1. December, year 2594

"The shouting had woken me, dying down the moment my eyes flew open as if they knew I was now awake.”

“This is the night before your father died, correct?”

I nod my head, flinching slightly by my therapist’s nonchalant tone.

Dr. Goldstein takes notes across from me. We sit in identical purple armchairs that dip and hug my body as I sink into it. I’m still getting used to the chairs, but I like Dr. Goldstein. She’s young, just starting out but has a way of putting me at ease. She’s the seventh therapist I’ve tried in just as many months and the only one I’ve seen a second time.

She looks up at me as if reading my thoughts and smiles, her brown eyes soft and welcoming before they fix once more on her tablet in her lap. I stop talking as she pushes at the screen to give her time to jot down her notes about my mental state. I’d like to know what’s wrong with me besides the obvious.

I pick at my nails as I look around the room, trying to drown out the small voice that is telling me I’m wasting my time being here. The voice is one of the reasons I’m here and I try my best to ignore it; to be present in the room. I focus on small things to keep my mind anchored here. Dr. Goldstein has a lot of plants and only one or two certifications that hang on her wall. She has images of her family displayed and the odd piece of art hanging on the wall. I’m staring at a picture that can only be of Dr. Goldstein’s relatives. There are a dozen people in the photo, all with round, kind eyes in a variety of colors that are embracing and laughing. I catch myself smiling at the picture when Dr. Goldstein clears her throat, alerting me that she has finished.

I look back at her and she waits, a gentle expectant expression on her pretty face. I collect my thoughts and press on.

“I heard their voices rise again as I silently crawled from my bed. I realized my parents were fighting, an unheard-of thing in my house. I was sixteen at the time and I remember the sense of curiosity, mixed with humor that came over me as I struggled to listen. What could my adoring parents have to fight about?” I half smile but it doesn’t reach my eyes and falls quickly.

“I pressed beside my cracked door. Their angry whispering filled the hallway that separated our rooms and I listened with my breath held as my mom begged my father. The comedy of the situation fell away at hearing the pain in my mom’s voice. I’d never heard her so broken… 'Collin, please, don’t do this.' She said, 'I need you. She needs you now more than ever.' Her voice broke with sobs and the sound was burned into my mind. I had the sudden urge to get up and go to her, but I didn’t want to disturb them… not yet.”

“Why do you think that is?” Dr. Goldstein asks, her fingers never slowing as she looks up at me and pokes at her tablet in synch.

“Because I had a feeling that I should listen.” I say softly. “I felt like there were things I needed to know, that I deserved to know. My parents had sheltered me my whole life and when you’re sixteen you think you’re ready to handle the world, so I listened to a private argument when I should have gone back to bed.”

I pick at the skin around my nails, a habit picked up when dad died. My voice grows softer as I continue, “I had always known my parents’ hid things from me. They both kinda had to with their lines of work. Mom couldn’t come home and ask for advice on how to stabilize a new wave of radiation that was sweeping the earth just like dad wasn’t at liberty to discuss what new Super was now being detained for unlawful behavior.” I sigh, “They both had stresses that I was unaware of obviously, but I never thought it would end like it did.”

Dr. Goldstein nods her head as she underlines something several times with her pointer finger, “Good Art. Try to stay focused though and tell me about the night you heard your parents' first and last fight.”

I sigh and put my hands in my lap. My thumb was bleeding again.

“I heard my dad yell fuck that, Vic.” Their harsh words were burned into my mind, and I replayed that night repeatedly, even when I wasn’t with Dr. Goldstein. “I didn’t hear a trace of the loving man I had always known. I had never heard my dad use such language before. I felt like I was listening to a stranger speak as he said And fuck you especially for lying to me for 16 years! Fuck all of this. I don’t even know where to start with this… a big part of me wants to shoot you in the fucking head, Vic. I’m that mad and I don’t know, maybe that will stop the voices you claim to be hearing.”

I pause, flinching at the memory of my father’s sharp laugh. It was a painful sound. Dr. Goldstein smiles gently and nods her head in encouragement as I meet her gaze.

Deep breath,

“Dad then said he wanted to call SIG and tell them ‘everything’ and have them deal with my mom.”

“Had your father ever said anything like that to your mother that you can remember?”

I shake my head and her fingers click-clack against the screen, “SIG- as in Superhuman Investigation Group?”

I nod my head and Dr. Goldstein’s brow furrows.

“what do you know about SIG?” I look up at her, my hands beginning to shake for no apparent reason. I feel the pressure in my head, the stinging behind my eyes and I fidget with my fingernails to keep from crying. A tiny voice tells me to breathe, and I do.

“Not a lot. Dad… he was an Officer though, high ranking; so, SIG was mentioned quite a bit, especially if there was a recent Class Zero or Refracted situation in one of the Remaining Cities. He’d worked for SIG for nearly three decades, but I never learned what he did for them, not exactly. His work was highly confidential, and he could only tell my mom and I so much. I think he mainly dealt with high-security inmates at the SDC.”

Dr. Goldstein nods her head, her curls bobbing with the gesture. “What happened then, Art?”

“I hear my mother sob, a heavy ragged breath that sounds like she’s choking and it’s so unfamiliar that I have that sensation once more of listening to strangers. I hear my father’s voice again and again in my head as he tells my mom he wants to shoot her. My dad had a slight lisp that warbled his s sounds and made them sound like a TH and I had always thought it was adorable. Hearing him say those things though… It made my stomach drop in fear and that was the first time I had ever been afraid of my dad. Just then I heard a loud thud as if something were thrown against the wall and I jumped as my dad lets out a furious sigh. Were you ever going to tell me? His voice sounded suddenly tired. And why now, Vic?

When my mom responded, her voice was clearer, closer.

Yes! I could hear the begging in my mom’s voice, and she said, I wanted to tell you so many times! I was hoping that she’d be normal, Collin and nothing like him but I can’t ignore the signs. That’s the reason I’m telling you. She isn’t even aware that she’s doing anything and he- he’s- You don’t know what he’s capable of Collin. Even after all your research, after SIG’s research, you have no clue. He’s only shown you a fraction of what he can do and if her powers are anything like his then... I had no choice. I had to protect her, or they would have taken her away too just because of the association.”

“Firstly, who is the ‘he’ your mom is referring to?” Dr. Goldstein asks softly.

“I have no clue.” I say simply, truthfully. “I’ve asked her many times and she denies the whole interaction.”

“And do you think your mother is talking about you? The ‘she’ she’s referring to?”

“I think so… I used to think she was talking about a patient. Mom works for the University in the Medicine Hall as a Actinobiologists. She works with a lot of Superhumans who don’t know how to control their powers or that have abilities that are too dangerous to be around the general public.” I pause fighting back the tears. “Now though, after everything that happened… I think she was talking about me.”

Dr. Goldstein looks at me, her expression unreadable. “Do you have abilities, Art?”

I laugh, a humorless sound.

“No, Dr. Goldstein, I do not have abilities. I’m here because I’m insane.”

Her face relaxes and she smiles gently, “why do you say that?”

A deep sigh as I twist my hands in my lap.

“The Voice.” I resist the sudden irritation that floods me as Dr. Goldstein pushes on her tablet, making a special note as she nods her head.

“You said at our first meeting, that you’ve heard the voice since you found your Father’s body and that it tells you things. Is that correct?

I nod my head.

“Can you give me an example of the things it tells you?”

“Sometimes it tells me specifics, like I knew my mom had lost my little brother before she did. It was two months after dad that she found out she was pregnant and had been for nearly four months. The voice told me that I’d never meet my brother two days before his due date. An hour later my mom called me and told me that she’d lost him.” I pause, “I knew two weeks early that I had been accepted into the Creative Writing program at the University but the next day I woke up knowing my ex would dump me. You can call it intuition but it’s more than that… It's a feeling of certainty that accompanies anything the voice tells me. Those instances are clear, and I know the outcome because The Voice makes it apparent. I get visions that accompany the voice, but that’s rare. Most of the time it’s just a feeling accompanied by a phrase.” Dr. Goldstein takes notes, seemingly jotting down every word.

“So, the voice has been present and active since your father’s death?”

I nod my head, “Yes and I think the night I overheard their argument triggered it, though I don’t know why.”

“Finish telling me what happened between them.”

“My dad responded to my mom’s explanations by saying, I could have protected her better than anyone if you had told me. You’ve lied to me for so long and I don’t know why. There’s more to the story and you’re gonna fucking tell me or I will go across the hall and take Art. You will never see her again.

Hearing this scared me, made my blood run cold and I stood up, preparing to run. I remember leaning against the wall and trying to calm my racing heart. I didn’t know why my dad would threaten to take me away from my mom. They had always had the happiest marriage and the three of us were very close. We were best friends, and our home was filled with loud laughter and love. I’d seen my parents’ fuss and bicker, sure… but nothing like that night.”

I pause, a small sad smile lining my lips.

“I even modeled all my relationships after theirs. If a boy didn’t make me laugh the way my father made my mother laugh, I dumped them. if a boy didn’t look at me the way my mom looked at my dad just before they kissed, I ended it. I thought their relationship was perfect.”

“Why do you think your father said that?”

I shrug my shoulders, “Because they were fighting about something big. My dad was angry, and he probably wanted to hurt my mom. Taking me away would have hurt her. My mom and I were very close before all this, closer than my father and I because she was home with me more as a child.” I pause, deciding against holding my tongue. “That’s one reason I stopped talking to her. I knew my silence would cut deeper than anything I could say to her.”

Dr. Goldstein smiles, a small smile but doesn’t say anything so I finish telling her what I remember about the night before my father committed suicide.

“I heard my mom begging for my dad to please listen and he shot back, No! There’s nothing you can say, Vic because I know he’s locked up and there’s no getting out. We have him good and buried, and my mom just continued to cry. She just kept repeating, you don’t understand, you don’t understand. I almost got up after several moments of this. I wanted to go break whatever this was up, and I wanted answers. I heard my dad though, sounding more tired than I had ever heard him.

Vic, just tell me whatever you gotta tell me. He’s not going anywhere. You’re safe, baby. I know that for a fact. My boys got him deep inside Mount Tai- he stops talking immediately and I feel a charge in the air. It feels as though a million ants are under my skin and I hear my mom’s voice, clear of all emotion and she simply says, Mount Tia?

And then I black out.”

“what do you mean?”

“I mean I woke up the next morning in my bed with no memory of how I got there and very clear memories of my parents fighting. The smell of pancakes and the sound of laughter mixed with my confusion as I went downstairs to see that everything was completely normal. My mom and dad were making out at the breakfast bar over their coffee as usual and when I sat down, they smiled at me and told me good morning. My dad asked how I had slept, and I used that question to ask my own. I asked them about last night, recounted what I had heard, and they looked at me with mock horror.

Art, you’re old enough to know when your mom and I are having sex. Sex sounded more like “Thex” as my father laughed loudly and I just heard him threatening to shoot my mom again in my mind. I didn’t know what to say and before I could figure it out, dad was kissing my cheek and telling us goodbye as he left for work. I stared after him in disbelief and then looked at my mom and her coy smile. I knew what sex sounded like, not that my parents needed to know that and what I had heard last night was not two people engaging in sexual activities. My mom assured me though that no fight had taken place. After a few moments she assured me they would be quieter in the future.

She had winked and after some time I let it go and laughed along with her. None of it made any sense and I was convinced I had dreamed the whole thing. My mom and I talked about our plans for the day and everything else was normal… until I got home from the University and found my dad hanging from the ceiling in our living room. He hung himself above the coral couch that he had hated, the one my mom made him buy. He had a note pinned to his shirt.”

“What did the note say, Art?”

“It simply said, The Wizard.”