by Ted Dekker
Her impression came all at once, as if dumped over her head from a bucket. She gasped.
Blinked once, to make sure she was seeing what she thought she was seeing.
She was.
Yes, there was some redness around the sutures and a little swelling, but she could easily see past that to the remolded beauty beyond.
Christy felt tears of gratitude pool in her eyes.
She was a queen.
She was such a beautiful queen!
FOR THE first several hours after Lawson had put Austin into the black room, which Austin came to think of as his mind, he could do nothing but stare wide-eyed into the bottomless dark. It was as though the slamming steel door had severed his connection to the world. The deep shadows swirled and pooled around him, so thick and black that it didn’t matter if his eyes were open or closed.
He’d been abandoned to his thoughts.
He had to stay calm, he knew that. Had to keep his mind focused, but resisting did nothing more than feed the fear and panic welling up inside of him.
Slowly, the stakes grounding him began to pull out of the eroding sands of his mind—he began to lose his hold on himself.
He couldn’t allow that to happen, yet he felt powerless to stop it.
Drenched with sweat and frantic to anchor his body to something, anything, Austin had finally crawled across the cell and huddled in the corner with his back pressed against the hard wall.
There, he trembled uncontrollably as the cyclone in his mind swallowed everything and began to uproot the deepest parts of his being. He was powerless. It was happening to him because he no longer possessed his mind. It possessed him. Dragged him into the depths as it spun relentlessly.
No matter how he tried, Austin couldn’t shut his mind down. If only he could rein it in, bring his thoughts into submission like he always had, then he would be fine. But, with each passing moment, the buzz in his head grew defiantly louder. The rush of thoughts caught in an endless loop wouldn’t relent.
Thoughts about how he had killed Fisher. Watched him bleed out and moved his lifeless body.
Thoughts about how he had come face-to-face with the same man, now inexplicably alive.
Thoughts about the only conclusion that made sense: His mind was shattered. He was delusional. He had eliminated all other explanations, from the impossible to the improbable, and faced only this truth. It was the most rational explanation. The only explanation.
His senses couldn’t be trusted. His mind couldn’t be trusted.
Over and over his thoughts turned until they circled endlessly, a cacophony of madness.
Time slipped by, each second agonizingly slow, like a snail along the razor’s edge of his mind. And his mind was no longer so sharp. It, like the snail, had been severed layer by layer, until only a puddle of goop remained, twitching on the floor.
The door was opened at intervals, once each day, he assumed. The first few times he’d started to rise, thinking the ordeal was finally over, but the attendant only changed out a jug of fresh water and a toilet bowl before leaving without having spoken a word.
After the third time, he hadn’t bothered to get up. After the fifth, he hadn’t even opened his eyes.
There, alone in the thin gap that separated insanity and truth, he was forced to pick through the wreckage of his mind, trying to salvage what he could. Not because he wanted to, but because he couldn’t stop thinking.
Each time he considered the events of the past few days, the conclusion became more obvious and convincing. The winding halls, the shape-shifting closet in Lawson’s office, Fisher, Alice—all of it pointed to the fact that he had imagined it all.
They were right. Christy was right. He was Scott. Scott was Austin. Austin was Scott. Nothing else could make sense. Nothing else could possibly explain it.
Yet it couldn’t be true. He couldn’t allow it to be true, because giving life to the idea meant the death of everything that made him who he was—his mind, his personality, his very being. The existence of Scott meant the death of Austin.
And yet, what if it was true? His mind had never failed him before…
Failed.
If his mind had failed him in this one regard, how else had it failed him? How could he trust anything he’d ever known to be true? How could he even know who he was?
Who am I?
I am I.
I am.
Am I?
And herein was the single greatest problem he had ever faced: his I was broken and therefore unreliable.
At first, the notion had felt like falling. There was nothing to grasp, nothing to stop his descent, no way to escape. Then the falling sensation gave way to one of being suffocated, as the crushing weight of his own mind buried him. But that, too, gave way to a third sensation, the most horrific one.
Oblivion. Utter meaninglessness.
It came upon him in a rush that stole his breath and pressed so heavily upon him that the dread sank bone deep. The first time it settled on him, Austin tried to scream, but he couldn’t.
Who am I?
I am my thoughts.
I think, therefore I am.
I am, therefore I think.
I am mind. I am body. I am soul. I am my beliefs.
But with this came the undeniable awareness that he couldn’t know if his beliefs were true. They were informed by an unreliable mind. Did a reliable mind even exist?
I have a problem. I can’t know that what I believe is true.
I am broken. I am damned.
I am trapped.
Like worms methodically devouring a corpse, the thoughts consumed his mind, inside and out. Little by little, his resolve faltered until it was replaced by a void so absolute that he wished for death.
I can’t know who I am; therefore, I am nothing.
I am terrified.
His terror would begin to ease; then it would cycle again and again in an endless loop. Each time he relived this descent into madness, each time he lost a little bit more of himself, until eventually his body could go no farther.
Who… am… I?
He did not know. He could not know.
Time and time again, Austin collapsed, exhausted, facedown on the cold floor, and wept. And each time the threads holding his mind together frayed. Then snapped.
In his mind’s eye, he saw himself lying on a beach. He was a fish that had washed up on shore—gills flaring, moments from agonizing death. All he needed was just a puddle of the vast sea of knowledge that had sustained him for so long.
And yet, there was no sea.
There never had been. It was, like him, a delusion.
And even that might be a delusion.
Austin lay curled up in the corner, trembling, eternally trapped in hell.
—
WHITE-HOT LIGHT angled across the cell floor. A voice called out, drawing Austin from the thick fog that hung over him. He turned his head and shielded his eyes with his hand. Blinked.
The cell door lay open. A silhouette stood in the brilliant rectangle of light on the far side of the room.
“Hello, Scott.”
This was the thick voice of Kern Lawson.
Can I know that?
The man took two steps into the cell. “It’s time.”
The words drifted across Austin’s consciousness. He’d heard them. Or had he?
He knew what they meant, but they filtered through him like bits of a dream. An ember of hope was fanned deep inside him.
It’s time. He was leaving this place?
Lawson stepped aside as a man rolled a wheelchair into the cell and stopped in the middle of the room.
“I trust the time to yourself was enlightening,” Lawson said. “The path to truth is narrow and difficult, to be sure. That’s why so few actually take it. It’s much easier to believe a truth someone else has lived, but I find hearsay to be a shoddy foundation upon which to build a life. Don’t you?”
Austin raised his head and squinted at the
man. Swallowed hard. He tried to speak, but nothing came out.
“I usually only prescribe three days, but yours is a particularly resilient delusional state.” Lawson paused. “Tell me, boy, who are you?”
Austin stared dumbly at the man. His tongue felt thick in his mouth.
“You simply can’t let go of your old mind, can you?” A pause. “It doesn’t have to be like this, Scott.”
Austin cleared a hole in his swollen throat. “My name is Austin. Austin Hartt.”
Lawson pulled a toothpick from his pocket and lifted it to his lips. “Defiant even in the face of evidence. I appreciate your tenacity, but clinging to a lie doesn’t make it true. Your problem isn’t that you think; it’s that you do not think the right things.”
Lawson motioned to the attendant, who looped his arms under Austin and pulled him to his feet. Helped him into the seat.
Weakened by seven days with no food, his head slumped forward.
Lawson leaned close and brushed the back of his hand softly across Austin’s cheek. “Being left to your thoughts is quite unnerving. The truth gets all jumbled up in there. Until you accept your true self, you’ll suffer. And your true self is Scott, flesh and bone. It’s a plain and simple fact, like one and one equals two. Truth.”
He bent lower until his mouth was by Austin’s ear. “You’re still blind, Scott. I’m going to help you see. I’m going to set you free and give you back to yourself.”
He stood upright, turned, and crossed the room to the door.
“Clean him up, then bring him to the second floor in one hour. It’s time for Scott to see with his own eyes.”
—
THE SIGHTS and sounds of the hospital ground into Austin’s senses like bits of glass. He watched the world through slits of eyes as the attendant pushed him to the elevator, then onto the second floor.
He’d been wheeled from the dark room to the showers, where he’d been stripped, washed down like a hog, and dressed in new scrubs, all without a single word.
Then they took a trip to the cafeteria, where he’d been fed broth and some toast. Slowly, his strength had returned, but he didn’t have the strength to look the other patients in the eye. Doing so might require more thinking, and Austin was too dead up there to consider much more than simple body mechanics.
Per Lawson’s instruction, the attendant had him on the second floor an hour later. All the way around the halls to the far side. Where? He didn’t know. He didn’t really care.
The attendant opened a door near the end of the third hall, wheeled him into a patient room with a desk, nodded at Lawson, who sat behind the desk peering at him over his glasses, and left.
From his wheelchair at the end of the bed, Austin looked dumbly about the room. This was his new home? And what about Christy? There was no sign of her.
Lawson stood and rounded the desk. “There, isn’t that better? All cleaned and fed, mind bright and snappy once again. Yes?”
Austin cleared his throat, still raw. “Yes,” he said, thinking no.
“That’s good. We have something very special to show you, my boy. Something to make your day brighter. Are you ready?”
Austin just stared at him, mind numb.
“Speak up, boy.”
“Yes,” he said.
“Yes. Of course you are.” Then toward the bathroom door, louder: “Alice? It’s time. You can come out now.”
Her muffled voice reached him from beyond the door. “Now?”
Austin shifted in his seat. So Christy was okay after all. His pulse surged. And she sounded strong. Even upbeat. How many hours had he thought about her in that dark pit?
“Yes, now, my dear.”
The bathroom door opened slowly and Austin pushed to his feet. He didn’t want Christy to see him sitting in a wheelchair. Not now.
Christy stepped into the room, dressed in a white halter top and a yellow skirt, complete with black shoes, white socks, and yellow ribbons in two pigtails. She wore rouge on her cheeks and glossy red lipstick on a grin that might have split her face if she smiled any brighter.
“There we are, my darling,” Lawson said. “Such a beautiful girl.” He faced Austin, beaming. “What do you say, Scott. Isn’t she quite the looker?”
Austin took her in at a glance and felt the blood drain from his face. The girl standing across the room wasn’t the Christy he knew, but a shell of her. A virtual stranger who was just a shadow of the girl he had once known.
High cheekbones jutted from a once rounded face. Her nose was hard and angular, unnaturally thin. Black stitches zigzagged along both sides of her neck where they’d pulled the skin taut, revealing the ridges of her windpipe.
His eyes drifted down. He could count her ribs, see the outline of her skeleton beneath her pale flesh. Her body was little more than bones wrapped in a thin layer of skin. They had sucked all of the fat out of her body, leaving a brittle girl behind.
And yet Christy seemed delighted with the result.
She beamed at him like an excited little girl showing off her new Christmas dress. She nervously curtsied, eager for his approval.
“Well? Do you like it?”
He blinked, unable to speak.
“Of course he does, my dear.” Lawson chuckled. “He’s seeing reality, maybe for the first time. He’s overwhelmed. Isn’t that right, Scott?”
Lawson flashed a grin at Austin, then crossed to Christy, lifted her hand, and placed a kiss on her knuckles.
“I’ll leave you two to digest some truth for a change.” He strode for the door and turned before exiting. “We are making such promising progress. I’m very proud of you both.”
And then he was gone, leaving Austin and Christy alone to stare at each other.
“Aren’t you going to say anything?” Christy asked.
A look of mild apprehension had replaced her smile. She crossed to the mirror on the wall and stared at herself, turning this way and that to offer herself better angles of her body. “I mean, it’s much better, right? The doctor says the swelling will do down in a couple days, and I get my stitches out in a week. But most of the ugly fat is gone.”
Austin didn’t know what to say. She looked appalling, but he couldn’t bring himself to say it.
Christy cast him a nervous glance. “You don’t like it? He says that if I’m still not happy, they can take more out.”
More? There was no more to take out.
She continued, speaking in a brittle voice that sounded like it might crack as easily as her bones. “Do you like it? I mean… It’s so much better!” Gazing at her reflection, she pursed her lips, straightened her skirt. “Do you like it?”
Austin was about to offer his support, at a loss. But then he saw the tremble in her hands. The slight quiver in her upper lip. She was struggling.
“You’re thinner,” he said.
“Much thinner,” she said. “I’m so much thinner, and this is so much better. It’s the beginning of a whole new me. Amazing what a few corrections can make.”
But she was saying it more to herself than to him, he realized. She was desperate to convince herself that this ghastly body was actually what she’d always wanted.
With that simple realization, Austin felt his deep dread return. His time in the black box had left him numb, which was its own kind of resigned peace. But staring at Christy now, he remembered their predicament, and his heart began to free-fall once again.
“I’m not sure I like the skirt,” she was saying, “Not really my style. Maybe—”
“Christy…”
“Maybe jeans. What do you think? And I’m not crazy about makeup, but Nancy says that it suits me. I think maybe a different color…”
“Christy.”
“I love my nose.” Her fingers were on her face but they were shaking. Her whole body was trembling. “They say that I can get my fingers lengthened…”
“Christy!”
“What?” she snapped, glaring at him. “What, Austin? I’m thin!
I’m perfect!”
The hopelessness that had swallowed him in the dark room sucked at him again.
“What have they done to us?” he asked in a thin voice.
Christy stared at him.
“They’ve sucked my mind dry,” he said. “And they’ve sucked you dry.”
Tears began to well in her eyes.
“They’re destroying us,” he whispered.
Her sob came suddenly. She dropped her head into her hands and coughed up deep hiccupping sobs that shook her shoulders.
He went to her and lifted his hand to her shoulder, wanting to offer comfort but too broken himself to feel he could.
“What have I done?” she moaned. “What did I do?”
“It’s okay, Christy…”
“I hate myself,” she rasped. “I hate myself!”
She was shaking so violently that he thought she might crumple. He put his arms around her and she lowered her head into his right shoulder.
He had to find some strength, if not for his sake then for hers. The problem was, he didn’t know where to find it.
So he just said, “It’s okay, Christy. It’s going to be okay.”
But it didn’t feel okay at all. It felt like they were both standing in hell, and there was no way out.
“What are we going to do, Austin?” she wept. “What are we going to do?”
“Come here.”
He led her to the bed and eased her to her seat. Then he sat next to her with one arm around her boney shoulders, at a loss. How could it have come this far? An hour ago in the dark hole, his world had felt upside down. Now he was no longer sure he even had world.
Slowly her sobs began to ease. She sniffed and wiped her tears away. For a long time, neither of them spoke. There was nothing to say. There was no way out, there was no way in, there was no way. And that was all.
But he felt obliged to put up a strong front for her sake.
“We have to find a way out,” he finally said. “If not, we’re going to end up dead.”
She held her hands in her lap, staring at the floor with a distant look in her eyes.
“I know,” she said, as if she was already accepting death as a foregone conclusion.
“I don’t think I can live through another round of this.”