ariel2

It's kind of hard to remember exactly what happened for the first year after I ran away from home. For a long time, I was something close to catatonic. The stress of having my entire life uprooted was too much, and part of me would not accept it no matter how hard I tried. I lost all ability to communicate on my own and surrendered myself to the voices in my head. They would take my hands and type, type away at the cell's computer, sending message after message with no idea of where they were really going. For a while, my body wasn't my own. Not that it ever felt like it was to begin with.

I was still aware, though. The cell members were so confused, wondering where this bizarre, silent kid with a direct connection to the Messengers came from. But I still didn't have the energy to care what they thought. Still totally lost to the fugue, they would have to come in and take care of me, which only made the voices louder when they came near, and I would lose myself more. It must have been what being dead was like, watching myself from outside my body.

Eventually, six months after I first showed up at the cell, I started regaining control. I could feel my hands again when they started to tingle with that old urge to move and feel. They still remembered how to work the keyboard from that time of practice, though it took me some time to really wrap my head around exactly what my hands were doing.

Once I got it, though, I typed, nonstop for hours. Not some pre-programmed words from the voices in my head. My own ideas. My own thoughts. Mine. It was like breathing fresh air for the first time after a lifetime of being choked. That first typing session, nothing even made sense, but that didn't matter. The clicking of the keys, the feeling of my fingers constantly moving, letting off energy, finally putting what was in my head in a form that someone else could potentially understand.

I don't know if anyone can really relate to how much that breakthrough meant to me. But it's true. Up until that moment, I'd often thought that I wasn't even human. We certainly didn't speak the same language, even if I could read. No matter how hard my mother and the therapists tried to teach me how to be normal, it never seemed to work. I might never learn to talk like everyone else. But, maybe now I at least had a chance to express myself and let myself be heard.

It was the first time in my life I actually felt hopeful about something.

The lack of structure was something difficult to deal with at first. I had to rebuild all my routines, and regaining total function was a bit of an ordeal. No more therapy. No more quiet hands, feet on the floor, touch your nose over and over and over until you've been good enough to earn a treat. On one hand, it feels so good to be free to move and think in my own way. I feel more like a human and less like a dog.

On the other, that just means I'll keep getting worse, doesn't it? If that was the only chance I had, then what chance do I have now? It may have been unpleasant, but it was for my own good. That I feel good now from abandoning it, it's like I've given up.

Oh, well. I'll try to make peace with it. At least I have the Messengers to give my life some kind of meaning. And Stanford, I guess. I don't know why he likes me or why he cares about my well-being. but it's nice. He's patient with me and doesn't care if I make weird noises or move my hands too much. More importantly, he actually talks to me. Not to people around me, not to the other hunters. Me. That really does mean a lot.

I worry about him, though. He doesn't want to burden me with his problems, but he's hiding something dark inside him. I can feel it. I can only hope that maybe I'll be able to help him as much as he's helped me.