My mom was doing that thing again that she always did. She laid on the floor of the bathroom next to our old, rusty and creaky sink -- staring into nothingness and for hours listening to the water droplets descend individually from the faucet, second by second just lying there. She’d lock the door so I never really saw her before or after, but every once in a while I’ll gain the courage to sneak from my room into the hallway and peek through the keyhole at my mother. It was almost like as if, she was placed there, in the same position every time. Her long wavy brunette hair laid over the dingy black and white bathroom tiles as if they’ve never seen a day of Clorox bleach. I’d never dare to bring it up to her on a normal basis but she really worries me, every morning it seems she wakes up more different than the last. Like each day she wakes up less and less like herself. She says her job sucks and she just worries for me after moving in to this new neighborhood but it’s all we could afford so I always try to not further bother her with my concerns. I try to joke with her that anywhere we go will be better than Harlem Street where our old apartment was, but I feel like it just reminds her of the memories we had in our old house, good and bad. West side ain’t got nothing on south side and that's a fact, my dad left the picture before I was even old enough to remember anything of him. My mom says it’s better like that. Regardless of his presence or not, I know how to take care of myself.

   Some people say Ima weird kid for my age. As if there's supposed to be a normal 13 year old to go off by, but I can say I'm an imaginative kid, I like to think, I like to go to the library and just read good books when I'm not out riding my bike. I don't have many friends, or really any after moving. Sometimes I try to make sleepovers with my old friends from Glendale Heights middle school, but mom says she's not in the mood to drive. The only acquaintance I can rely on is the librarian at my new school. At first we budded heads because I like to read with my feet resting on the table but he got over it sooner than later after we started talking. He's a cool old dude, his name is Jake Hillingster, very knowledgeable man to say the least and gives me snacks every once in a while when I chill there after school. He is always good at suggesting new and different books or genres. When I first came in all I ever would search for were comic books, until Mr. Hillingster suggested I tried more Non-Fiction and Sci-Fi books. I told my mom about him and at first she was a little weary about him for reasons she couldn’t put her finger on but I told her she was acting crazy he’s just a nice old man. Mr. Hillingster is a 63 year old man who used to live in Boston before he came to Chicago land area. His wife died years ago he says but he never told me how, definitely didn’t have the balls to ask anyways so I left it alone. Which is why when he retired from his old job as a pharmacist, he came to my school and became a librarian. His book suggestions are always spot on, I could read any book he gives me cover to cover and report back for a new one within 2 days. What can I say prodigy in the making. Reading usually just helps me sleep at night too. His recent suggestion is from an author named William Dwill who wrote a book called, “The Sixz”, it's really quite an interesting book full of weird paranormal activity.

   “As the duchess of Zinnia came down the cobblestone steps into the castle's dungeon, her eyes went from a dimly lit dark cellar to a room resembling the bottomless pits of hell within a blink of an eye. And as she laid there in disbelief, after falling to the floor, Satan himself planted his seed within lady Katja. She shrieked bloody murder until…”

“Lights out time for bed. I don't want to get another email that you were late to school or another bullshit excuse from you about needing to ride your bike instead of taking the bus. Go to bed early, you can wake up early, Goodnight though love you,” she said as she flicked the light off and stumbled into her room.

She was right, and I was getting a little sleepy but if I may add, I just simply didn’t like taking the bus or being around the losers on my bus so I ride my bike. She doesn’t ever really care about how I feel. It's always ‘Get over it’, however I put my bookmark in and just tried to go to sleep.

   1:55 AM. I awake randomly… or maybe from the urge to release all the pee from my bladder who knows. I lay in my bed and try to force myself back to sleep, I wasn’t sure if my mom was in the bathroom or not. I toss and turn. I look back at my clock 2:59. I close my eyes, the phosphorescent green 2:59 burned into my eyes and still appeared when I shut my eyes closed harder. Until I abruptly heard incomprehensible whispers from the hallway and then from my mother's room that shares the same paper thin wall with me. My room becomes like a psychedelic trip. The walls start curving and bubbling, distorting my every move and thought, moments turn into scenes of flashbacks from my brain trying to comprehend the memories from only seconds ago like an old camera film. My head went foggy and felt tight, my ears rang and sounded like what your arm feels when it falls asleep-- staticy. My vision blurred until my reality and unconscious dreams became merged into one indecipherable sight. My name became repetitively spit into my ears over and over again. The overwhelming sound of my heart thumping out of my chest -- I blacked out.

   I awoke from the sound of the birds chirping that next morning, two minutes before my alarm was meant to go off. I could hear my mom getting ready to leave for work. All I could do was stare up into my ceiling. Not necessarily at anything specific, but rather a coma of thoughts and just staring… staring into existence. Blinking only when it began to hurt. It's hard to explain my emotions for what I was feeling after that night, how does one explain their emotions of being emotionless. Like as if your body exerted its limit of adrenaline and dopamine for the day and everything around you becomes unimportant and like an unfocused camera. And the worst part was this wasn't the first time and I knew it wasn't the last. I couldn't help but to think why didn't my mother hear anything that was going on. Or hear anything ever when weird things happened. Where was her place in all of this! I knew I wasn't going crazy… but I couldn’t drop the feeling that she was somewhat involved in what happened last night. I grabbed my vitamins from the side of my bed, drank a glass of water and took the blankets off me to get ready for school. I couldn't remember the events taking place from after I got out of bed or not even ‘til it was 6th period and almost the end of the school day did I escape the funk I was in. At Least it was my period of study hall and I could do whatever I wanted. I pulled out my book to read instead of doing any homework I may or may not was given earlier that day.

“The Duchess quickly grew sicker, it wasn't until her brain grew so ill did she then start creating havoc around the kingdom. Whatever was planted inside her ate away at her mind body and soul. Releasing a hell onto whomever was in her way. The Duchess burned her bridges with anyone close to her what she did just couldn’t be taken back, it was her reality. She was cut off, abandoned and left to fail. She eventually grew better but the seed was always with her, however she grew fond of it eventually. It was only her and her seed, she became a nobody, and tried to survive in the world worrying about if…”

The bell rang. I quickly gathered my things and head to my last class, World History. My least favorite class, but at least we ended up in the library’s computer lab. Meaning I ended up trailing off and making my way over to Mr. Hillingster’s desk.  

“Hey Junior what’s up how’s your day been”, he said with a smile on his face, “you hungry by chance?” he asked as he went to grab for something in his drawer of snacks.

“OH yeah big time, I’ve been hungry all day cafeteria food was not cutting it today, what you got in there?” I provoked as I leaned my head over his desk.

“Cookies”, he said with a smirk.

I replied with a big ‘oh yeah come to papa’ and started getting into an interesting topic with Mr. Hillingster. He told me he worries for me and hopes the family dynamic between me and my mother gets better. I told him how I felt there were weird things going on in our house and he just confirmed how my mother and I need to sit down together and have a good one-on-one conversation. I tried to include the details from the previous night and what horrors I felt but it somehow just wouldn’t come out. It wasn't necessarily embarrassing to say out loud but, saying it out loud and hearing it is a lot different than the over-thinking that consumed my brain. He told me to just keep my head up and pray for better times and better quality. I sat there with him until the end of class, with plans to stay after school as well. The bell rang and when everyone started clearing out, I began reading my book.

“Every day the seed grew bigger and bigger in size. The duchess soon began to worry if maybe the seed was making her how she was, the constant inconvenience, the medicinal products being taken left and right, and the mood swings… absolutely insane. Nostradamus suggested removing the seed years ago when it all first happened, because somehow, the seed would lead to death in the family. Everything was so surreal, she never listened and everything eventually spiraled out of control.”

I began dozing off half way through the next chapters and decided to start heading home. I ended up getting a ride from Mr. Hillingster due to the pouring rain I wasn't willing to pedal through for thirty minutes. We ended up having a good conversation about life and its meaning, it made my stomach start to churn I had to tell him about what has been happening to me. Mr.

Hillingster continued to talk until I couldn't possibly leave my tongue lingering any longer to share my secret where it then just exploded out. I confessed to everything, how my mom has been acting weirder than normal, how sleeping has become an undesirable mission due to the night terrors I have and how no one is ever there to save me when things go wrong or evil. Mr. Hillingster suggested I have a serious talk with my mother about how I believe I should be treated in our home and that I should seek help from a priest for our home, as well as many other thought out suggestions. Mr. Hillingster dropped me off at my house at 5:13 PM Tuesday afternoon. I told him thank you for going out of his way to do me a favor and to have a nice day as I walked closer to my porch. I walked in to see my mother at the dining table. She was flustered over bills again I could tell but I finally decided to speak up.

   “Mom I don't want to live here anymore. I feel like its haunted and it is really scaring me in the night, you know I was looking up things at school about paranormal activity and I feel like we should call a priest to see what he can do fo…” I was cut off.

She sat there looking at me for a couple of seconds. The lights were dim, all I could focus was my mother’s face and the flickering light in the hallway. The staticy and unreliable light made a noise that consumed about one sixth of my hearing and attention every time my mother opened her mouth. Like if it’d buzz any louder I’d explode.

   “You really think that’s what’s happening here? You think after you read a couple of mebooks you're now an expert on how to handle that kind of shit, you can’t even take care of yourself nor can I barely afford taking care of you what the hell do you expect a priest will do for this god forsaken home. Like honestly c’mon think for once,” she said with both palms to her face dragging and pulling at her eyes, “ I know you’re not the brightest of the bunch but get through your thick skull that life is just how it is, some things just don’t get fixed!” Bursting the words out of her chest.

   “I hate you. You always do this. Your life is just so miserable huh! You love to take it out on me!” I shouted across the kitchen.

She sat up and walked away. She couldn’t take it. I know the truth was hard to hear but it was true. I hated her. She gave me no father, probably because of her insistent nagging. She gave me no family at all. She lets me sleep and live in a home meant for rats. And then has the audacity to not give a shit about me being tortured every night by freaking ghost! It was my last straw. She was coming back and this time with something in her hands. A belt… I knew she wouldn’t dare. She stared at me underneath the flickering light outside her room in the hallway. Her frizzy brunette hair looked black, her blue soft eyes appeared black and full of rage, and she looked rather pale like the life was sucked right out of her. She came charging at me.

“Who the hell do you think you’re talking to like that. After all I’ve done for you you want to talk to me like that because I won’t feed into you're fantasy world for one night. Get over here!” she barked as she slithered around the house in effort to catch me.

   The lights went out. It

   Seemed like my room began to bellow in agony. It

   was so little space, nowhere to go. It

   was like I couldn't breathe or see. It

   went by so quick I just did it. It

Wasn’t hard nor easy, just simply done now.

I just kept swinging, swinging, swinging.

“Hi Chelsey Martinez here and this is your NBC morning breaking news report. In West Chicago 63 year old man, Jake Hillingster, is accused and held accountable for the drugging of a thirteen year old boy with schizophrenia, with Zyprexa and Lunesta two drugs known to give ultra-hallucinations and memory loss in high doses, and coerhersing him into thinking he had to kill his mother due to “witchcraft” and the devil. Child is currently stable and in custody with the police. More information will be posted soon.”