Bliss revised

[minervasolo]

museandmistress reminded me about this story. I've taken apart the first two parts and messed around with them, adding and altering. I've also added a few more pages. I didn't really have much idea of where this was going past what I had. I now have a culprit, but I'm still lacking in plot. Hence the abrupt stop. I'm guessing this will be about 10,000 words, so I'm about a third through.

It makes a change from Greenhelm, I guess. It still needs a large amount of work, but I'd like to finish it first. I need to know what I'm doing with it to know what to do to it.



Bliss

When someone dies, especially suddenly, their whole life flashes before their eyes. Unconsciously, they're seeking immortality. They're seeking a telepath.

When I was nine I was taken to my dying grandfather's bedside. I had never particularly liked the old man; my mother loathed him. He'd almost been a member of the Gestapo, you see. War ended just days too soon for him. My father was very conservative, in that same fascist kind of way, but he wasn't what you would call actively racist. I was always rather liberal. I didn't know then where I got that from.

He died, while I stood there.

A person's personality comes from their memories, mostly. Not the actual person, you understand, but some part of them. You know what they would do in a situation. You know why they would do it. Sometimes the memories mesh, and you don't know their memories from yours. Sometimes you do know, and they're separate. I prefer the first, really. When they're separate two things can happen. One, you get schizophrenic symptoms, or two, you get DID symptoms. Either you've got another person in your head who you can chat to and drawn ideas from, or you've got another person in your body and you wake up five days later wondering why you have a swastika painted on your naked chest. Sometimes you just get fragmented memories and no person, sometimes you get all person and apparently no memories. I have to keep a very strict diary to know who I am.

On the first page is a photograph of me. I have a lot of those. I’m lying on my bed right now, staring at one. It’s the best way to make certain I’m me when I wake up. Everyone here does it. Most people have a collection of personal things that only they know the significance of too. I don’t have anything like that, because I don’t really own anything. James gave me the diary and took the photos. Ostensibly he’s here to give my another, more recent one. Like it matters to me how recent the pictures are. It’s not as though I look in the mirror, it’s not as though I know precisely what I look like.

James was my Seeker, and hence becomes my Contact. He's the Contact for several telepaths, mostly German like me. He has a knack for finding them. Us. It makes me wonder if he's not telepathic himself, but he insists he isn't. He's been trying to talk me into choosing a Retreat for several days now. I make the people here nervous, like I'm leaking memories of sex or something. I probably am, actually. Or Sunday is.

I don't want to be on my own. No one seems to understand this, no matter how much I explain. I don't want to go to Iceland, or the Sahara, or the Himalayas. I don't want to talk to people via the written word alone. I'm barely even literate as it is. My diary is all pictures, which suits me because my memories are too.

James is showing me a picture of an Egyptian Retreat.

I’m... I’m losing myself. Fuck. I’m looking at him, and sneering at his tanned skin and dark hair. Caucasian, but not Aryan. There’s some memory here that I can’t touch. I need to fight this more than I need to know.

“What is your name?”

“Adolf.”

Adolf? Who’s Adolf? I feel better for saying it, though. More superior, smug. I want to laugh at him.

“Why don’t you tell me about Sunday?”

Sunday.

Thank you!

That brings me back to myself. I was... I was watching myself. Listening to myself. That’s unusual. Is that what it’s like for the fragments in my head?

I wonder if he thinks my real name is "Adolf", though. Hopefully he knows that no one in Germany calls their kids that any more. It was no more my grandfather's real name than Geist is mine, of course.

I call myself 'Geisteskrankheit' these days. It's a mouthful, so most people shorten it to 'Geist'. They call me Geisteskrankheit here.

James leaves, now he knows I’m me again. It’s policy, I guess. He thinks he’s a risk. It’s the whole ‘telepaths should be without human contact’ thing again. I hate it.

I put the Egyptian picture in my diary, along with a drawing of Sunday. Just to remind me. My Grandfather and I are very separate, so I don't know why Egypt was important to him, or why he said "Adolf". Normally I wouldn't remember any of such an episode, but I didn't slip completely. They've been training me here, when they can bear to go near me. They gave me a list of things I wasn't to think about, and that's the first stage of training. I'm living with the Seekers, practising ‘not thinking’, so when I move to the Seminary I don't destroy too many minds.

I think about a lot of things. It’s in my nature. It’s in everyone’s nature. It’s biological. I’m a teenager, and I have hormones. They make me think about certain things.

I don’t like... I don’t like it. There’s a wall in my mind when I think about it. On one side there’s the practicalities and economics of exchanging sexual favours for money, and on the other there’s this long lost concept of ‘love making’. To be frank, I don’t want to want sex. Wanting people is dangerous enough, or so I’m told.

I have always firmly believed that any sexual impulses I have suffered before have been the result of those around me. That’s the theory here, too, so I can’t be far wrong. Other people want sex, and their desires are absorbed until they become our desires. James said I only responded to my clients because I used their thoughts and feelings to hide my own disgust. I didn’t think about it then. It was a job. It allowed me to eat without worrying about the police. I had nothing to lose. I might even allow me to gain something.

No, that was Sunday. Sunday thought she might gain something. I know that.

The picture of Sunday next to Egypt, that's not right either. The only things that are right in that picture are the colours, and that's only because I don't have any colours.

Sunday didn't give me memories, just dreams. I know nothing about her, but I know her.

James has a photograph of Sunday. He's debating showing it to me. He doesn't want me to see it because he knows it will upset me, but he think it might be useful in drawing me out when I get lost. I can see it through his eyes as it is, and he 'knows' wrong. Not only that, but it would draw Sunday out. Has been drawing her out. She finds it very insulting. I find it kind of creepy. She's dead and blue and has bloody bites taken out of her. Cold and diseased and dead and cannibalised. I've had no indication that they know I remember that.

Everyone knows. He died. He died alone. He died of Bliss. Everyone knows at once and someone's leaked it from the Seminary to a messenger who just couldn't not think. Happily starved to death. Everyone want to know if touching yourself can do that. They know it doesn't. It has to come through someone else. Everyone want to know who was there. Everyone want to know why someone else isn't dead there. Everyone think the area ought to be searched.

I think. I do. Me. I, My, Me. I stare at my photograph of me.

Slowly, I come back to myself. Gossip can lead to hive mind. Hive mind isn’t as dangerous as bliss, and more easily stopped, but it’s still frightening. To lose all sense of self. Even with the fragments, I can’t do that. Each is separate. I’m separate.

They’re separating us. There’s only a few trainee telepaths here, but we’re all getting moved as far from each other as possible. The Contacts are leaving quickly.

I hate this isolation.

* * *

A different face for every friend without a face for me.

My parents signed me over to the asylum in a fit of desperation four months after my grandfather died. It wasn't just the sudden emergence of a multiple personality disorder, nor was it the odd schizophrenic symptoms. They just didn't want me any more. A few weeks later I was told that my father had killed my mother and her twin brother. It was my fault. I told him about mother and Uncle Gervas, my grandfather told him where I'd come from and what he ought to do about it.

I don't really like to think of all that happened between then and now. I have a sociopath in my head, and a close friend, and some complete strangers. If I was normal, I'd be completely fucked up now. In a way I'm lucky to be a telepath - I need never know myself.

Most telepaths only know themselves. They're hermits, I've learnt. They have to be. They can't be around people who might experience a blissful state. They get addicted.

I always thought orgasm was pretty blissful myself, and in my old trade I was around that a lot. They're treating me like some kind of freak for it.

I wonder if they let telepaths masturbate?

* * *

I'm with three others who have recently been found, sitting in the back of James's car on our way to the Seminary. You could walk, if you wanted to, and I know that's how James does it usually. Our presence disturbs normality like that. Heh.

We're practising not thinking at each other. In theory.

I am drawing the journey in my diary, and a boy is looking out of the window, and a girl is sleeping, and another boy is thinking about his full bladder. James has to stop to let us out before long. He knew to wake the girl as well. I wonder how long he's been looking after people like us.

None of us want to get back in the car. We can see the Seminary, tucked further up the crevice we were chasing. An old monastery. Beautiful, in the usual austere way. Empty.

You're beginning to freak out. I'll never understand why you freak out so much about being alone in your own head. I mean, listen to yourself, boy! You do nothing but whine about how you're not alone. Ooh, I have Nazis in my head! And sociopaths! And gorgeous albino would-have-been-an-actress-if-I-hadn't-dropped-dead girls!

Okay, so yes, mountains, miles from anywhere, bunch of dead people up ahead. Or brain dead, at least. No minds there. Not going there. No way.

Look, are you going to stop freaking now? Your James bloke is giving us odd looks. He's totally telepathic, no matter what he says. Bet he's like you, though, different. No one believes he's telepathic. Or maybe he's not. Maybe he's something else. Perhaps he sees auras. Or feels other people's feelings. Or can see the future. Or

I'm sitting in the car like Sunday would have sat. We fell asleep. I think someone must have put us to sleep. Everyone else is doubting him now. I don't know what Sunday thought, but I guess she doesn't have the discipline I do. James has insane discipline. Either that or he doesn't think. He's been giving me odd looks. I think he picked up on Sunday too.

He's dropping us back at the Annexe before he begins his investigation. I never wanted to go there in the first place, so it's okay with - I want to go and see what happened! - me. I've tried drawing this in my diary, but I can't get the feeling down right. It makes me want to - hey, draw me! Draw me sexy! - leave the whole page blank. I sketch an outline of a body, with no features. It's closer. Will I remember what it means?

I must have fallen asleep again. I dreamt about James. Sunday watched.

I want to touch someone. God, it's terrifying me. I want to touch someone so badly. I want to prove to myself I'm not the only person in the world, and these aren't just voices in my head. I'm locked in my room. They locked the door before I woke up. I'm not used to wanting to touch people. I used to other people wanting me to touch them.

I want to touch you. I can't touch any one now. Go back to sleep.

I never wanted Sunday like that. Why am I thinking about Sunday? I suppose I associate her with sex, and touching. Not necessarily sexy touching. Just too-cold-not-to touching. Sunday wasn't sexy. She was all legs and - huge - no breasts and a little - wide - cross eyed. The end of her - dreadlocks - rat tails were pink as a result of a - brilliant idea - bad idea long grown out. Even if she had been able to get enough to eat, she'd never have had the body she wanted.

No, I suppose not. Dying will do that. But here, I can look however I want.

Did I start it?

Start what?

The Bliss. Was it my fault?

Nah, you were miles away. Stop worrying.

I mean, I was miles away, but I'm still a telepath. Perhaps I projected. And the Seminary. That could easily have been my fault. We're close, here. I know I keep dreaming. And I can't not think.

Bet two of those oh so chaste telepaths just got randy, is all. The price was paid.

Everyone knows I'm immune to Bliss, somehow.

Yeah. That's just weird. You're fucked in the head, my friend.

Maybe they locked the door because it was my fault. Oh god, what if I've killed them all? With my dream, what if I pushed them all into Bliss?

They wouldn't be dead yet. You don't die from Bliss, you die from starvation.

Starvation. What?

You Die From Starvation.

Die from starvation... But you can't take Bliss back anyway. Once people have it, it's just a matter of time. You have to run. I have to run. I have to get out of here. Even if I haven't infected them yet, I know I will soon.

Maybe it's dehydration. I think that hits first. But you were there yesterday, Geist. Stop worrying about the people in the Annexe for a second and think!

Think I need to get out of here.

Days. Think.

It could be days before I reach civilisation again.

Diary. Diary. Diary. Diary.

I should draw this. I'll need to remember, in case when they die I start absorbing them too.

You know, that outline looks li

Thank you! Right. This way, Geist's body. Come on. Now, what do we have here? Any pins? Any needles? Any oh so handy makeshift lockpicking tools?

Eh, kicking it works. Onwards!

Let's think. James, if he hasn't already left. Just got to make sure we get our message across before he tries to bring you back.

Ooh, it's that girl. Hello, girl!

Right, James. Come on, girl.

"Geist? Are you..." she frowns at me.

"Nope! I'm Sunday Morning. I have an important message for James."

"Do you know why they locked us up?"

"All of us? Really? Geist thought it was because of sex dreams.” I giggle.

"Geist..." Yes, girl, because it's such a huge surprise.

"Yeah. Come on, girl! We've got to speak to James."

I like holding hands.

"What do you need to tell him?" she asks.

"Geist thought everyone died of Bliss, but we were there yesterday and everyone was fine. Bliss doesn't kill you, starvation does. Or dehydration. Or exhaustion. I wonder how long exhaustion would take?"

"You mean, murder?"

Murder? Wait, where am I?

"Murder?"

"Geist?"

"Who let me out of my room?"

"Sunday Morning. You know, you really should ask someone to take those remnants out of your head. I didn't have any, but Bert had his mother and he kept thinking he was a woman."

"I like Sunday! What was she telling you?"

"He thinks all the telepaths were murdered."

"Hey! 'She', thank you very much."

"... Sunday?"

"Yeah. Sorry, my mind wandered for a moment there."

"Geist had control."

"Same thing. You coming?"

"James has already left, you know."

"So we find someone else. It's not hard."

"You're not a telepath, are you?"

"No, not really. I think I might have a bit of Geist’s, if that's any help."

"Everyone's gone. There's just us untrained telepaths left."

“How many?”

“I don’t dare count!” she says, eyes widening. I giggle. She’s quite young, younger than Geist and a lot younger than me. They seem to take them young in here. Geist slipped through the net. Geist would count.

“Seven,” I say. “I don’t know why we haven’t met the other three though.”

“Geist?”

“Sunday again.”

“Oh.”

So I’m confusing her on purpose. It’s fun! Geist isn’t objecting.

“Okay, let’s make a plan. Are you ready to make a plan?” I ask. She nods. “The plan goes like this. We find an exit. We check around outside for immediate danger. Then we both go and find two people. Then of the four of us two people go to the exit and two people keep looking for others. When we have everyone we will make our getaway.”

“Why always in pairs? Aren’t we safer alone?”

“No.”

She’s gone through all that brainwashing Geist has, though it hasn’t stuck so well with Geist. He’s a people person. He likes having other people on the fringes of his conscious. I bet the others do too, but they’ve been told they don’t.

I like it. I’m not a telepath, I never was. I grew up and lived alone in my head. And I prefer living with others. I never knew how lonely I was being an individual.

That sound dangerous, doesn’t it? Conform. Confooorrm. But no wonder they have mindmeld issues occasionally. I mean, it’s nice being a separate person, but it’s also nice to know you’re never alone. It’s like being in constant physical contact with people.

I hold her hand as we search for an unlocked exit. We don’t find any, though we pick up another two trainees as we look. The exit should be our first priority, but I’m not going to just leave them locked up. When we’ve checked all the doors we work together to break a window. I send the two boys to go and find more people while us girls wait for them. It’s got nothing to do with gender - after all, I’m wearing a male body - I just trust the girl more. The boys might make a break for it and leave us behind. They argued over my plan. If the girl tries to make a break for it I can overpower her in this body. Another advantage of being dead.

If Geist died, or had a near death experience, I might be able to jump into another body. If he had an asthma attack, or a heart attack, or was attacked, I have more experience at this copying myself thing. I could copy myself into the girl.

My alarm is enough to give me control. It’s a survival instinct. Sunday wants to kill me, or close, for a body of her own. Quite frankly I don’t like that idea. As much as I enjoy her company, and as helpful as she’s been this past hour or so, if I get wind of another idea like that I will ask someone to remove her.

And in kicks my survival instinct. I’m staying. I have possessed you like a demon. I am a succubus. What did you think happens to the ghosts of dead prostitutes?

But the ties to my body are stronger. I have lived here longer. I’m not trying to fit curves and plains into the wrong mould. The pathways in my brain were made by me, for me. Her brain is a rotted sponge in an alley.

I overwrote your pathways. I put my memories on top. When I’m here, it’s my electromagnetic pattern that scanned pick up, or whatever it is they scan. I’m in charge of your neurons.

I’m in charge of my neurons. As long as Sunday thinks of them as mine, as long as she thinks she’s imposing her will, I remain. She needs someone to impose on. She needs me.

... I don’t need you?

This is my body. You just admitted you want someone else’s.

“Geist? Uh, Sunday?”

We both answer, but only one “yes” emerges from our mouth.

“It’s me,” I say. “Geist.” And Sunday seems to accept this too. Maybe she’s bored. Maybe she’s run out of input.

Running away is your style. I know you’ve done it, several times, from several places.

I don’t like to think of this as running away, but I’m hotwiring a jeep. I try not to remember my experience, the experience of others, most of the time. The others are all so small and young and believe the words of the Contacts and Seekers. I have to drive.

The others feel the change. I’m using the memories of a hospital patient. He knew how to drive. He’s not well embedded; his memories were fragmented enough when he kept them in his own head. When the other patient blew them through his skull...

We don’t know where we’re going. They’re all freaking out because they know I’m not completely me. That’s dangerous. That’s why Bert had his mother purged. Most of the others didn’t have anyone die that close to them. The majority of their memories are their own. Their minds are completely their own. I’m the warning, aren’t I? I’m what happens if you spend too much time around other people. I’m why telepaths become hermits. But I’m not mad.

Mostly.