Sublime Awakenings

Sublime Awakenings: Chapter 54


Forty minutes later Todd found himself at the kitchen table pealing sweet potatoes for the fast-approaching dinner. The odd thing about this was that the potatoes had already been boiled until tender … and you peeled them after. To his right Jordan, a kollege girl a year ahead of Letta with a slight frame and chin-length, curly brown hair, was taking a knife to a squash, and putting the resulting rough, uneven cuts in a plate along with the green tomato slices that Letta was adding from one seat over.

On his other side, Leon was flipping slowly through a National Geographic. Earlier he had helped pull the husks off of the corn, but he'd gotten slightly more irritable when he couldn't help with anything that required heat or a knife, claiming that his grandpa had let him help at the restaurant 'lots'. Of course, Leon had been irritable ever since he'd gotten home, and Todd assumed, since the 'fight' at the center. He was really not looking forward to that talk.

Walking into the kitchen from the living room where his parents had been showing him their latest vacation photos, Brian gave the kids a tight-lipped grin before checking the cornbread in the oven and then the pinto beans in the crock pot. "Just about."

"Hey, Dad?" Letta waited until he turned around to continue, "Why are we cooking all this southern stuff for them when they had it all the time in Tennessee? They've only had the beach house in Florida for two years, and they still spend half their time at the old house. Plus, it can't be that hard to get it in Florida. Wouldn't you think they'd want something ... different when they visit other places?" She gave the under-ripe tomatoes a long look.

"Honey, don't make a fuss. You know the other dinners for this weekend aren't southern. Besides, there's nothing wrong with a little taste of your heritage every now and then."

"It's only half my heritage. Mom was from Boston." She stuck her tongue out at him when he sighed. "Besides, you know you moved away for a reason. The last time we were there-"

"Letta, I said I don't want that story repeated. And I didn't move away. I went to college in Cali and just … never moved back. Alright? Now behave unless you want to watch a slide show about the bathroom lines at the Grand Canyon."

"Yeah. Sorry."

He nodded as he turned to leave. "I'll be back to fry those, and check up on y'all, in a bit."

Todd let out a small huff of a laugh at the added southern twinge to Brian's accent. It was still just as weird as the first time he had heard it years ago. What made it funny was that usually it wasn't very strong at all, but when he was around his relatives, or even talked to them on the phone, it picked up very noticeably. His grammar didn't change drastically and he didn't shorten as many words as his parents, but there was definitely a longer drawl.

When he was gone from hearing range, Letta gave the others a sideways look. "The last time we were in Tennessee, Dad got into a fist fight with a Southern Baptist, and we had to leave the state before he was arrested … or chased down by a mob with pitchforks or whatever. They might still have a warrant out."

"Your dad is wanted?" Todd snorted another laugh. It was hard to imagine."For what? Assault?"

"Yep. He threw the first punch. It was so great." She smiled, then frowned when she looked at Jordan's face: her brown eyes were a little wider than normal and her jaw was set. "Not that he's the violent type … that's kind of why it was great. Yeah." She looked back down at the tomato and started to cut again.

"I understand." One of Jordan's hands landed lightly on her knee under the table. "Just as long as you never take me there." She smiled.

Letta smiled back at her. "You know I can't promise that. I might have to play a gig in Nashville some day … or attend my dad's court hearing. Anyway, the 'cities' aren't that bad. My grandparents just live out in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by backward crazies, cows and emus."

"Emus?" Todd asked. "Aren't they from Australia?"

"Yeah, but people have them imported, I guess. The owners kept them in pastures like cows. Those things are scary too. They'll chase you down if you get behind the fence."

"Why would you go behind the fence?" Jordan took her hand back, making an attempt at cutting one last slice off of the asymmetrical vegetable, but half way through the end piece twisted to the side under the pressure and broke free to roll off the table. "Oops."

"I didn't go behind the fence; my cousins did. I guess they think stuff like that's fun because there's nowhere at all to go out there." Letta snickered. "You can throw the whole thing down there if you want. I won't tell."

"Yeah. Somehow I still don't think that would leave a great first impression, even if they bought it. Clumsiness is only really enduring in fiction, and only then when it's alluded to, but never actually depicted except when it's convenient."

"But you're admitting you'd like to, right?"

She shook her head as she scooted her chair back so she could crawl under the table to retrieve the wayward piece. "Actually, I'm always looking out for new veggie recipes."

Letta gave Todd a flat look as she finished cutting the last of the tomato. "What do you think is more important: taste in women or taste in food? If you had to pick one."

"Umm, they're both pretty important." He shrugged. "But since you don't really have the second, you should probably just focus on the first. Anyone who likes regular mystery-meat styled hot dogs is pretty hopeless."

"Letta, I heard that, you know," Jordan spoke loudly to be heard through the table top.

"You were meant to." Letta snatched up the remaining end of the squash to toss it under as well without bothering to look where it landed. "It was a deliberate slip. I'm just kind of socially smooth like that."

"Hey, watch it!" Jordan protested when the end smacked her in the side of the head. "You're smooth like sand paper."

"Is that some kind of lame dyke joke?"

"No ..."

"Then you must think sand paper's pretty sexy, huh?"

"Haha. You know it, babe. It scratches all the right spots."

"Good. Then maybe-" Letta stopped to change tangents abruptly when her grandfather walked in, "hi, Gramps!"

"Hey there, Onion-head. Them beans done yet?"

"Just about." She gave him a smile, then shrugged at Todd when her gramp's back was turned to check. "I, uh, used to think he was calling me 'onion' instead of 'youngin' when I was a kid."

"Yeah. That poor girl caint hear for the life of her." He chuckled at the memory as he put the lid on the beans back down on the cooker. "These look real good. Woulda been better with bacon, though."

"Yeah, but Jordan's Jewish."

He nodded. "Your daddy said. He also said we're havin some kind of nondenominational prayer." The wrinkles around his eyes ceased a little. "But you youngins know ta thank of Jesus anyway, right? That's who we're really prayin to. He's the only one that can get ya inta Heaven."

Letta smiled a huge, sarcastic smile that her gamps had always seemed too naive to understand. Through the corner of her eye, she could see Todd looking down intently at the sweet potatoes until the highlighter Leon was using on the magazine ran off the edge and onto the table cloth, and he reached out to snatch it away. She dropped the smile for a grimace as soon as he left.

There was a dull thump when Jordan hit her head on the table as she backed out from under it, and she dropped back down into her chair with a hand on the side of her head. She dropped the pieces of swash onto the table with an awkward laugh. "I guess he didn't know I was there."

"Guess not. Sorry." Letta grabbed the squash pieces, and took them to the trash can under the sink, then washed her hands. She opened the oven to check the corn bread, turning it off after seeing that it was starting to brown on top. Then she leaned against the counter, and actually thought about trying her hand at frying the tomatoes and squash. It would surely end horribly, but it would keep her busy until dinner … and possibly get her out of eating them.

"Letta, relax. It's no biggie. I wasn't expecting your family to be perfect; no one's is. You know my dad's always working. He hardly ever has any time off, and when he does Membrane usually calls him in." She laughed. "A few years ago my mom nearly left him because she thought they were having an affair."

"Your dad works for Professor Membrane?" Todd raised a brow.

"Oh, yeah. He's his personal assistant … a personal assistant with degrees in physics and chemistry. He kind of doubles for a lab assistant too, and since Membrane's a workaholic, it kind of makes him one too if he wants to keep his job."

"Oh. That's … interesting." He forced a friendly smile, though he didn't really know how to respond. He never did in situations like these with new people … because of the way the information had come up, he couldn't exactly say that it was 'nice'. "Too bad about the hours though."

"Eh," she shrugged, "I'm used to it."

He nodded. "Your name is Simmons, right?" He looked to Letta, then back to Jordan. It seemed like she had been introduced as Jordan Simmons, but he hadn't made the connection.

"Yeah."

"Oh, right. Dib and Gaz, you know, Membrane's kids, they talk about him sometimes."

"Oh. Sure. They … I've meet them a few times." Her gaze made its way down to the plate on sliced food. "How'd you meet them? Therapy?"

"Yeah. And they go to my high skool." One side of Todd's lips curved down as he watched her strange reaction. Had he said something wrong?

Taking a seat back in her chair, Letta prompted her chin on her right hand as she too watched Jordan's expression. "Hey, I'd understand if you didn't want to stay. I … I didn't really realize that my grandparent were gonna be here this weekend."

"No, no. That's fine." She shook her head with a smile. "One of my grandmothers still says the blessing in Hebrew no matter who's over. I guess I can lay back and think of Israel this once."

Letta nodded. "Then what's with the face?"

"I was born with it. Lay off." She laughed again, but no one else joined in. "Nothing."

With her free hand, Letta reached over to tilt Jordan's face toward her own when she looked away again."Something."

"Alright. Well, I didn't want to say anything. It's just that it's always hard not to feel a little sorry for those kids." She sighed when their stares didn't let up. "You know, with Dib being sort of insane, and Membrane always going on about it. And my dad said that he thought they were his roommates instead of his kids for years."

"Ah. Yeah, that is kind of sad, but they're okay. They're tough kids, right, Todd?" She removed her hand to slap Jordan lightly on the shoulder.

"Yeah. Sure. And Dib's not really as crazy as people think." Actually, if anything they were too tough, especially Gaz, but he supposed that couldn't be all Membrane's fault. After all, his parents had been much worse, and there had been Johnny, but he didn't have those kind of issues.

"Well, that's good to hear." She shrugged when the conversation didn't move on. "It's not like I'm depressed about it or anything. It's just all I know about them really, and it's sort of rude to talk about their family, so I wasn't going to say anything, you know?"

"Psh. No." Letta laughed. "I totally would have said it."

Jordan laughed too. "Sand paper."

"Only if you'll be the wood. And you clean up all the saw dust after." They all laughed again, except Leon, who looked really confused, which Letta figured was probably a good thing.

"You guys are weird," he announced dramatically. "Todd, why's that funny?"

"Uh, you'll know when you're older, Lee. When you, uh, take a wood shop class."

"Oh." He frowned as he closed the magazine with an air of finality. "That blows chunks."

Brian halted in the doorway to give Leon as stern look. "What was that, Leon?"

"I said, it … blows … chunks," he punctuated each word as if Brian might miss it if he said it too fast. "Chunks of throw-up! And the curdled old milkly kind too!"

"Eww," Todd blurted with a look of unbridled disgust aimed at Leon. "That … did not need clarification."

"Where did you hear that?" Brian asked. "Skool?"

"The Adoption Center. I guess I can't go back there and get adopted now, huh?"

"No. You can still go back there, but I'll have a talk with Rosemary about getting you more supervision with the other kids, especially after what happened today. And I expect you to watch your language, alright? Just because other kids are doing something doesn't make it a good thing to do."

Leon frowned. "If I keep saying it, can I not go there?"

Brian's countenance softened as he took a step closer to the table. "Leon, those kids aren't going to brother you anymore, okay? They were just there to be interviewed for a foster home that Friday. You don't have to be scared to go back. And Mr and Mrs. Mather really want to get to know you better. You should really give them a chance."

"Okay." Leon sighed. He knew it wasn't worth arguing about them yet; not if he could still make them not like him. Shmee had told him that Brian wouldn't believe him anyway. If he told anyone about Shmee, they'd try to take him away.

"Good."

"Cornbread's done, Dad," Letta said once there was silence.

"Great. The beans should be too." He perked up as he moved about the kitchen gathering flower, spices, a bowl and a pan to fry with before setting it on an eye of the stove, turning up the heat and pouring in some vegetable oil. "Honey, could you hand me- Thanks." He took the plate of produce from Letta and sat in on the counter. "So, Jordan, how are you liking kollege? What's you area of study?"

"Oh, I'm liking it pretty well, I guess. I'm majoring in history and minoring in women's studies. It's interesting once you get passed the intro classes."

"Well, that sounds very nice. Are you parents originally from here?"

"My mom's from San Francisco and my dad's from New York, but I've lived here since I was about five."

Todd slid the National Geographic that Leon had been reading in front of himself as Brian took the sweet potatoes to mash them and add melted brown sugar, milk and cinnamon in between frying groups of five items at a time and asking Jordan safe, noninvasive questions. It was actually his magazine, after all, and Leon had moved on to crayons and a Happy Noddle Boy coloring book. He shook his head in silence as he flipped it open: it still felt strange and wrong to see Noodle Boy re-envisioned as age-appropriate for a seven year old. What was next? Were they going to hire Johnny to write a kids cartoon show for Dickelodeon?

That thought fell to the back-burner of his mind as he flipped through the magazine, his eyes repeatably catching highlighted sentences and paragraphs. The more he read, the more he saw it, the pattern: endangered animals and wetlands, wiped-out cultures and starving children in third world countries. It was all terrible human cruelty, and it appeared that Leon had found the worst parts in every article he had read. Todd knew from experience that was an easy road to depression, or one that people tended to take if they were already depressed … or possibly if someone or something was trying his best to make sure those were the most prominent in your mind.

But of course Leon was depressed. It hadn't been that long since his family had been murdered, so maybe Todd was seeing the wrong meaning this time. That was the problem really: he could never tell how much, if at all, Shmee was behind the face of that child. He turned the next page slowly with a shiver, and engrossed himself in an unhighlighted article until it was time for the meal to start.

Once the table was seat, everyone's plate was full and they had all taken a seat around the table, Letta watched nervously as her gramps eyed the food before him.

"What, no meat?" He looked to Brian.

"There's beans and cornbread, Dad, so you don't really need meat. Besides, Jordan's our guest too, and she's a vegetarian."

"I thought she was Jewish. That's what Onion-head said."

"Yeah," Jordan said, "I'm both."

"A Jewish Vegetarian, eh? How'd that happen? Ain't that double duty? After all them laws and no meat, what's left ta eat?"

"Now, Hollis, you be respectful!" His wife, Gracie, brushed his comment off with a hand. "Feel free to ignore him, Jordan. Everybody else does. He's just a stubborn old man, set so deep his is own ways that it's like he's in a couch with no springs underneath. One day long ago, he just sunk right through and hasn't been able to pull himself up since!"

She laughed lightly. "Well, I'm a Reform Jew, so it's not really about tradition so much as my own interpretation of what the old Kosher Laws were trying to get at as a principle. A lot of Jewish people see the restrictions as related to animal welfare, and more as a regrettable leniency that was allowed after the flood than actual restrictions."

"Huh?" Hollis looked around the table. "Did anybody else understand that?"

"Uh, sorry?"

"That's alright, hun, you're just gonna have to say it slower." He grunted a laugh. "You talk about how Onion listens. I guess that's a good thing, though, cause maybe you two're on the same wavelength there. Did you understand that, Onion?"

"Yeah, Gramps. It just means that she thinks that not eating things that come from animals is the best moral thing to do, like the default. And that the Old Testament laws for food are like, exceptions where the law can be bent. Kind of like seeing the glass half full instead of half empty, and seeing empty as the best thing … right?" She looked to Jordan.

"Uh, now I'm a little confused, but sure." Jordan shrugged. "That's really not the important part. I basically just think the Kosher Laws aim at treating animals humanely and with dignity as fellow creatures of God. Also, being a vegetarian actually makes it easier to be Kosher since there aren't as many conflicting combinations like dairy and meat. But I wouldn't have been offended or anything if your dad had cooked a meat item for everyone else."

"See there, Brian!" Hollis said, "She wouldn't of been offended!"

Brian smiled narrowly. "Yeah, Dad, but this is the first time she's been over, and I thought it would be a nice gesture."

"I'll tell ya what woulda been nice: some pork chops woulda been nice!"

"Hollis, be quite, you old fool!" Gracie shot him a piercing look. "You can't always have your own way, always goin' around thinkin' it's the best."

Brian sighed. "We can have pork chops tomorrow night. Right now let's just enjoy what we have, alright?"

"Of course, hon." Gracie patted his lower arm and they exchanged a quick smile. "So, who's gonna say grace? Todd, how about you, dear?"

Todd froze mid-sip at her words, nearly chocking on the sweet iced tea as some of it made its way into his wind pipe. He coughed twice before forcing out words. "Me? Why me?"

"Well, it's going to be a nondenominational prayer, and the way I understand it, you don't have a religion, right? So, that makes you the most nondenominational person at the table."

He forced himself to smile back across the table at Gracie, whose own smile was covered in bright red lip-stick that was as flamboyant as the rest of her attire. "I … guess so."

"Great!"

"Yeah, great." He frowned down at his plate of food as the others waited for him to start, though he really had no idea how. During prayers in church, he usually just sat quietly, not even faking it the way Letta did. And he couldn't use those anyway if it wasn't supposed to be a Catholic, or even Christian, prayer. Todd smirked vaguely at the thought of starting how he had as a child: 'Dear Mr. or Missus God …'. Of course, that probably wouldn't be vague enough for Leon, and it was probably a little too much for Brian's parents, but it was still what came most naturally. It was really no wonder Letta worried about him taking an interest in Wicca.

"Any time you're ready there, Todd." Hollis said, a little amused.

"Oh. Yeah, sure." Reluctantly, he reached out to hold hands with Leon and Jordan, closing his eyes after everyone else had followed suite. He took a deep breath, preparing for how awkward this was bound to be. "Dear, uh, Higher Spirit, we are gathered here …" He paused. No. This wasn't wedding. "We would like to give you thanks for this meal, and, uh, for each others company. And to ask you to please bless it and us … and … and …." He lost his line of thought as he felt a spiritual jolt, like he had been a caveman fumbling with an electrical device and someone had suddenly plugged it into a wall socket to start it up.

Todd swallowed thickly as his hands went limp in the ones that were holding them, and his fingers started to feel fuzzy. Opening his eyes, he looked around the table, but it almost felt like slow motion, like time had slowed down for him to the point that it took a concentrated effort to keep up … one that he was finding increasingly hard to put forth. Soon, Letta's eyes were open too, and she was staring at him strangely, asking him what was wrong with a silence expression, though he didn't attempt an answer. Nothing was wrong, and he felt she should know already; they all should because the barrier separating them was so flimsy.

A warm wave ran through his body, from his head to his toes and back again, making him tremble slightly, and forget everything he was and everything he knew for just a few seconds. He saw the Void again, but now it had a face that was made up of billions … and more, on and on forever. Billions of stars and billions and billions of people made of star dust, all thinking and feeling at once and most so afraid and confused for no reason. Such a waste.

Now the others were looking at him, but he still couldn't continue, and for the most part it didn't seem important, not his words or their worried looks, just this feeling, this oneness. They had to know it too, somewhere deep down and long forgotten. His grip tightened on the hands he was still holding as another electric wave ran through him. "You have to remember what was before. And after, always after too."

"What?" Brian released his mother and daughter's hands. "Todd, are you alright?"

Meeting his green eyes with his own, Todd felt the corners of his lips slide up his face to smile wider, too much wider if Brian's expression was any indication, but he couldn't help it. He wanted to say that he was perfect, and he wasn't Todd, not just Todd, but then Brian was on his feet, and the others had pulled their hands away. Somehow, that look finally punctured through the haze a bit, and he felt the worry too as Brian griped his upper arm to pull him to his feet and lead him out of the kitchen, through the hall and into the study.

Brian eased him down into a large maroon chair by the fireplace, then closed the study door behind them before kneeling down to get to eye level. "Todd? What was that?"

Todd shook his head slowly. "I don't know. It just … felt odd. Like everything was … well, everything." He laughed when Brian's brow creased. "Sorry."

"You have nothing to be sorry for. It's just, that seemed a lot like a psychotic break to me. What do you think?"

He bit his lip as he looked down as his folded hands on his lower chest, unable to see a good way out of this. "Maybe. But it wasn't … it didn't feel dangerous or scary really. It was just like … love, and warmth, and oneness … like a hug from the universe." He forced another laugh. "Is that still bad if it's the opposite problem from what I usually have?"

"I'm not sure." Brian looked up to the mantel, where he'd set up a small alter that had been maintained for years. A photo of his wife was center, flanked by white votive candles and two statues: Christ and the Virgin. "I'm really not sure."

Todd followed his gaze, then swallowed again more nervously. "I think I'm alright now."

Brian nodded in an attempt to feel more sure. "Do you wanna come back out to dinner?"

"Nah. I think … maybe I should just hang out here for a while. Calm down some. Tell everyone I'm sorry?"

"Okay. But I'm leaving the door open, and I expect you to call if you need anything."

"Okay. Thanks, Brian."

"Sure, kiddo."

Todd looked back down as Brian patted his head and started for the door. "Brian?"

"Yeah?"

"I think I might have forgotten to take my pill today."

"You don't remember?"

"Well, I thought I had, but now I think that I was confusing this morning for yesterday maybe."

"Okay. Second story bathroom, right?"

"Yeah."

"Be right back."

When he left, Todd brought his legs up into the chair to rest against his chest. That position usually made him feel more secure, and now he really needed that. He hadn't lied really. The experience hadn't been scary at the time, but now that it was over he wasn't sure anymore. It had been paralyzingly and those words had hardly even been his own, and that lack of control … well, it should have been scary. What was worse was that he was pretty sure that it wasn't due to his lack of medication, though that would hopefully appease Brian for now. Ever since his time in Zim's simulator, the Void had been coming back, intruding on his reality in small bursts, at what he liked to think were random times.

He looked back over his shoulder at the alter, at the dead woman whose eyes were much more alive than the shiny black of the statues. What if it wasn't random? What if it only seemed random before you were a part of it, like the Void itself? Another shiver ran down his spine. It had happened during a prayer, the first one he had made in years. Still, it could be a coincidence. The other times hadn't been particularly religious in context. There had been the time with Pepito, once in class, and the time with the clerk at the book store. There had been something about her eyes, and he had ended up holding her hand instead of paying her the money he owed … which was kind of a disturbing trend.

Brian knocked on the frame of the door before coming back in with prescription medication bottle in one hand and Todd's iced tea in the other. Letta was behind him with a plate. "Hey. You still with us?"

"Yeah." Todd shot him a smile as he popped the top of the orange bottle and shook out a single green pill to take with the tea. "Thanks again."

"Sure. That's what I'm here for. Or what you're here for." Brian took the bottle back to place it high up on a book shelf so Leon couldn't reach before stepping aside. "Try to get some food down, and I'll be back after dinner, alright?"

"Alright." Todd sighed as he left, and Letta set his full plate down on the end table beside the chair he was in. He looked up at her pitifully.

"Are you really okay?"

"Yeah. Now."

She plopped down across from him on the extra cot that they had set up earlier. "What happened?" She frowned when he only gave her a pensive look. "Did you see the rotting face of Zombie Jesus?"

"No!" His grip tightened on the cold glass he was holding as he fought the urge to throw the drink in her face. "Could you please stop bringing that up?"

"Jeez, Squee. It's not even your nightmare; it's mine."

"Yeah, but … well, it was in my head that time. And it's totally gross and wrong. And the more you think about it, the more power it has over you."

"Okay. Now you're just changing the subject."

He sighed again. "Can you blame me?"

"Yes. We need to know if it was serious."

"That means your dad asked you to find out, right?"

"Sorta. But I'm worried too. That was really freaky."

"Yeah. Well. I'm a freaky kind of person, I guess." Todd laughed a little, though she didn't seem too impressed. "You were right earlier. I forgot my meds this morning. I think that's all it was. If anything, it's an improvement over the old, creepy kind of crazy, though, right?"

"Well … I guess it could be an improvement, at least in disposition, but it's still not good."

"I know."

"Are you sure you only missed one pill?"

"Pretty sure."

"Alright. Well, eat your food." She stood up and turned to go.

When he was alone, then chuckled at himself as he reached over to take the plate into his lap. The food wasn't really bad. It wasn't what he was used to, but that was usually a good thing. They had bought the ingredients fresh from an organic grocery, and it tasted less like processed sugar and favoring and more real. As he ate alone, he looked over to his backpack, where his cell phone was zipped into a small front compartment. Pepito was probably finished with whatever he was doing with Zita by now, but Todd was hesitant to call. He would either be the best or worst person to ask about the Void and its stalking him, and there was no way to know which.

"Probably," he whispered to himself to make it more real, "my brain is just replaying an interesting state of consciousness that it had never experienced before … randomly and without my consent. Like what happens with LSD flashbacks." He frowned at that. Hopefully, no one would think he did drugs. He could take a test to prove it, but then they would likely find out that he hadn't been taking his anti-psychotics for about a month, and that wouldn't end well. Not that he was planning on telling Brian about the Void. If he thought the stint at dinner was a psychotic break, what would he think of that?

Luckily, as it turned out, a few more confirmations of the 'forgotten pill' theory, followed by two hours of playing monopoly with the family, was all it took to put his counselor's apprehensions mostly to rest. Of course, he knew that from now on Brian would be watching him more closely with his medication, and he'd promised to report any more mishaps, even though he knew that he probably wouldn't. His gaze lingered on the pill bottle on the bookshelf as he walked back into the study, this time with Leon. He would start the pills again if he had too. They made him feel sedated and numb sometimes, but it was better than the DHMI.

He turned to the back of the room where Leon was scooting his lower half under the covers of the second cot, which was pressed right against three tall bookshelves. His own was at a right angle from it, against the wall that sported two windows. A touch of the old paranoia slipped through the cracks of his gray matter as he took a seat on it, with his back to the outside world and his face to Leon. "So, I heard you got into a fight today."

Leon looked up at him from his horizontal position, surprised. "No."

"Oh. Well, what exactly happ-"

"I don't know!" He let out a giant, melodramatic sigh. "I already told the others: Ms. Diablo, Letta and Brian. Those mean kids were picking on me, and then it happened, but I didn't see it."

"Okay." Todd up his hands up as a sign of defeat, shocked at the near rage in Leon's voice. He made his own voice much softer this time and more curious. "Were you scared when it happened?"

"... yeah. I couldn't see anything, just a lot of white, like the sun was really, really, really bright, but I didn't have any sunglasses to stop the Uvs, and they made me blind even though I couldn't see them doing it."

"When did you start to see again?" He stayed quiet this time, staring with a suborn questioning, so Todd tried again. "What did you see when the white went away?"

"Just … my swing seat on the ground. The chains were broke, and I was on the ground too."

"And the other kids?"

"They were on the ground."

"Do you know how they got there?"

"No." Leon rolled his eyes and huffed. "I guess they got scared that I would hit them when I fail."

"So they jumped to the ground themselves?"

"I guess. I didn't see it."

"Letta said they were hurt. With the chains?"

"Probably. They were pretty stupid." He crossed his arms over his chest and raised a brow at Todd. "Can we go to sleep now?"

"Sure. If you want." Todd frowned at the tone of his voice, but turned off the light just the same. It was what he wanted to do anyway ... even though it was only 9:15 PM, and Leon was very obviously lying. He crawled into his own cot and shimmied around to get comfortable. "Leon, do you … ever hear voices? Maybe commenting on your life or telling to what to do?"

"I'm not crazy."

"I know. But sometimes people have … differences. It doesn't make them crazy, really, but-"

"Todd, I'm really tired. I thought we were going to sleep." Leon pulled the covers over his head.

"We are. I just … I used to hear voices."

"You?" He peeked out at Todd, even though he was looking at the ceiling. "What kind of voices?"

"The kind that told me bad things about people, about the world. And a lot of it was true, but the voice was still … it wasn't good for me. After a while, that's all I was able to see. And when all you see is bad stuff, that stuff is more likely to happen to you because of the way it makes you act. It's called a self-fulfilling prophecy."

"Oh."

"Does any of this sound familiar?"

"No. I don't hear bad voices. Or any voices."

"Oh. Okay then. Good night then." Todd fluffed his pillow a little more forcefully than needed.

"Why did the voices tell you bad things?"

"Umm … it's pretty complicated, I think. We probably shouldn't waste time talking about it if you don't hear any." He lay his head down, and willed his lids to grow heavier as the minutes passed and he started to give up on Leon taking the bait.

"Todd?" Leon spoke up cautiously. "What if I did hear one, but it was only in my dreams? Does that still count?"

"Maybe. What kind of stuff does it tell you?"

"That the Mathers, those people that wanna be my mommy and daddy … they're bad, and they really just wanna hurt me."

Todd turned over onto his stomach to get a better look at Leon. "Did he say why they want to hurt you?"

He shook his head. "They're just bad people, like the Knee man."

"Okay. I'll …I'll talk to Ms. Diablo about it."

"Really? You … you won't tell Brian I'm crazy?"

"No, I won't tell." Todd forced a smile when Leon got out of his cot to give him a hug that was probably as tight as a seven-year-old was capable of.

"Thanks, Todd." Leon smiled back brightly when he let go. "Since you don't like your mommy very much, you can share mine when she comes back. Well, night."

It was hard, and his eyes felt very wide, but he managed to hold the smile until Leon was back in bed, at which point Todd pulled his own covers over his face for a moment. It was almost too much, more than he had expected even. He hadn't been ready for the death-issues, though he'd heard that kids Leon's age sometimes had them. At least he had confirmation of the Shmee situation … sort of. It didn't sound much different from what Shmee had done to him, until he counted the playground incident. And the Mathers, he didn't know what to think of them. He'd only met them once, and that wasn't really enough to tell. Shmee, at least when Todd had been his host, had often exaggerated those kinds of things to feed off his fear, but he had also warned him when there was real danger. And, of course, Leon might just not want to be adopted, especially if he thought his mom was somehow coming back.

So, it was a toss up really, but one that he would have to mention to Ms. Diablo all the same because he couldn't take the chance. He smirked and pulled the covers down, then turned on his side to reach for his cell phone to send Dib a quick text message. If he wanted someone to investigate, maybe the Mathers would be a good substitute for Pepito. Afterward, he played a games on the phone with the sound off until he found himself nodding off. He set it on his chest and closed his eyes for a rest.

Behind his lids the blackness swirled, turning into a dark fog that formed shadows. They moved with a purpose across the peripheral vision of his mind, too fast for him to make out, but slow enough to leave no doubt of their existence. Words were whispered too low to hear, though their tone was urgent. Then in the center of his minds eye, the shadows formed the outline of a thin man with hair-stalks like horns. As he walked, glass and bones crunched beneath his feet, and the dark outline started to gain color. He came closer and closer until until he was glowing, his skin a sickly yellow that contrasted with the deep ruby that his blade appeared to be fashioned from.

"Todd. Todd!"

Todd shook the dream away, though his heart was still beating fast in his chest, and turned his head to face Leon as the boy tugged at his sleeping shirt. "Yeah?"

"Did you hear that? Listen."

They were both quiet for what felt like minutes, and then he heard it: a clanging, rattling sound; the chain that latched the wooden fence that enclosed the back and sides of Brian's yard. He sat up stiffly as the footsteps from his dream recommenced. This time instead of breaking glass and bones, there were crunching leaves, but somehow he sensed it was the same. The stride sounded the same, and the dreadful feeling that it gave him definitely was.

Leon jerked his sleeve harder, leaning closer to whisper in a near panic, "It's him! It's the Scary Neighbor Man! He's comin' to get me."

There was a familiar sharp screeching sound against windows of the living room and then the paneling of the house outside, coming closer. For several seconds, Todd sat there, frozen as the stress mounted in steady increments like it had when he was Leon's age, before finally thrashing out of the cot and onto the floor on his knees. He pulled Leon to the left side of the window, then pushed him into the corner. "Stay quiet." At his tearful nod, he pulled one of Brian's golf clubs from the bag at the foot of his cot and leaned against the wall beside it. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a bent nose press itself against the glass of the nearest window, fogging it up with steamy breaths as the knife scrapped a path on the side.

"Little boy, are you in there?"

Todd's hands tightened on the metal handle of the club at the creepy sing-song way that Johnny called out, and the way his knife stabbed at the glass in a mockery of knocking. The voices from his dream seemed to scream at him from beneath the subtle sounds from outside, rising and falling with the pitch of the commotion as if they drew their energy from it. He still couldn't make out any words, but the meaning was clearly danger. His breath hitched at the sound of the glass breaking, and then he raised the club as he watched Johnny leap inside to land in a crouching position on his shard-battered cot.

Johnny's eyes quickly scanned the right side of the room, taking in the second empty cot even as they formed narrowed slits. "You said he was here," he accused, low and harsh. One of his booted feet left the cot for the hard wood floor, and he started to turn his head to the other side of the room, but instead his vision blacked out, betraying him right when he needed it most. He felt himself falling to the floor before he felt the pain, which was blunt and numbing like the kind he'd felt when Devi had given him a concussion.

When he hit the floor, the pain was worse. He landed with one leg still twisted in the covers at a bad angle that likely meant it was broken, and his head tilted sideways so that he could vaguely make out the form of Squee for a few seconds when his sight came back blurry. Then there was hot liquid leaking from the back of his head, sticky and revolting and obviously blood. All that he could have forgiven, but then he felt his consciousness slipping away, and an ardent surge of anger flashed through his damaged brain before the darkness rose to take him by force once again. Morpheus and Hypnos were both cruel, rapist bastards.

"Oh, shit." Todd stood there in the dim light, part of him wanting to kneel down to make sure that Johnny was still alive, but another part wanting desperately not to touch him. There was still some fear, of course, that he would spring back to full consciousness and attack as soon as he got close enough, like a monster in a horror movie. More than that, though, he just hated the thought of touching him, that loose, clammy skin over thin, elastic-feeling bone. It was always too cold and somehow sharp like the knives he always carried around. That, and Todd sometimes had the odd feeling that whatever was wrong with Johnny might be catching. The last thought made him feel guiltily because it was how his parents felt about him.

Leon moved forward, but Todd stopped him with his arm as Brian flung the door open and caught his breath at the sight of Johnny unconscious and bleeding on the floor of his study.

"My God, what happened?" Brian said after gathering up enough breath to talk. "What … why ..."

"Uh, I don't know. He broke in." Todd pointed to the window in a stupor as though it would explain everything. "I thought … I don't know."

"Of course, of course you did." Gripping Leon's pajama top, Brian pulled him across the floor, then gestured for Todd to move as well, as if he could erase the whole situation and associated trauma if he could just get them away from the body fast enough. By the time they were in the hall, Letta, Jordan, and Brian's folks were already there, alerted by the noise. "Letta, honey, call 9-11."

END CHAPTER!
Notes:

-The reason you don't need meat if you've got pinto beans and corn bread (or any kind of corn product for the most part) is because together their amino acids make a complete protein similar to that found in many meats. This mixture was a big supplement for the Native Americans, especially the Mesoamericans.

- Simmons is really Membranes assistant in IZ. Membrane is always talking to him on his goggle-phone things. In Future Dib, a flying screen comes to the skool to ask Gaz and Dib (“the Professor's roommates”) to come to the PEG opening, and I'm assuming that's him. If not it probably reflects what most people at the lab thought. I don't own Simmons, though Jordan is an OC.

-Jordan's beliefs about kosher laws were largely inspired by a sermon by Rabbi Barry H. Block: Reform Judaism's New Perspective on Keeping Kosher. Source article: http://www.beth-elsa.org/be_s0119a.htm

-Todd wanting to pray to Mr. or Missus God is based on his prayer in first page of the first issue of the comic Squee! Missus means a married woman or a mistress/lover. Combined the "or" seems to indicate that God may be a man or a woman and the "missus" to indicate that God (likely male or female version) is married to a co-god/ess. It's a very Wiccan type idea, but also one that many kids assume before their parents tell them differently (because idea of God or Goddess is based on creator as parent and parents usually come in twos and usually mother and father). The part where he's thinking about Letta worrying is a reference to Ch 7 of the fic when he thought that maybe his bad luck was a result of "like attracts like" and that meant he was a bad person.

-Dickelodeon is the SubAwake version of Nickelodeon because … it was just too easy, and felt somewhat appropriate for an IZ fic, considering that they dropped Zim how boxed in they made JV feel. And yes, it's Dick for short and there's Dick at Nite, Turbodick, Dick.com, etc. Plus, it kind of fits in with the Poop Cola type of jokes from the show. I know I'm terrible. Not sure what implications this has for the nickel or the nickelodeon machines of the SubAwake universe.

-Morpheus and Hypnos- Greek gods of dreams and sleep respectively.