~~
Ocean
~~
"Ocean, did you hear what Justin just said?" Makai came up beside me to whisper in my ear.
"Yes, I heard him." I whispered softly back at him. I didn't want Justin to hear me and think that the words were for him. I didn't know what this was going to do to his hypnotized state of mind. "He told me that this all happened when we were just fifteen years old. I've been ruining his life for that long." I felt horrible. Knowing how long Justin has had to deal with not understanding what was going on.
"Not that part, Ocean. I'm talking about the part where he said that Brittney sang to him. That means that everything that happened, when things got worse, was when Brittney got involved. All of this wasn't your fault. A lot of it rests on her shoulders too. You bespelled him by accident. She did it on purpose. You and Justin are innocents here. Brittney was the only one that intentionally wanted to hurt people."
Wait a minute. Makai was right. The stuff that he was saying was true. Justin had said that Brittney was involved. He had said that she sang to him. But still, had he not been bespelled by me in the first place, she might not have used him for her purposes. He might have been safe and normal for his entire life. So, in truth, I didn't view myself as fully innocent in all of this. It may not have been intentional, but I had caused these problems as well, not just the bitch.
There was one problem though. Something that might rear its ugly head sooner rather than later. What happens if the bitch's singing has a lasting effect on Justin? What happens if some day down the line, he starts to rage again and try to come after me or some other innocent bystander? We can't just leave it at that. We can't just leave Justin as a ticking time bomb.
"Makai?" I whispered his name in a sharp tone. "What am I going to do? What are we going to do?" I was at a loss here and didn't know how to proceed. However, it wasn't Makai that answered me, though he did give me a gentle smile. No, it was Dr. Malachi that answered me.
"Ocean, I will take care of it as much as I can, but I need you to talk to Justin after I am in his head. I need to see the memory of when he was bespelled by both of you, you and the girl. I need to see what happened."
"O..OK." I nodded to the Doctor and tried not to feel like things were going downhill fast.
Dr. Malachi went to sit behind me. It was like he was trying to be my shadow, or some other copy of me. He was just sitting there silently, mimicking my movements. Apparently, this was how he was going to get onto the same wavelength that I was on. This would help him to enter Justin's mind.
This time though, Dr. Malachi wasn't entering the way he had for me. He would only be able to see the memories that I made Justin recall. From there, he would alter, or remove, the memory entirely. His intention was to have me bring up a block of memories, anything that had to do with me. Once they were there, he would go through the memories and alter them as best as he could. I thought it was a little weird, but I wasn't a hypnotist like he was.
Once he was moving in perfect harmony with me, it was time for Dr. Malachi to enter Justin's head. It was time to help Justin out.
"Justin, do me a favor." I hadn't spoken to him in several minutes. Not while the rest of us were discussing other things.
"Yes, Ocean?" His voice was still robotic and monotonous.
"Think about that day. The one where you heard me singing. Think about all of it that you can remember. Think about that in as much detail as you can."
"OK. I have the memory pulled up. I can see it all clearly. I can hear what is happening. Even the sound of the water from the shower you were taking. I can hear it all."
"Good. Good." I nodded at him but then felt silly since his eyes were closed and he couldn't see it. Don't move from that memory. Keep it there for a moment. "
At that moment, I watched someone, or something, fly past my head. It was strange at first. It was like some odd looking toddler that was jumping all around until it literally dove right inside of Justin's head.
"Makai, did you see that?" I whispered to him. He only nodded in response. That was a strange looking Dr. Malachi.
~~
Abraham Malachi
~~
The moment that I saw the flow of words that would lead me into the boy's mind, I leapt from my body and crossed that bridge. Justin wasn't talking to me directly, but I was in sync with Ocean, so I was able to find and follow it very easily.
The moment that I was inside of Justin's mind, I saw the memory that Ocean had asked him to bring to the front. The memory seemed to be beginning when Justin entered the locker room.
"Hmph." Justin was laughing slightly when he heard Ocean singing in the shower. "Only girls sing in the shower. What's with him?"
He hadn't sounded angry or hateful toward Ocean at the time. He just thought it was funny to hear his friend singing. He didn't stop or do anything else, he just went to his locker, pulled it open to get what he'd forgotten, then froze in place. He was listening to the voice, not really the words. The voice, that was a perfect, mesmerizing Siren's voice, had taken a hold of Justin's consciousness and was pulling him in. The only problem was, the subconscious mind was paying attention to the words, the violent and disgusting meaning behind them. That part of Justin's brain was what was being affected.
The moment the song ended and the singing stopped, Justin seemed to wake up. At first he seemed fine as he left the locker room, not even aware that so much time had passed. However, by the time that he had gotten home, he could feel anger and rage building inside of him. And when he threw himself down on his bed, the unwanted desires came too.
I needed to fix this. I needed to take this part of his memory away from him. I needed to make it so that he didn't have this rage or the lust that he never wanted to feel.
I wasn't changing the past, that could never be undone. What I was doing was altering memories. I needed him to forget the song. Forget the anger. And to forget the things that it made him think. I would never be able to make him truly forget having disliked Ocean, there were too many memories for that. But I could take away the cause of it and lessen the effects of those memories.
After that was done, we could move onto the next stage of this whole process. Only, there was a downside to all of this right now. I needed to add another layer to our plan so that we could eliminate that girl's spell from his mind. I needed to make sure that by the time that I was done with Justin, he would be a normal guy with a world of possibilities ahead of him.
I was meticulous in my reworking of the boy's memories. I made him think that he and Ocean had a fight that night. It would still give him a reason for them not being friends anymore, but the cause was different. I made it so that he made fun of Ocean for having sang in the shower. He, being an immature teenage boy, said something stupid and regretted it later. However, by then it was too late. He had already done the damage and their friendship was ruined.
It took what felt like forever, but I made it so that the flow of the memory was flawless. There were no inconsistencies, there were no differences in the backgrounds or anything. All the fabricated images fit perfectly with the new ones. And I even added that he had thought that Ocean's voice was beautiful and that was where the desire came from. He just didn't understand how to process that part of his emotions.
'I think I am done here.' I spoke more in my head than out loud. I didn't want to do too much to alter the boy's mind again. And just me talking forcefully inside of his head would make things more susceptible to change. Still, I needed to tell Ocean to bring up the next memory.. I needed to keep changing them.