Time Warp: Disregarding That I Created These Monsters

[Cyrus Wright]

September 1995

Cyrus had been having nightmares. Not the usual sort of nightmares, the vaguely remembered fear or panic, odd things happening, but ones that had him waking up nearly screaming in terror. As a young man he generally considered himself to be pretty brave, and as someone who knew fear intimately he was familiar with suppressing it… These were taking it to a different level. Most of them involved his parents, though several had featured his brothers and sisters. It was different each time, but the same as well, in which he was everything they made him out to be, a freak, a monster, and he lived up to those monikers each time.

Just considering them made his palms itch as he reached for the door knob to Dr. Neville’s office. He had only sought Dr. Neville once on his own before, though he’d seen him more than he’d like to remember thanks to his own temper and poor decision making. The man had grudgingly won his respect, though Cyrus tried not to think about the fact that he could simply slip inside his head and easily see how to win him over. He actually seemed genuine, and for an adult at this point in time, well it meant a lot to Cyrus.

He knew why he was having the dreams, but that didn’t help him deal with them. He hesitated at the door, feeling his own fear and anxiety rising. It was not like him to be unsure, a feeling nearly as foreign as being truly afraid. He berated himself silently, go in or don’t but don’t stand here like a fool. Taking a deep breath and holding it he pushed open the door without knocking and immediately began to speak.

“Dr. Neville, I really need to talk to you.”

[Dr. Sean Neville]

Five years.

Sean had worked in his capacity at Hammel for five years. Where had the time gone?

In that time, the psychiatrist had attempted to build as many bridged with the students and the other faculty as possible. To the best of his ability, he tried to be a resource for the students, someone that they could come to of their own volition when they had problems, while still straddling some of the other duties that Eliza Harding had dumped in his lap.

Such as the discipline for minor infractions. That wasn’t in his employment contract, and as a self-identified hippie, Sean had to wonder why anyone had thought that he would be the ideal candidate for those tasks.

Admittedly, despite standing a foot taller than the Headmistress, he was objectively less intimidating, so perhaps that played a part in the decision-making. Whatever it was, he rolled with it.

He took pride in the fact that, despite his side role as the disciplinarian, students still came to him with their problems, even when only days before they had sat in his office because they had gotten into a fight.

To that end, the psychiatrist had been seated at his desk with a mug of coffee, while reviewing notes from one of his previous sessions. However, he heard Cyrus’s arrival, and he turned as soon as the door opened, only to be confronted with the boy’s hurried admission that he needed to talk.

Immediately, Sean closed his file and set down his coffee. “Of course, Cyrus,” he remarked quickly. “Shut the door so we can have some privacy.”