A long time ago, when I was a different person
I got dragged along on an extended family visit to a town called Donahue, in Iowa. I still had my sleep disorder back then, and almost every night, I'd take walks to nowhere. And I would arrive nowhere, hang around alone and awkward, and eventually walk back.
I couldn't even tell you who it was we were there to visit. I was as adjusted to Donahue as I was anywhere else. It gave me the same constant ennui as the town in which I lived. I only agreed to go of the desperation that this, of all places, would help me feel something. Everywhere I went, I ate and breathed macabre, and I'd swear to you then that nothing fulfilling would ever happen in my pathetic little life. Usual setup.
I can't imagine where I'd be now if I didn't take a walk, stopping to explore a house I thought was abandoned, on the night of August 3rd.
Yes, I was there at the exact time and place of the infamous Donahue massacre, perpetrated by a brutal fucker who called himself Alhazred in his crazy writings. Apparently he was a Lovecraft fan. And this place was where he'd been storing the bodies.
That's all hindsight, though. When I opened the upper bedroom door, I didn't know what the holy hell I was looking at. There was liquid and metal everywhere, pooling into the corners of the room, and...people, maybe? Parts of people? Everywhere. No matter how long I stared, it didn't sink in. I was too confused to be afraid. Why I took that step forward is beyond me, but I did. Maybe I thought a closer look would help me comprehend what kind of horror I was looking at.
It didn't, really. It just made the bomb go off. Was it a bomb? I could never be sure. Something damn near killed me. After that, in the blackness, I had vague memories of music.
It felt like a good 14-hour nap before I woke up cold, hungry, and naked. There were far fewer bodies in the room, but in all the confusion and the feeling like crap, the single thing that grabbed my attention was the beat-up painting sitting against the wall. It depicted a character I swore I designed, a white dragon standing on its hind legs, covered in a cowl. Generic, I know, but I swore it as well as I swear myself.
Even if I'd never seen that painting in my life.
I hadn't sobered from the experience, but one thought hit me like a bullet: I needed to get the shit out of that house. I left the painting alone, wrapped myself in a bloody sheet and crept downstairs. My clothes were in a pile at the door, but I couldn't afford the time and noise it would take to put them on. Having come from a broken home, I fancied myself pretty good at sneaking around a house at night. Hot diggity fuck, was I wrong. My nerves were shot, and my heart skipped a beat every time I bumped into something. I considered just bolting for the door, not looking back, but I never worked up the courage. I did make it to the lower floor in the most clumsy, embarrassing way possible, which meant I was at the front door.
I looked to my right, and time froze. Either I was in front of a very large mirror, or there was a person standing in the kitchen and looking back at me, also covered in blood and rags. My heart and brain were perfectly still, and I'd come straight out of shock, so I couldn't process it. But this person was making sounds, and they weren't mine.
I tried to say something, but it wasn't working. Nonsense came out of our mouths, louder and louder, until we managed repeated variations of "who are you" and "who the fuck are you". We raised our guns at one another.
And then it dawned on me that I picked up a gun from the upstairs hallway on my way there. I clearly wasn't in the right frame of mind for this confrontation, and neither was my new friend. So we put down the weapons and talked at the kitchen table. This character was as androgynous back then as I am today, but I put my bets on it being a he, and about my age, too. Past the explosion, his story was my story. He woke up covered in blood that wasn't his, covered himself head to toe in whatever he could find, and stepped over my body on the way out. His gun, too, he found laying around. At the time, our knowledge of firearms amounted to dick, so they took a while to dismantle. But neither of them were loaded. We kind of laughed at each other, trying to figure out if it was appropriate.
He had these bizzare fits of anxiety whenever I asked about his name, so I didn't press it. He only guessed from our combined story that he was dragged unconscious into that pile of people I found upstairs. It wasn't very illuminating. I mentioned the painting, and he shrugged. I insisted he take a look. He said okay, and I took it upon myself to run upstairs, avert my eyes from anything else in the room, and run back down with the painting. He shrugged again, but since I was holding the canvas up to him, that had me looking at the back, where there was something crudely written in blue pen:
2 id
2 ego
2 super-ego
We both recognized the psychological terms, but obviously had nothing to contribute to what was starting to look like a grand mystery. Nervous as I was, I was excited. I probably had the delusion that we'd get right to work solving this thing, as opposed to getting pieces of it years and years later.
And then, he had something to show me. I jumped when I heard a couple piano strikes echo through the house. He laughed at me, which hurt my feelings. Before I could complain, he lead me over to the adjacent room, which had a piano at the far end.
Bear with me here.
The thing on the piano had its little claws on the high keys, which it looked guilty about, like it was caught sticking those same claws in the cookie jar. It was frozen in place, staring at my new friend, who was still chuckling to himself.
"He doesn't know his name, and I don't know his sex. So I just call him a he. Now tell me that's not the craziest thing you've ever seen."
What am I looking at? was a thought I could only bear to have so many times in one night. This one was at least sort of comprehensible. It was the size of a cat, it had big eyes and a tail, it was actually kinda cute, and it recognized this guy and holy cunt there isn't anything like that in the world. What am I looking at?
"He talks, too. And plays the piano."
Without my prompt (because I had nothing to say), he picked up the creature, which said "Hey." as he did, and placed him around C-4. It paused, unpaused, and did a little dance on the keys.
I had two thoughts, in this order: 1) What a nice tune. 2) WHAT THE FUCK?
I think it was the second one that escaped my mouth.
"Yeah, from the sound of it, I'd say he knows a fair bit about music theory. You're better for conversation, though."
My bright, immature mind felt the need to point out that if he knew the lizard knew music theory from listening to him play music, that must mean that he also knows music theory. Right? He guessed so. Somehow, I felt like a genius. I continued my brilliant streak by finally asking what this was.
The creature (we had an implied agreement that he was dumb and talented) stopped his song and croaked, "I'm a dragon", then he resumed playing. The mood carried on like that was his usual response.
A dragon. Like the painting. And my new buddy shrugged? This was all connected! So I harrassed him about it. Apparently, he had a different mind toward mysteries as I did. Here I was trying to make sure this wasn't all an extended dream like usual, and this guy was blasé about befriending an impossible creature. Sure, you'd really have to convince me that this tiny blue-ish thing was a dragon, but the self-identification was enough, right? The fact that it could TALK was enough, right?
I was hit by self-awareness at this point, and I analyzed the experience of it all. This series of events was so ridiculous and held together with just a little bit of logic that it was a perfect candidate for a dream. It wasn't unusual for me to feel pain, discomfort, and anxiety in dreams, and the "dark, abandoned house" was a recurring setpiece, just like the "mysterious new friend". So I decided to wake up.
I was not asleep.
"Seriously, try having a conversation with him. He's got this food fixation."
The shock subsided. I was coming to terms with reality. My reactions toward this night turned inward. I was witness to something incredible. No, I was a part of something incredible. I was special.
I was finally special...
Snap. Nothing feels worse than being knocked off your high. A cop car pulled up to the front of the house, and my friend grabbed the lizard and bolted out the back door, to the woods. I couldn't stop him. I couldn't ask him anything. I couldn't even bring myself to follow. My moment of ecstacy was over. He was gone, maybe forever. Okay, obviously he wasn't gone forever; we do meet again, but come on. Imagine how I felt.
They took both the guns away, which I was fine with, but I was a little upset when they took the painting too. I didn't put up much resistance, though. I was physically and emotionally exhausted, not to mention desperately hungry, when they brought me to the station. There were so many people in suits, and I had no idea what their jobs were. They promised me food, so I told them about everything except my friend and his pet, the thing that was probably an actual fucking cat-sized D-word that can talk.
When they gave me the summary on that house, I nearly lost my shit over the possibility that I'd just had a polite conversation with the most notorious spree killer since H.H. Holmes. Until they told me that they killed Alhazred, a mile away, an hour before I woke up. Good thing they told me that just before I would've spilled everything about the Person I met.
The bloody bedroom screwed me up a little, physically. From that day forward, some of my hair always came out white. I gotta admit, I was immediately fine with it. I thought it was cool, and it made for a great story, even if I was bullshit at speaking back then...Oh, and some of my teeth fell out, the bottom-back ones. They were a mess. I've got artificials now.
I assumed I'd been caught in an IED, but no one could corroborate that. Some of the officers were blunt about it: there was no bomb. I recall a conversation with CSF Special Agent Redwood, who is probably a bear in a man costume. That guy, it turned out, would not butt out of my life. He interrogated me for an hour, and full stomach or no, I was too much a passive wimp to complain that I wasn't in the best state of mind to be answering questions.
I never forgot what happened, but before long, the excitement died down, and I went back to the depression I knew before I ever arrived in Donahue. Some years later, several things would happen to traumatize me so deeply, I turned my life around. Over the course of a few arduous years, I reshaped my body and mind. Only in the middle of it did I begin to pursue the truth of that night. And in putting the truth above my own feelings, I had to take the blow that I wasn't special at all.
Hey, lighten the fuck up, you already know how I turn out. Everything's fine. I'm fine. Jesus.
Since I started my stay in Minneapolis, I've learned a lot about the facts of the matter and how so much of what's happened is indirectly my own fault. I'd say the craziest thing I know now, though, is that I'd meet those bodies from the bloody bedroom once again, and we'd make a very good family...and that we'd be searching for that painting with a resolution equal to that of a CSF Special Agent.
So, to answer your question, yes. I made it this far, and I'm going to get back what's mine. We're coming, bitches.
Teh double headed pony! =D/ 
