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How about a little bout of irrationality?
Perhaps with some sugar and tea?
In this world, there is no need-
For sanity, however brief.
Which I’m gladly admitting-
Is so very fitting.
More tea?
…
“Nein… is this really necessary? I saved the world and my fellow camper’s brains. I even volunteer at the camp as a counselor with Lilly. I’m a full-fledged Psychonaut … I can handle a little madness. I solved three bouts of it when I was ten. So how is this one any different?” asked the seventeen-year-old in an exasperated manner.
The taller man gave him a rictus expression before he nodded softly at an orderly as they walked by them. Raz gave the parting woman a weary glance before adding, "I know I’m a Psychonaut but mental institutions still give me the heebie-jeebies. I don't know if it's just the smell, the orderlies uniforms, or just everything … especially this one. What kind of institute is called Crazy House for Boys?”
“One that houses boys, Razputin. I think that it is rather forward actually,” added the man as they came to a gated door, the guard in his little glassed-off room giving Nein a shrewd look as the two psychics both showed their identification cards. A moment later the gated door buzzed open for them. The guard then waited for them to come around before he plopped some papers onto the tabletop, grumbling, “Names, branch of the Psyconauts, and the patient you have been requested to treat.”
Sasha wrote his name down in tiny print before handing the pen to Raz, turning to the guard as he spoke, “We came here by request of Professor Membrane for his son, Dib Membrane. Can I have access to his paperwork and room number?”
The orderly huffed as if it were a joke before he took the clipboard back from Raz, curtly murmuring as he headed to a filing cabinet, “We’ll get you some beds ready then. Bradley will take you to the kid’s room.”
“We will not be spending the night,” added Sasha as he barely noted a younger orderly coming up to them. “If we need more time we will get a motel.”
Chuckling as he placed the papers into a file, the orderly with the name-tag Chuck, stated, “Well, the last two psychics that went in that boy’s head … Let’s just say it took them a few days to gather themselves, murmuring about horrors and monstrosities. We thought we were getting some new patients, we did.”
Raz smiled timidly at this and nervously stated, “Well, we deal with psychic campers every summer. If we can take that, we can deal with a little insanity. That’s what we are good at.”
Chuck just gave the youth a wicked smile as he gave a file to Nein, waving Bradley off as he stated, “We will see.”
Sasha glanced at the file quickly as he followed the younger orderly without another word. Raz could only cringe. He was getting a bad feeling about this.
…
The young orderly, Bradley, was a bit unsettling. He had a twitch about him that made the two psychics give each other a look. Had this kid escaped one of the rooms and stolen said uniform? Not that either psychic got to dwell on it a moment longer before they stalled before a door.
Bradley refused to get too close to the door as he unlocked it, stammering, “This is it… Dib M-membrane's room. He doesn’t get many v-visitors except for doctors or specialists his father s-sends and sometimes his dad-d’s floating head and e-evil s-s-s-s-sister. W-whenever Dib’s l-lucid he screams about a ‘nightmare world’. H-he’s confined to his room because he thinks everyone is horrible monsters. He’s i-in a straightjacket so he can’t h-hurt you. Call down the hall when you’re done or w-we’ll check on you if we h-hear t-too much screaming.”
The two mental healers raised a brow at the orderly before giving each other a look. Raz couldn't help but peek into the small window on the door, trying to see inside.
“So… why’s this madman so important? You generally don’t sink to asylums Sasha,” added Raz, seeing something dash across the room. He actually flinched back. Yeah, there was something wrong with this place.
“Well, I took an interest because Dib inadvertently discovered the brain tumbler: the device giving an untrained individual the ability to enter their own head or others through a network of pre-created passages. I’m sure you remember it from your first year at camp. Dib is also the reason there are now many other types of mental machinery since they were created to see if Professor Membrane could reverse the side effects of the brain tumbler on his son’s mind,” said Nein as he closed the thick file he had been reading. “Unfortunately, this has been going on for nearly a decade. Membrane admits that his son was going mad long before the incident, but … there has been no improvement. The professor is getting older in his years now, slowing down because of his health, and wants his family together. That is why we are here.”
Raz gave the other man a slightly confused look before he nodded, “It's been nearly ten years? Why hasn’t he asked other psychonauts? That orderly had to be lying. It was probably a con man taking advantage of the old scientist’s desperation.”
“Chuck, what a horrifically bland name, was not lying Razputin. Membrane has asked many. Apparently all have come out of his head screaming,” said Sasha with a growing frown.
“Even so ... no one’s been able to do anything?” Raz swallowed, “Even with bad cases a lesser trained pysconaut should be able to do something.”
Sasha reached to open the door while Raz continued, “I’m all for an interesting mind and all, but if Dib's mind is this volatile, should anyone even be going in there when it has been proven not to help?”
“We have to … or risk losing funding. Membrane has been a contributor to the camp and other Psyconaut programs for years now as an incentive for his son’s mental health,” stated Sasha slowly, pressing his glasses against his nose. “He is a man with a lot of power and usually Dib’s treatment was an incentive for our organization, but now it’s a demand. Personally, I think insanity might just run in the family. The sister, Gaz, I just looked at her once and got the same vibe I do when entering a serial killer’s mind. If we had the manpower I would have someone investigate the whole family further.”
Raz bore his teeth for a moment at the thought of a female serial killer but was suddenly distracted when Sasha pushed the door open to the room. For a moment, the two men were still, expecting some madman to launch out at them and try to bite their ears off or something. Instead, there was merely a soft giggle, drawing the two psyconauts to peek in. Both men could only stare for there, on the bed wtih legs crossed, sat a boy with a very large head.
Yes, that was what they noticed first.
It was humongous.
The patient's head looked even larger because he was grinning like a madman, staring at them like they were the funniest damn things in the world. His eyes were rather wide as well… shivering with what could only be called insanity. It was hard to tell if he was even looking at them or was just trapped in his own little world. Either way, stepping into the room, neither agent was worried about being physically attacked.
"So this is Dib Membrane. Seems like a happy fellow. Is Professor Membrane sure his son needs our help?" joked Raz nervously as he stepped into the white room after Sasha. He couldn't put his finger on it, but something was just wrong about this whole situation.
Nein gave Razputin almost a bored look before he stated, "I rather doubt his expression is from joy, Razputin. I’m sure he just doesn’t know how to handle emotions anymore. Not that I blame him, I’m sure it’s a mess in there.”
Sasha, even though he knew it was against this ward’s policies, mentally pulled out a cigarette and took a puff. Raz paid the man no mind because he knew that smoking helped Sasha clear his mind. It was his personal chill pill that kept away nasty emotions like fear or nervousness ... or in this case anxiety. Maybe Sasha was feeling the wrongness of this place as well.
Furthermore, mental patients not even acknowledging your existence was a bad sign: like a floating void kind of bad. Broken minds were not the same as a mad mind. There was no base for anything in a broken mind. There was nothing for figments or baggage to hang onto. If he had to explain it to a normal person, it would be like a world without gravity, the ground slowly being pulled apart and displaced. Those kinds of minds … Well, sometimes they were too far gone. Brain dead was probably the best descriptor for it.
Trying to keep away the look of pity on his face, knowing now why Professor Membrane still desperately sent agents, he murmured, “Dib Membrane has a cracked mind, doesn’t he?”
Tasting his personal poison for a moment, Sasha slowly inclined his head. “Yes, that would seem a reasonable evaluation, especially since he hasn’t regained any coherency from the previous agents' efforts. I am sure there is nothing we can do. The previous agents probably exhausted themselves trying to pull the mind together. Thus, the screaming.”
Wincing, Raz softly asked, “Can anything be done? And not just for funding reasons ... it just seems cruel leaving him like this.”
Taking another puff before he answered, Sasha exhaled out of his nose, smoke clinging to the room and making it seem foggy. Dib didn’t even seem to notice as Sasha slowly shook his head. “Perhaps. I’ve heard of partial recoveries for broken minds, but even if all the pieces are anchored down … the person will never be cured since only they know how their mind was organized in the past. A psychonaut merely places things where they think they would go which risks a new personality developing. The old personality then would be unable to exist with the new configuration and would fade. It would be like making a new person through calculated guesses.”
Raz bared his teeth as if physically pained, giving his elder a distressed face, "No … Sasha, we aren’t... We can’t!”
Sasha sighed, turning to look the younger physic in the eye, “There is a reason I brought you here and not the Metal Minx for such a sensitive case. She couldn’t stomach even the idea of what we may have to do in there, and Raz: you need the experience.”
Shaking his head, his usual playful attitude completely gone at this point, Raz’s voice nearly broke, “B-but it’s as if we are murdering him, just covering up his old mind as if it was nothing!”
Sasha actually glared at the boy, taking his cigarette in hand as he groused, “And what else would you have us do? Make enemies with a man as powerful as Professor Membrane? We need his support … Besides, from what I understand, he didn’t know much about his son anyway. He wasn’t exactly a dotting parent.”
The next words were harsh.
“I doubt he will even notice.”
Razputin looked away, ashamed and yet unable to do anything but agree.
Pulling his hand into a fist, he reluctantly nodded his head in agreement, “You are right … but it still feels so wrong. Hopefully, it won’t come to that.”
Sasha nodded, finishing his cigarette, “Yes, hopefully. Now are you ready to go?"
Raz still didn't seem terribly excited as he slowly pulled out a worn mental portal, giving it a weary look before murmuring, “Yeah, I understand it has to be done, but regardless … age before beauty."
Frowning, noting that Raz was still trying to keep the atmosphere positive even though it seemed so hopeless, the other agent was about to object to that statement when he noticed something. "Hey, is that my portal? That went missing years ago."
Raz, having kept the door for years even though, for the longest time, he wasn’t supposed to have a personal one, stumbled over his words before he joked, "... Uh, age is getting to you, Nein. I've always had this."
The glare Nein gave him could have melted metal, but the older agent finally nodded, waving his hand as he signaled for Raz to throw the door.
Giving one more forlorn look at Dib as he imagined the boy the young man must have been, Raz accepted that this was for the best.
Throwing the door onto the madman’s forehead, Sasha was quick to jump in first. Raz at least took the time to whisper, “May the old Dib forgive us.”
And then he jumped in as well.
