Henderson's School for the Gifted.

Henderson’s School for the Gifted
They never would leave me. I tried to make them go once, I shouted at them, sobbing, “Go away! Leave me alone! Leave me ALONE!” They didn’t listen, and they surrounded me and hurt me. They were the ones who changed me, made me the way I am, made me different. The first time we met, it seemed like we were friends. But that changed. They changed. Instead of comforting me when I was depressed, they yelled at me, and hit me. They snickered maliciously when I got in trouble at school, mostly because of their filthy advice. Everyone in my neighborhood soon started becoming cautious when I passed, crying, and screaming at my so called friends. For some queer reason, no one else in my neighborhood besides me saw them. They always ran away when someone passed by, and came back when I was alone again. I tried being with people all the time...I thought that they might scare them away. It worked for a few days, but they caught onto my plans, and they somehow whispered into my ears from afar. To make up for the time that they weren’t physically with me, they tormented me during my sleep, keeping me awake with their heavy breathing, giving me nightmares when I finally drowsed off from sheer exhaustion. They never let me do anything anymore. That’s why I blocked the doors to the room...but I don’t have much time left to write in this diary...they’ll be coming soon, and they’ll be very angry with me...
I always knew I was different. I could always tell by the worn-down, yet elegant sign outside of my school: “Henderson’s School for the Gifted.” I had figured out how to read by myself when I was four, and I had learned algebra when I was in first grade. My mother had smiled so proudly when I showed my report card to her, which always had an average of over a hundred, yet I always saw a hint of sadness in her eyes. However, as the years passed, and as I proceeded farther into school, gathering more knowledge, which I memorized, school changed. Some of my friends changed with it. We started doing simpler activities, such as repeating the algebra we learned in first grade. We did worthless things in some classes, such as doing small projects with construction paper, which I believed the teachers made us do for fun. However, some of my friends, they were eager in these brainless projects, as they had became slower mentally and became distracted and forgetful. They had met them. I was one of the last few people to hold on to my intelligence and memory, and I was desperate not to lose it, as my fellow classmates had. I concentrated intensely on everything, making sure I didn’t make a mistake, to prove to the school that I was different from these dull fools, to prove that I didn’t belong there. However, I too gradually met them.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Deep breathing. Red eyes. Cold fingers on my neck, choking. Choking me. Throat tightening. Going to die, going to die, going to die...
I sat upright in my bed, drenched in a cold sweat, breathing heavily. I looked around, hearing the patter of rain on the roof, seeing nothing in my small dark room. Apart from the red eyes surrounding my bed, looking at me silently with approval. They belonged to dark bodies which held gleaming objects in their hands. I looked closer, because I knew this was all a nightmare, all a figment of my imagination. They were knives. At my sudden realization, they smiled at me, their sharpened teeth glinting. Suddenly, in unison they lifted their knives high in the air, poised to drop at any second. They paused to admire the sudden wave of fear which had passed through me, brought on by the fact that these things were real, were dangerous, and would kill me at a moment’s notice.
I swung my foot out and hit one of the things in its knee, which, it turned out, to be solid. It still looked at me with no physical reaction what so ever, but its red eyes flamed with loathing, and it nodded its head. I darted through an opening between two of the creatures just as the knives came down into the bed, puncturing the mattress. They emitted horrible shrieks at the realization that I had managed to evade them. They turned around and sprinted after me as I ran into the bathroom next to my bedroom, leaving the doors ajar to both of the two rooms.
I ran and hit the light switch, which filled the room with a fake, sickly light. The two things that were in the bathroom with me immediately howled and screamed as the light touched them, burning into their skin. Their black blood fell onto the carpet, steaming as it touched the floor, their whole bodies falling apart and disintegrating. I closed the door from which I had came, the other things glaring at me, unable to harm me. As it shut, I locked it and breathed in warily. I slowly walked over to the sink, and I rinsed my face, especially my eyes, with cold water. I stood for a moment, my head hanging above the sink, water dripping from my face. I looked up into the mirror in front of the sink, and was startled to see that the door which I had just closed was wide open again. I quickly spun around and looked straight into the red eyes of the demons which started to fade, still looking menacing, as my mother strode down the hallway at midnight to check on her son.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * For some reason, my mother could not comprehend how or why my sheets and mattress were shredded. And for the same reason, neither could I. It all seemed unrealistic, imaginary. However, I knew deep inside of me, it was me who stole the steak knives, it was me who had stabbed and ripped my bed seven times, it was me that screamed. Yet how was it possible. But how was it not possible. I never was scared of monsters; they were fanciful things. During the night I comforted myself by saying , “They’re not real. Deal with it and go to sleep.” But I couldn’t have said that anymore. Because that would mean that it was me. But I knew something was changing about me; I could tell by the worried look on my mother’s face when she saw my bed, the bloody scar on my hand which had came from out of nowhere. I could tell by my habits, such as forgetting why I got up to do something, or getting distracted while I did homework. I had trouble understanding simple math problems and their answers, although I could grasp the concept of the more complex ones. I replaced ‘p’s and ‘b’s with each other accidentally sometimes, and I put the comb in the toothpaste drawer. It was after these minute things when I had my experience with the demons, and it was then that the demons realized that I was different and would not give up without a fight.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
The next time we were acquainted, they took on a more pleasant form. It took place during recess, the time for gossiping and simple games of four square. I usually took this time to just lie on the asphalt and look at the sky and wonder. However, on this particular recess, in one corner of the asphalt courtyard was a group of children I had never seen before. The school had only a hundred students, so I knew their names and faces well.
I walked to the corner where the children were huddled, my footsteps echoing louder and louder as I got away from the the throng of other children. Upon my arrival, they broke their huddle and made an opening for which me to come into. They all stared at me silently, apart from one of them that whispered, “We were expecting you, James.” The others nodded in agreement until the speaker lifted his hand in the air, telling them to be quiet. “Yes, we were expecting you, but you are four minutes late. You see, James, we have a schedule. When this schedule is not followed, we get angry, because if it is not followed, then things go wrong. You don’t want things to go wrong, do you, James?” he asked questioningly.
I shook my head slowly, cautiously, keeping my eyes on the leader of the small group.
“That’s good. Because if things go wrong, people get hurt. Now, we wouldn’t want things to go wrong, because then people will get hurt. Isn’t that correct?” I was strongly reminded of a shrink, as this child had the same calm look on his face, and the same smooth voice. I nodded, my eyes fixed his dangerous ones.
“Now, the next time we have a meeting, I strongly urge you that you be on time. However, you already were late, so, there will be consequences.” He winked at me, holding his false smile plastered on his face.
I looked behind me, to see if it was to time to go inside yet, as well as to check if there were people watching me. As I turned around however, I was met with a blank wall. I turned my head back around, and instead of seeing the nine year old kid, I saw a bald, old man with a beard and glasses. Panicked, I looked around the room. There were books on psychology and the human mind that stacked the wooden the shelves all around the room, and a rosewood desk with a metal lamp was by the door. The man sat on a leather chair with a notepad and pencil in hand, and he watched me intently. I was lying on a fabric couch, my head propped up by a pillow.
“James. James. Look at me.” The shrink leaned closer to me, looking into my eyes. I finally turned to rest my eyes on his. He asked forcefully, “James, what happened?”
I looked at him, questioningly, my eyebrows arched.
“Hiding will get you nowhere, James. Now, tell me what happened.” he said seriously, “Tell me what happened. I;m trying to understand. Please, explain it to me.”
“I....I don’t know...I can’t...remember...what happened?” I stuttered nervously, now fidgeting in the couch, my hands wringing one another. What had happened? Why was I here, in the school’s psychiatrist’s office? Wait! Since when does our school have a...I never knew about this office.
He looked at me, digging deeper into my eyes to see if I was lying. I silently watched him ponder, stroking his beard. What a cliché. He’s trying to make me tell him something. “What happened?” I said, exasperated. He observed me calmly, as if to anger me more, his gaze penetrating deep into my soul.
“WHAT HAPPENED!? I....DON'T......KNOW!” I screamed at him, breathing heavily.
He dropped his hand from his beard, and folded his hands in his lap. He breathed in through his nostrils, thinking of a way to approach me. “If one were to attack one’s best friend, you must agree that somewhere deep in that person’s mind, they would know, correct?”
I nodded silently, not truly agreeing in my mind.
“You really don’t know what happened, do you?” he said softly.
I sighed and put my head in my hands as an answer, rubbing my temples. A sick, sticky sound, almost like the floor in a movie theater covered with evaporated soda sounded as I pulled my hands away from my temples. I lifted my hands, shaking, and slowly lowered them in front of me, my eyes closed. I popped my eyes open and uttered a gasp. There was blood on my hands. It wasn’t mine.
“Who was it? Who’s is this?” I raised one of my hands toward him, holding it with my other hand, as if to restrain it from killing him too. He didn’t answer. He hesitated, but then continued with what he was going to say.
“One of your friends, Donald, he saw you in the corner by yourself, thought about going over and shouting, “BOO!” As soon as he touched you however, you spun around and hit him in the jaw, and then jumped on him and started punching him. Some of Donald’s friends pulled you off of him, and you just...fainted. They brought you here.
James, what were you doing in that corner?”
“Well, um, I was talking with some people...”
He interrupted me aruptly, “What people James? What did they look like?”
“They were in a little cluster, and I came in. They said that they were expecting me, but I was four minutes late. They said if people are late, then people get hurt. They said that they would hurt someone. Then...then...I ended up here.”