Normal service should resume soon.

Sir Not appearing in this story.

So due to being a bit ill again and in need of sleep (also because someone asked) I thought I would share some of my fiction I wrote a few years ago. It is dark and so on. Normal service should resume soon.

The Death of Gregory Rivers. Unseen Stories.

Gregory hadn't moved from the underpass all day. His urine soaked trousers slid against the cold tiled floor but the Voice refused to let him move. The Voice had been with him such a long time, it left him alone sometimes for weeks or months and he almost felt normal again, but when it spoke- the Voice was not just in his mind but is in his now wrecked body, jerking him like a strange puppet.

At first he had fought it, when one night he had drunkenly fell asleep on a grassed round-about. He had been young then, a promising student out with the boys. After that fateful fitful nightmare filled sleep he had woken changed.

He heard the Voice and it pained him to refuse it, but he had fought.

A sly smile spread across his cracked dry lips. He no longer cared about the cold, or the discomfort. His joints were swollen from the alcohol he drank to quieten the Voice enough to let him sleep for a night here or there but it didn't work as well as it used to.

The Voice had given him things, he saw the world differently. He could see lights and shimmering shades of colours around them. Most looked the same, maybe with black spots on them or parasites only he could see, like giant ticks or elongated cockroaches hanging from peoples unaware flesh.

The Voice had shown him the pattern, he must remember the pattern. His body jerked suddenly in a flash of pain as the colour and pattern was forced into his memory. It always hurt so badly, but it was so beautiful. A shifting ripple of rainbows and iridescence like a tear-drop or flame.

The Voice had given him this beautiful memory not of his own mind, but it did not temper the hate he felt towards it.

The underpass lights twitched and flickered. Something like a bird made of shadows flew pass over the heads of the regular people. How blind they were, how irritatingly hurtfully blind they were. Gregory envied and loathed them for it.

A breeze blew up and caught some leaves scurrying them into the underpass, They danced around him and for a moment he was transfixed and delighted.

“What am I?”

He asked to the wind. The wind did not answer.

He started to cough. It started slowly a wheezing choke growing ever stronger until the rattling moistness of his own lungs echoed in the now empty underpass.

For a moment all was peaceful and he was just a man again. The hold over him was growing weaker somehow. He could remember his family, what had happened to them he wondered. His childhood friends, and then he remembered Debbie.

Her dark hair and wild eyes had drawn him when he had been placed in hospital for a few months.

The ward had been crowded and nobody seemed to know what to do with Gregory. No medication seemed to work, no family had come forward. His health problems were evident, but he was just a rambling homeless man. Alcohol psychosis and delusional schizophrenia. He had taken his meds quiet as a lamb, and had enjoyed the bed and the warm bath well enough.

One day in the day-room with it's sharp objects and mismatched chairs had come Debbie like a whirling wind. She was having a fight with a male nurse that all the patience knew like to touch the girls but the staff ever listened about. She had broken his nose and the scarlet rose had exploded on his face.

The nurse swore and the torrent of accurate abuse flowed from her mouth. Some of the other patience especially the women howled in pleasure and gratification. Gregory could see she was ablaze literally, her real shape was like a flame. The other staff had now come over and begun to circle Debbie like a pack of Hyena. Someone lunged and stuck Debbie with something and she fell. She fell slowly and with a grace that mesmerized Gregory. Turning as she fell she looked into his eyes just before she became unconscious, and a spark of recognition jumped between them.

Gregory stood up slowly as the staff began to carry her away and picked up a plastic chair and began to beat them with it. The new assault from “harmless Gregory” shocked the nurses and two went flying, the guy with the broken nose tried to strike him, then in a wavering voice tried to reason with Gregory.

“We not trying to hurt you now Gregory, put the chair down. No-ones going to hurt you. Everyone is okay.”

Gregory tilted his head and smiled passively. He put down the chair, at which point the nurse made a grab for him. He batted him away easily. The Voice had given him so much strength.

“You are evil Mark. You hurt them, the girls. You are going to die soon.”

Gregory then picked up Debbie and carried her to her room. The whole room whooping and cheering as he the hero carried the damsel in distress to her room. He lay he down gently on her bed and sat holding her hand.

When the doctors had finally turned up, they had ushered Gregory into his own room.

The male nurse, Mark had never returned to the ward. Too many people had witnessed too much for them to sweep it under the carpet again.

Gregory had rescued her, and the other women in the ward and they knew it. He had told the doctors what had happened and they looked at each other nervously.

Everything went back to normal but everything was different. Some of the girls made him flowers, or gave him their pudding. Debbie did something different she just sat near him when ever she could. The staff didn't like it and discouraged them from speaking to each other but they did it anyway.

They didn't get much chance to talk about things but Gregory noticed she noticed the same things he did. The ticks and shadows the birds and animals others couldn't see, made her turn her head also.

He tried once to ask if she heard the Voice, but he began to twitch violently. The fit subsided but he got the idea that speaking to her was something the Voice disapproved of.

In the high heat of summer some of the ward were allowed to go into the garden and Debbie and Gregory went together to sit on the grass.

“Come on then.” She said jumping up.

Gregory looked confused.

“Time to go, now Gregory.”

He smiled and arm in arm they slowly walked towards some tall trees. Behind them was a sports bag and Debbie crouched down and opened it. It had clothes in it, a set for each of them and a pair of scissors. She took his arm and cut of the medical bracelet and gave him the scissors to cut off her own. She took off her clothes and Gregory blushed but followed suit. She then stuffed the bag with their old clothes and shoved a summer hat down over her eyes. Debbie was wearing a summer dress and sandals and looked lovely, as though she were going to play tennis.

They walked straight out of the hospital into town and sat in the park. From a pocket on the bag she retrieved two wallets both with money and a small soft velvet pouch. She also grabbed a packet of cigarettes and a battered lighter. She opened the pouch and inside was a large green gem set in a silver ring. It was unlike anything he had ever seen. It twisted around her finger and glowed with a radiance and fire as she placed it on her right hand. There some dried leaves in the bag and Debbie placed them in her hand and crushed them. She then took a cigarette and mashed it into the mix and placed it on the ground between them and light the mix. It burnt with a green flame and it's smoke wrapped it's fingers around them both. When the circle was complete it fell away.

“They won't find us now Gregory.”

She smiled shyly and gave him the wallet, his wallet. Everything was where it was supposed to be, except he had not owned a wallet in years. Leaning forward she kissed his cheek and pressed a small cross made of twigs and red wool into his hand.

“Good luck. Good bye.”

He sat staring at his hand and he pressed the cross to his chest and the fingers of the Voice within him lessened. After than things had gone well for a time. He lived in a hostel, thought about getting a job and made some friends.

One night someone had stolen his things and trashed his room. The cross had gone and the Voice was laughing at him. The sound would be enough to drive anyone mad. A rasping dry laugh that was pitiless and cruel.

He wept like a child. He had tried to find twigs and make the cross but it never worked. His swollen knuckles made the fiddly job impossible for him. He gave up.

He was unsure how long it had been, years since the Voice was everything.

In the underpass the sound of rainfall began. It rained a lot here, the place seemed to want to soak it's self in misery. The builds clung to the greyness.

The a woman in a long velvet skirt swept into the underpass wrestling with an umbrella. There she was swearing and her voice was low. He looked at her and he could see it. It was her. Her shape flickered and rippled, she was shining. It was more beautiful than the memory.

His eyes welled with tears. He tried to speak. His tongue felt numb.

“I HAVE FOUND HER. Hett! I have found her for you.”

His shout made her snap her attention to him. She muttered something and her flame vanished into a cloud like grey fog so many of the other people and and she began to hurry through the under pass.

The Voice seemed to purr with please in his mind. Then the Voice seemed to leave him completely.

Gregory began to cough and try to stand but his legs failed him. He began to shake and white spittle trickled down his chin as he cough and croaked to try and get his breath. Leaning against the wall he managed to rise to his knees. His face became red with the strain and the inability to breathe.

His white hair shook as dusk and leaves fell about him. He fell on his side and clutched his chest, in pleasure and agony. He began to vomit and the world around him grew hazy.

Debbie’s face was then over him, her dark eyes full of sorrow and love. Everything went white and the pain eased.

Someone was calling his name and he thought it was Debbie. Debbie sat in the garden. She beckoned him. The sky was very blue and the grass so very green. The colours saturated with light.

Reluctantly he moved slowly towards her like a dream. His face sad.

“I lost the cross. I couldn't make another. I did something terrible.”

Debbie just nodded, gently she smiled at him.

“I have been look for you for such a long time, but he found you first. The failing was mine. I should not have left you when I did but I had to keep her safe, I had to see her one last time.”

Gregory nodded.

“Who is she?”

A smile spread on her face.

“She is our hope. Our protector, and yours. Without her the Evil that hurt you would destroy all of your kind. Come now and rest my friend. Tomorrow I will take you to explore our land some more.”

Gregory lay his head in her lap and dreamed soft peaceful dreams about the shining lady. Everything was going to be okay now he knew. He was home.