my mom wasn’t around, he’d yell at me and tell me to look at him when he talked to me, no, don’t go off into my room, stay right there and take it like a man, no, don’t slam that door. He wasn’t my father. He couldn’t tell me what to do, or at least not the way he did. I locked my door every time and lay down on my bed. I dreamt of white dragons from Viterramater ripping my mother’s boyfriend to shreds and hanging his head on a plaque on my wall. I asked my mother once why she stuck around with him. She said she loved him. I corrected her and said she was afraid of him. She grounded me.

As I grew older, I found myself thinking less of Viterramater. I had friends to see, places to go, things to do. I was too busy for Viterramater, and by the time I was fifteen, I’d all but forgotten about it completely. They started talking to me—in my sleep, during tests, dinner, the shower. Why don’t you play with us anymore? Why won’t you come back? I have other things to do now. But you have free time; can’t you use that time to play with us? I’m too old. No one’s too old to play with their friends.

I made the mistake of telling my father that the inhabitants of Viterramater were talking to me. He threw me back into the shrink’s office, and it was Q and A all over again. How do you feel? What are these voices saying to you? They’re not voices; they’re actual living, breathing things. They gave me medication. I took it once and it nearly killed me. When I swallowed the pill, the whole planet cried out in pain. I didn’t want to hurt them anymore. They were real screams that haunted me for twenty-four hours. Real organisms I was killing. They were all my children, my number one fans, a part of me. I cried in math class because they wouldn’t stop screaming. They sent me to the nurse, then sent me home. I made promises that night to all of them. I’ll never take those pills again for as long as I live. They cheered and told me they loved me. I loved them too.

My grades slipped gradually through my fingers, my friends became distant memories. I spent my days deep into Viterramater. It didn’t matter where I was. I felt like a parent that had neglected their child. I needed to nurse the planet and give it everything it wanted and needed. My parents asked me why I was suddenly doing so poorly. I lied and said I didn’t know. They told me not to tell my parents the truth, or else my parents would make me take those pills. I didn’t want to hurt them again.

My father hired me tutors. It wasn’t that I didn’t know how to comprehend and take notes, I just didn’t want to. I didn’t have time to worry about school. I had to take care of Viterramater. Every moment of tutoring was spent with me nodding my head, saying that I understood, but it wasn’t really me. It was an autopilot I’d created so that I could respond when people talked to me. I had fires to put out, floods and storms to clean up after. Who could learn with all kinds of disasters like these going on? When I was sixteen, going on seventeen, problems on Viterramater grew progressively worse. My real world experiences influenced crime and death. I tried to stop them, but they wouldn’t stop. Slowly, my imagination began to take on a life of its own. Viterramater began to grow, and grow violent. I continued to try and play the hero, but I died in the process every time. I had no choice but to take the pill again. And as it went down my throat, things quieted in my mind. Slowly, all sign of life in Viterramater disappeared, and soon the planet. I’d broken a promise. I began to panic and made myself vomit to bring the pill back up. It came, but Viterramater didn’t come back. There was a cosmos with rocks and hot gasses floating around where the planet used to be. I’d killed them. I’d killed them all.

I told my mother through tears what I’d done. She called an ambulance, then my dad. Before the ambulance came but after my dad arrived, everything went black. They told me later that I had a mental breakdown, a panic attack, and passed out from lack of oxygen. I spent the night in the hospital. I couldn’t sleep knowing that I was a murderer of trillions. I’d killed my only true friends. I’d broken my promise to Viterramater. I’d destroyed my childhood.

I went home with my father the next day. He didn’t want me at home alone with my mother’s boyfriend. It was a Thursday. He said I didn’t have to go to school that day. I wanted to so badly. I needed to think of something other than Viterramater. I needed contact with the people of Earth. My brothers and sisters were at school, and my dad’s wife said she had to run errands; would I be okay by myself? Yes, I’ll be alright. Bye, honey. I’ll be back in a few hours. Okay.

I spent the day in my room staring up at the ceiling, trying to bring Viterramater back into existence. I’d created it before, I could play God again. No matter how hard I tried, it wouldn’t come back. The pills hadn’t worn off yet, so there was still hope. With that in mind, I went to sleep. I dreamt of a world that used to be and I knew that it wasn’t completely gone. I was happy.

I awoke to hear whispers. When I looked around, there was nobody there. Confused, I got up and looked under my bed, in my closet, behind the desk and the TV. No one was there. But when I turned back around, there were small children jumping on my bed. I said “hey,” then blinked. They were gone. I turned around again, and they were on my computer, watching my TV, swinging upside-down in my closet. I blinked again and they disappeared again. I recognized these children. Their clothes and language told me that they were from Viterramater. I went over to my closet and looked in. No one was there. When I turned around for the third time, I saw myself in Viterramaterian clothing. Myself grabbed me by the caller of my shirt and slammed me into the wall, screaming. Myself told me that I’d unleashed something, but I couldn’t keep up with what I was saying too well. The language was a slang, more recent form of Viterramaterian.

We heard my mother call my name. Myself looked at the door, then quickly turned back to me and told me to never forget. I blinked, and I was gone. My mother entered. She asked what I was doing against the wall. I lied and said I was thinking. Well, you can think in the car. Grab your stuff, we’re going home now. Say good-bye to your father and his family. Yes ma’am. When she left, I looked around to see where myself and the children had gone. They didn’t come back, wherever they were. On the ride to the apartment, I told my mother she was pretty. She smiled and took me by the hand. She’d have kissed my cheek, but she was driving.

Her boyfriend was there when we got home. He complained about not having any food again, but didn’t raise his voice. He seemed bored and lackadaisical. My mother apologized and said she’d get more food. He grunted a “whatever” and continued to watch TV. My mother ordered pizza and I went to my room. For three hours, I searched my mind for the inhabitants of Viterramater, not just where the planet used to be, but everywhere. If myself and the children were still living, then maybe everyone else was still alive too. I didn’t sleep or eat. I needed to find them all so that we could recreate Viterramater together. I found about half the planet when my mother’s boyfriend called me. I sighed, wondering what the fuck I had done now. The moment I entered the living room, I was greeted by a hit on the side of my face. I fell to the ground, holding my cheek. What was that for? He shoved a paper into my view and asked me what the meaning of this was. I focused on it. It was my report card that had come in the mail. F…F…F…F…F…F…F. I asked him why he cared. He said because he was fucking my mother.

When I tried to get up, he kicked me back down. I asked him what his deal was, but he just kicked me back down. He told me I was worthless and a waste of my mother’s time. He told me she should’ve aborted me when she had the chance. If she’d had known of the problems I’d cause her, she’d have done the right thing, and the world a favor at that. Every time I tried to get up and retreat to my room, he’d kick me back down. I tried to fight back, but he was bigger and stronger than me. I was never very big. I had a bloody nose, a black eye, and bruises on my face and neck when my mother came home from the store. She threw herself at him, screaming for him to stop. He pushed her down and began to beat on her, telling her I needed some discipline, something she never gave me and would’ve solved the problem earlier. I got up and tried to help my mother, but I was shoved into the wall. I tried again and again and got the same result every time. I called for help, but doubted anyone heard me. The phone was on the other side of the brawl. I couldn’t get to it. When I realized that there was nothing I could do, I dropped to my knees and screamed for help, taking handfuls of my hair. There was nothing I could do.

All fell silent. I knew my mother was dead and he was coming for me next, but the voice I heard next was not his, but my mom’s. She said something about her God. I opened my eyes. A red substance dripped into a puddle in front of me. I looked up and saw a head dangling by its hair and covered in blood. The mouth was gaping, the eyes wide. The look on the face contained fear. It was his face I was looking at—his decapitated head. I lifted my head more and saw someone familiar, but not one of Earth. It held in its mouth the man’s head and stared at me with grey eyes. I stood and looked around. Blood covered the furniture, the walls, the floor, as well as body parts and innards. I reached out and touched the fur of the beast. I could feel it. It was as real as I, my father and his family, my mother, as real as poverty, greed, and dishonesty. The fur was white and felt like a shag carpet. A great white dragon of Viterramater stood in my living room with the head of the enemy in its jaws.

“…Vladimir?” my mother said. I looked at her to find another dragon healing her wounds. Police sirens sounded in the distance and the neighbors were banging on the door.

I smiled, “I told you they were real.”

(Exuent).