Chapter 206 - Ocean – Helping Justin

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Ocean

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Justin was just sitting there. His head wasn't drooping, his body wasn't slouching over. He was sitting perfectly upright while his eyes were closed. He was breathing normally, which was good. And he seemed to be at peace, and that was even better.

"Uhm, Dr. Malachi, what am I supposed to do now?" I was the one that wanted to help Justin, but I was lost in the way to do it.

"You are the one that hypnotized him, so you need to be the one to start this. You need to get him to talk to you. You need him to explain to you when all of this started to happen. When you have locked onto the moment that all of this started to happen then I will be able to climb into his subconscious and destroy the memory." The way that he was saying all of that, it sounded like it was going to be easy. However, I knew better than that. I knew that it was going to be anything but easy. I needed to search my teammate's memories for when I started to ruin his life. And I had to listen to him explain it all. So much fun.

OK! I steadied my nerves and did my best to get this show on the road. I had never done this before, but I was willing to try it so that was a positive. Right?

"Alright, Justin, can you hear me." I said as I pulled a chair closer to him and sat down.

"Yes, Ocean. I can hear you." He sounded a little bit like a robot when he spoke just now.

"Good. I need to talk to you about something. Actually, what I need is for you to tell me what you know about something."

"Anything. I will tell you whatever you want to know."

"That is really good. Can you tell me why you have disliked me for so long? Do you remember that? Do you know what the reason was?"

"I don't know. I know that we were friends. You were a good guy. But one day I just felt like I couldn't look at you. I felt resentment and anger out of the blue." The words should have had a lot of emotions in them, but he was still talking like he was a robot. This whole thing was actually a little creepy in my opinion.

I needed to move on from here. So far, I haven't learned anything new. I was just hearing what he had told either me or Makai before.

"Can you think about it a little harder, Justin. See more of those memories. Was it this school year? Was it just recently that you started to resent me and hate me so much?"

"No. It got worse this year. It was like the feelings inside of me, those alien emotions, they somehow intensified and took on a life of their own. But the trouble started a long time ago."

"How long ago, Justin. What do you remember? Was it the beginning of this school year?" I was trying to guide him to the memory. This was the only thing that I could think to do, and when I looked up at Dr. Malachi, he nodded at me in approval. He was silently telling me that I was doing a good job.

"No, it was before this school year." Justin's robotic voice answered me.

"What about last year at the competition? Was that part of what caused this? Is that when this started to get bad." I didn't know how far back I should go, but I didn't want to jump too far at once. I needed to take this in little increments of time.

"No, it was long before then, but it wasn't as bad as it was recently. It happened a long time ago."

How long ago could it be? I mean, I didn't even meet Justin until I started high school. When we first met, Justin and I had actually been good friends. It wasn't as close as I was with Ben and Ryan, but we were both freshman on the same swim team. Stuff like that helped to bond us even more. He was a good guy that entire year.

Well, almost that entire year. That was when I started to think about something. Could the problem have started then? But how? How did it start when I hadn't even come into my Siren powers? What was it that was actually causing this? What had actually happened back then?

I may not know yet, but I would find out sooner rather than later. I just needed to ask the right questions. I had to pull Justin in the right directions so that Dr. Malachi could do what he needs to do.

"OK Justin, tell me if it happened when we were in freshman year. Did something happen then, maybe toward the end of the school year? Was that when things changed?

"Hmm." Usually when someone makes that noise, when they're thinking about something, it sounds like they've put some sort of emotion into it, it's thoughtful, funny or even sad. To hear it sound so monotonous was a little unnerving.

"We were friends in freshman year. We hung out after school with everyone else. It was a good year for everyone. We won a lot of swim meets and we all had a lot of fun. But yes, that was when things went bad. I remember that something happened, I heard something, a song. It was just after we won the state finals. It wasn't you and I that swam in the meet, but we were still excited. I remember we were all celebrating and singing, but you refused to sing along."

"Was it that I didn't sing that made you not like me?" I knew that couldn't be it. I couldn't have bespelled him if I hadn't been singing, but I needed to guide him along the way.

"No. It was after that. Your parents were running late, and you were taking your time in the locker room. I remember that I went back in for something that I had forgotten. You were showering when I went in there and I planned to just ignore you, but you were singing the school fight song. Not the real one, but the one that we made up to help get us pumped up for our meets. It was the vulgar and violent version. It had been when we were all singing in the locker room before we left for the night."

I remember that song. I hadn't sung it since freshman year, and I didn't think that I ever sung it in front of anyone else. That song was truly horrible. And when Justin said we made it ourselves, he was using the term loosely. It was actually made up by the seniors at the time. They were quite violent and vicious, at least the ones that we knew at the time. And the song spoke about destroying the other team, but it also had a part where the seniors were trying to get the other team's female swimmers as their girls. Even that part was disgusting and crude.

"What happened when you heard me singing, Justin? What do you remember?" I didn't know if I was ready to hear it or not, but I had no other choice.

"I came in at the middle of the song. You were singing the part where we claimed we were going to beat the other team, in the match and until they were bloody afterwards. But that was also when you sang about desire. It made me all quite confused. And I felt like I was in a trance. I wasn't able to move at all. I just stood there until it was over. The words got jumbled in my brain and it made me feel like I wanted to hurt you, but also like I wanted to be with you at the same time. It made me feel so disgusted with myself. I had never thought about hurting you or anyone else before that, but here I was wanting to bash your head in. I was scared. I ran away and wanted to hide. I thought it would go away. I thought it would fade. But it didn't. It got worse over time. It made me feel insane, and soon I was hostile towards others as well. People that were your friends, those you hung out with all the time, they just reminded me of you and that made me angrier. I couldn't stand it. Then, after this past Halloween things got so much worse. It was like the feelings were pushing me, making me do things that I didn't want to do. And when Brittney started to talk to me, saying that she wanted me to help her get rid of you, to make you pay, when she sang to me about that, it was like a hazy fog of rage was permanently sitting in front of my eyes."

That was a lot to take in. I never knew that any of that had happened to him. I never knew that he was suffering for so long. Dammit. It just made me want to rewind time for him, to make it all go away. I needed to do something for him at least. This had all been my fault. This had all happened because I was so irresponsible and broke my vow not to sing. I had made the promise to myself after my family made such a big deal over my voice.. But I still did it, I was so stupid.