Psych Evaluation Complete

Activating ‘Cog_Transcription.exe’

Begin: User_ImaniVanderhall

Journaling that requires mental electrode-y things? Jeez, I swear this technology is just getting more and more ridiculous. Now, how does this thing even wor-… Oh! It’s recording…my thoughts…as I think them…along with the pauses. Well, this isn’t disturbing at all. I feel like I’m being interrogated now. I don’t think I can mentally plead the fifth either. Uhm, well…the psychologist said this’d be the best way to cope with what has happened the week before last. I’d beg to differ, but he was fairly ardent about me doing this. Plus, he assured confidentiality of all that I…THINK, so… Here goes nothing. GOD, this is going to take some getting used to.

I think it was Tuesday that I received a call from an old friend via payphone. Before then, I had never heard such an utterly crestfallen ‘hello’ in my life. She started off low, but after about ten minutes of me being wacky, she finally broke out into a chuckle and the Cheyenne I knew and loved took hold of the receiver. We spent hours just talking about anything and everything. It was mostly reminiscing, but our conversation was so tangential, I think we touched on…oh, what was it? Constellations and horoscopes, I believe. I also mentioned something about the little donations I sent her way and, boy, she just erupted in thank yous and general appreciation. ‘Embarrasing’ would be an understatement! After a good five movie-lengths of catching up and chewing the fat, I mentioned something about Maximilian and…there was just silence.

Middle of rush hour traffic right outside my window and yet…there was just silence. I swear, I felt like I was deaf. I couldn’t even hear myself calling Cheyenne’s name – pleading for even a whisper as a response. Though timid, her voice broke the silence. Unfortunately, it was the last thing I wanted to hear. She told me she had to go and before I could get a word in, she hung up.

I was well aware of the whole situation my best friend was throttled into – all because she fell in love with the wrong man, according to those stupid, pompous bigwigs. Man, even their last names sound like they were engineered just so they could go gallivanting around bragging. ‘Oh, look at me – I’m a GRANDVILLE. Better than your old STUPIDVILLE’. It’s disgusting, it really is – but I can’t paint the whole family like that. There have been some good, far less egotistical eggs that family hatched – Cheyenne being one of them. Of course, what really pisses me off about that…is the fact that it wasn’t just the family ostracizing her. She tried to downplay them if I pried enough to get her to talk, but there have been assassination attempts… A-sassin-freaking-ation attempts. What family does that? Honestly? Just because she married someone who didn’t share that arrogant last name, you’re going to have it out for her life. Now, I did give a very slim benefit of the doubt. Who knows, maybe the squeeze-in-question was some evil dude that talked about how much he enjoyed eating babies raw. It would still be a crazy overreaction, even if that was the case, but I met him. I met him.

He wasn’t particularly statuesque. In fact, he was a tad gaunt – but Maxi was an exemplary husband and friend. Of course, I might be a tad bias… I have a little thing for ringtails and it wrote that down didn’t it…. Yep! It did! Oh, how quaint, there’s no backspace! Sweet Eden, I hate technology. Yeah, yeah – you write that down. Frickin’ moronically programmed THING…

Let me try and stay focused on what this psychologist is going to want to see. Well, Cheyenne called me back on Thursday. She was somewhere between distraught and out of breath. She must have found a more up-to-date payphone due to the fact that she was able to send me her coordinates. Apparently, she was in some sort of bar on the west side. I think it was Bottoms Up, or something similar. Amid pants, she said over and over again that she urgently needed me to come ‘here’. I badgered about the specifics for a while. My priority then was retrieving her, but I wasn’t about to set foot into that seedily named place. She left another coordinate and hung up. Now, I’m not one to cringe at place names but, Dr. Martin…the ONLY person I expect to read this, even you should know the infamy that hovers around Holland Heights – and the location she sent me was right smack dab in the center of it.

As frightened as I was for my wellbeing, I was even more concerned about Cheyenne. Taking up residence in Hell Hole… Er, I mean Holland Heights is like staying in the wreckage of concussive natural disasters (and, to solve it, the government decided to deploy crackheads, rapists, and other various scum). Alright, maybe that’s a tad exaggerated – but I’m fairly certain that there exist deserts more hospitable than HH. I knew Cheyenne had to be a bit of a nomad thanks to Grandville hot on her heels, but never did I image she’d need to take refuge in the trash can. I took public transportation down there as soon as I could (unfortunately, that meant the next day) and, doc – I’m not sure if you’ve been there yourself, but it lives up to the rumors and then some. It’s a putrid, gnarly cesspool. Calling it public squalor would be an insult to shanty towns!

Regardless, I followed the breadcrumbs Cheyenne left and I came up to what was effectively a hovel on a hummock. Windows were blown out. The roof was haphazardly taped together. The grounds, as well as the walls were riven and when I knocked on the door – it crumbled. I didn’t think it possible, but the interior was in even more disarray than the outside. Before I could step in to inspect the decay, my striped feline companion came traipsing around the corner with a child holding fast to her sleeve. I know I said…wrote…thought…whatever…that Maximilian was thin, but Cheyenne… Cheyenne was just emaciated. Bone-brittle. Even the stripes on her ginger fur were gauzy. If anything, she was the polar opposite of that little black child, so much so that – at first – I thought he was some runaway that had stumbled into the worst possible area. I wouldn’t have put it past Cheyenne to act as a protector for the ill-fated. However, when they came to light – I noticed the one trait they shared. The one trait only Cheyenne Grandville could have passed on: black eyes, white irises, and false-glaucoma. Never once did she mention a child. Not once. In fact, she never emanated with the tell-tale signs of being pregnant. Maybe it was a Grandville thing, Eden knows.

My first question was obvious: Where is Maxi? He wouldn’t be the one to leave in such a crucial time…though, in retrospect, I could have been a tad more sensitive to the situation. She rose of hand, requesting silence, and ambled over to the crud-encrusted fountain directly outside the shack and took a swig. To this day, I kick myself for not bringing water with me. She then sat down upon a boulder, her child by her side all the while. I sat beside her and she gave me a synopsis of what went down and profusely apologized for not mentioning Tahajin’s existence before now. One thing’s for sure, he was definitely Maxi’s son. There wasn’t a trace of color on the youngster.

Cheyenne went on to tell me that her situation with the Elder Grandvilles had worsened significantly. I knew she was a mentalist and could erect these illusions of sorts in people’s minds. No matter how ridiculous it was, those under her power would believe it to be true. Due to her rapidly depreciating condition, she lapsed and the family discovered she was raising a child alongside Maxi, which effectively made her Public Enemy #1 in their eyes. I asked why she just didn’t set up another mind block and she said she did. Vitriol and melancholy muddled her words after that, but from what I could make of it, once a hallucinogen was broken by her own error, establishing another would be far less potent and much easier to snap from. Each time she set it up, the Elders broke from it almost immediately and all it did was serve to infuriate them more until she was run into this pocket of perdition.

All the while, something wasn’t settling right with that little ball of ebon. It was like he was oblivious to the situation. He was far too cheerful for a child that had been jostled from place to place. Plus, being well-fed under these conditions? Preposterous!

Then it hit me.

It slapped me.

And then it stabbed me.

This, of all the things… This. This, I remember vividly.

I whipped my head around and snarled at her. I snarled at her. Why did I even CONSIDER doing that to her? So what if she had hypnotized her child into thinking that he was in some upstanding neighborhood. Who gives a damn if all those donations when to sustaining that babe and not a cent benefitted her… I growled at her and unleashed such a stream of swears, I… How did she look at me through all that with understanding eyes as a deluge of profanity spewed from this wretched mouth?

Impertinent Self-Impugning Recognized

Focus Unguent Administered

A-after all of that, she turned to me and placed a consoling hand upon my clenched fist. She had been trying to get me to simmer down, but I was in such a vortex of emotions that I couldn’t hear her. I was deaf once more. Cheyenne really did have a knack for breaking those irate bursts of mine, for before it was something soft that restored my hearing and, this time, it was another soft action. She looked up at me, her expression spoke for her: ‘I beseech you’. She asked if it was possible for me to take Tahajin away from here. She asked if I could be this boy’s guardian. I recoiled. I RECOILED. I didn’t immediately accept, I shot forth a thousand excuses – none of them remotely relevant. How could I curse her out for acting within her sense of justice and then balk? Digusting. That was disgusting. That is disgusting. Heh, and I have the gall to think I’m better than the wastes of HH. Even though she was torn up – far more than I, she approached me with a semblance of decorum, along with that oh-so fervent nature. Cheyenne was frank and concise about why – even if she were to be set in a more reasonable abode, she was no longer fit to protect her son. Grandville was targeting her specifically. They knew of Tahajin, but simply viewed him as trash.

Wow, how apropos…

Second Round of Impertinent Self-Impugning Recognized

Next Dosage of Focus Unguent Administered

A-anyway, they wouldn’t attack him on his own, but if they were together? That was a different story. The thought of her and Maxi’s manifested magnum opus being eradicated just because it was in the vicinity drove her to tears. What else could I have done after those transgressions? I accepted and told hold of the hybrid’s hand after his mother ensured him I was trustworthy. When I stood up, I turned to ask her what her gameplan was in terms of getting back on her feet. She shrugged and forced a jagged smile… “I’ll think of something.” Grasping for her hand, I doled out what strength I had left before our handclasp went limp and I was forced to slide away.

As we walked away, Tahajin tugged my sleeve – bidding for attention. He was of speaking age, though the exact year was a mystery at the time. Despite their state of affairs, Cheyenne made it a point to instill some semblance of manners, as he asked for my full name. Once I gave it to him, he immediately returned with a nickname. ‘Mani’. I won’t lie, I took a shine to it the instant I heard it.

The further away we strolled from Cheyenne, the more depressed Tahajin grew – as made evident in his pace. I tried lifting his spirits (and, subsequently, my confidence) by going on about where we were headed and what my loft was like. To seal it all off, I added that one day, he’ll see Cheyenne again.

He looked up at me and asked: ‘Who?’

She wouldn’t.

She shouldn’t

SHE COULD.

I swung around to see Cheyenne – one arm outstretched towards Tahajin and the other with a taut middle and forefinger against her skull. I scooped Tahajin up and ran. I fled for the bus stop, cries of anguish breaking my strides. To steal something so important from your own son… Why… Why would you…

I couldn’t forgive her.

I co…ldn’t…forge…her…

I ca…t forgive…he…

I ca…t forgi…e myself for…run…i…ing…

EDE…FU…K THIS MACHI-…EEEEE-…EEEEEN!!

User_ImaniVanderhall forcefully disengaged

Cluster B Disorder Disagnosed

Appointment arranged with Dr. Kumar @ 7/8