Matthew No-Name, And His Crazy Friend, Pt. 2

My hands still shook as they clutched the steering wheel, my mind just coming to terms with what my body had apparently already done. Suddenly, as before in the compound, my hands went numb, and they were suddenly steady on the wheel. Again I heard that voice from before, speaking to my brain like a walkie-talkie.
"Speed up and keep us three miles above the speed limit. I need to get us somewhere you can get some food and I can explain what's going on."
Just like that, and it was gone. My head never felt any different for it's presence, but I knew it wasn't someone else. Whatever the voice spoke for, it was something that was as much a part of me as my heart. The hardest part about it was, the voice seemed unbalanced. I can almost feel how insane it truly is, and how fast it will act on the instinct to kill. But maybe soon, everything would make more sense. If I'm lucky. If not, I'll have to just spend the rest of my life with a schizophrenic voice in my head, and hope that it's something they have medication for.
I sighed softly, speeding up the car and feeling the adrenaline in my veins disappear completely. I was still stuck in a toga made of sheets like I knew were found in hospitals. I could remember being in a hospital, but I couldn't remember what my name was. This was turning into a terrible day, and I've only been awake for an hour.
Catching sight of a truck stop, I pulled the car up and felt my hands become mine again, standing up and getting out of the car, the stolen sports bag in my hand. Walking slowly into the store, I look around, my eyes searching for the bathrooms. Catching sight of them, I grabbed my bag tighter and hustled forth, moving quickly through the aisles toward the sanctum of toiletry. Suddenly, a beefy arm was in front of me, and I felt it hit my chest, stopping me in my tracks.
Looking up, I felt my heart sink as I saw the person before me. He was taller and much bigger than I was, and had the look of a seasoned truck driver. I froze on the spot as he began to speak.
"We don't like yer kind 'round here, boy. So I suggest ya get yer faggot ass outta my truck stop, before i have to get rough wit' ye." Said the man, his breathe like rotten milk shoved into a cat's ass. It was clear he wasn't messing around, and that I need to leave. Soon.
"Oh, for the love of Jesus' monkey, who is this fuckface?" There was the voice again, paying attention to me. Suddenly, my whole body went numb, and what happened next was almost too fast to see.
My right hand seemed to flicker, and suddenly it was pressed deep into the man's chest, a long, thin blade seemingly attached to the palm and driven straight through the trucker's breastbone. With another flicker, the hand pulled itself out and the blade vanished back into the palm, my whole body pivoting itself around quickly, slamming a roundhouse kick into the side of the rude trucker, knocking him into a wall. With a quick step forward, my left hand suddenly pushed itself in under the solar plexus, and then ripped open his rib cage in a splatter of gory anger. Standing up, the voice walked me quickly back to the bathrooms and dressed me faster than I thought available. Fighting was beyond me, tears falling from my eyes as I tried to come to terms with the fact that a voice in my head had just killed a man with my hands.
Seemingly ignoring my piteous crying, the voice pulled on all black clothes, loose but comfortable, and a holster belt, complete with a gun around my waist. I'm not even sure why he's doing this, I don't need a gun, I just need to go home.
Before I know it, we've moved back through the store, and a huge wallet is in my back pocket. The voice is moving my body back to my car, grabbing food as we go and not paying any of the frightened people in the store any attention. Everything's confusing, and I don't remember much or think much until we're already on the road. Trying hard to pull myself together, I get up the courage to ask the voice what's going on, and the answer was more horrible than I imagined.
"Those doctors found you when you were little. You've never been human, and so they studied you, and discovered what you can do. Those weapons I keep using? They're your power, they are summoned by your will. I can use them too, which makes everything easier for me. I don't know how they made me part of you, but I have existed only since you were 12. They never talk to me, but they know I'm here, so they know that you're dangerous. I can control you, I think, but not completely, so you need to figure out who you are so we can find a place where you'll be safe. Until then, just know that weapons are at your command constantly, and I am here to help. Also, you're much stronger than normal humans, and you heal faster."
The words echoed in my mind as my own hand fed me on it's own and the other one drove me into the night. I could feel my mind straining to comprehend, and nothing stayed the same.
I fell asleep soon after, my body still moving under the voice's control.

-Fin-

Matthew No-Name, And His Crazy Friend, Pt. 1

Awake. A word without meaning when the world is dark Where am I? What am I? And why am I asking myself these questions? Why don't I know, why can't I see.
The questions hurt my mind, and I stop them, feeling them fade away, and suddenly, like knives in my skull, here comes my memory, slamming into my consciousness, and I gasp, and my lungs are filled with liquid. Drowning! I must escape, I must breathe real air, I know that now. I remember real air, the way it feels so sweet in my lungs.
Struggling to escape, I claw in the liquid, searching for air, and alas! I feel it, sweet cold air, I push weakly towards it, and hit the surface, spluttering and clumsily sucking down life in the sweetness of the air. Letting my lungs work on their own, I take stock of the situation, knowing only that there is something wrong. I can feel things in my arms and legs, and there's a thin monitoring strip attached to my head. Every limb feels weak with fatigue, and yet I know that my body hasn't moved in days. Slowly pulling loose the IV's from my arms and the needles from my legs, I sit up and look around, searching for some evil looking doctor to notice me and try to shoot, "The Creature". But nothing happens. Confused, I step from the tank full of the brackish liquid I had apparently been sleeping in, reaching up to pull the strip from my forehead and sighing with relief.
In seconds, I heard alarms begin to beep, telling someone, somewhere, that something had happened.
Acting on instincts I didn't know I had, I quickly grabbed a nearby sheet and dried my bare skin, grabbing another and making a crude toga. Taking off down the hall in a lurching run, I could hear unknown feet pounding down other halls, moving toward the tank where I was meant to be.
Suddenly, turning a corner, I saw a burly man with a huge gun aimed right for my head. Before I could react, my body did it for me, my right hand jerking up as if throwing something. And suddenly, like magic, I WAS throwing something. Namely, four large shurikens. The deadly metal stars spun through the air, ripping through the guard's throat like tissue paper, one after another til his spine was severed. With a sudden scream, I fell to my knees, unable to comprehend what had happened. Where did those ninja stars come from? Why were my reflexes so obviously NOT my reflexes? I wasn't a killer, I was absolutely sure of that, and yet my hand had moved almost on it's own. Like someone else was in my body.
"Nice work poindexter, now let's get the fuck out of here!"
"What?" I said, confused. The voice in my head was nasty, cruel, heartless, and yet.. It was me. I could have swore I had just heard the dark half of my soul speak, and it was chilling.
Suddenly, my legs and arms went numb, and started to move. With economy and obvious skill,  my body shifted to a standing position and then took off down the hall faster than I thought possible. The weakness was still in my body, and yet my legs were pumping faster than a speedy man could run.
"That's because you're much more than a speedy man. You're special, Matthew, but not special enough to warrant a second life, so if you don't mind, BREATHE FASTER!"
Worried and confused, I focused on breathing faster, letting the unknown person save my life by running me along the hall. Suddenly, we swung a hard right, and slammed through a big door into the brightest light I had ever seen. The sun was especially bright today, and for a few minutes I couldn't see. Opening my eyes some, I caught sight of a sports car with a sports bag in the back. The voice in my head started to mutter to itself, and suddenly, my legs and arms were my own. Taking a second to orient myself, I sprinted to the car, hearing  the man in my head rambling on, and grabbed the wires under the wheel, jerking them around and suddenly realizing I had hotwired it.
Where the fuck did I learn to hotwire a car at?
"Don't worry about it, just drive! Gnats, gnats everywhere, eating my hamburger's asses.. Why must the gnats follow my spleen?"
Shaking my head, I spun the wheel and sped out like a bat out of hell, not sure where I was going or when I would get there, but not caring much about either. Nothing was more important than figuring out who the crazy man in my head was and why I suddenly had the ability to throw shurikens from thin air.
It's gonna be a long, long drive.

-Fin-

-Stephen

But... Why?

Everyone else wept, but I couldn't do anything. I couldn't move, I couldn't breathe, I couldn't think. Something inside me said that if I kept still for long enough, things would go back to normal, and I'd be able to take it all back. I could fix this as long as I didn't move. As the minutes ticked by, it dawned on me, every memory of what could have been.
In a flash, we were at the funeral, and there she was, lying there, looking as if she were merely sleeping. There was nothing wrong, it was all a dream. I stumbled to my feet and screamed, "Monica!", my voice breaking in my ears, shattering, driving it's splinters deep into my brain until I couldn't think, only move. I knew she was still awake, I. could see her breathing, there was nothing wrong, they were all mistaken. Nothing had happened to her, it was all a bad dream. It had to be, there was no way she was dead.
Suddenly, the Pastor was before me, his arms on my shoulders, trying to stop my mad dash. He was in on it, I knew it, they all were. Nobody was innocent of this crime, the blasphemy of trying to bury Monica within the ground, trying to stamp out the beauty of her life. It barely took any effort to shove the pastor away. He went flying, as if I had hurt him, he cried out, but I was deaf to them all now. The only one who mattered was Monica, she had to be alive, just had to be, there was no way she wasn't, I knew she couldn't be gone. The world was fair, it had to be, she had to be alive.
I reached the coffin. There she was, her cheeks still rosy, he hands wrapped around a black rose, her favorite flower. She was breathing, she had to be. There was no possibility she died. She had to be special, the drugs weren't enough, the doctors were wrong. She was still alive, she had to be. There was no way she was gone. The cuts on her wrists were healed, I could see it. I knew she was alive, the whiskey was water, it had to be. I lifted her out of the casket, I knew she was breathing, I just couldn't feel it. Any moment now, she'd speak, and the world would be right again. I just knew it, like the rooster knows it's dawn. I could see it coming.
But it never came. She never woke. I stood there, and felt the tears flow, and I knew, I had lost my sanity, and it would never come back.
And and neither would my sister...