1No one could say the house was not beautiful. Derek had made sure of that from day one.
The walls outlining the beautiful house were made of glass. From that glass, Derek could see out into the world beyond the walls. The green hills, the beautiful crystal blue lake. The wonderful blue sky. The roof of the house was not made of glass, but sleek and shiney silver. The ceiling was practically a mirror. Derek sometimes felt like he was living inside the reflection of a mirror, because he could see his reflection everywhere he looked. It made him feel so giddy.
Derek threw his body onto the couch, rolling into his favorite position, lying on his back to stare up at the wonderful silver ceiling. The couch was silver, just like the ceiling. Except Derek could not see his reflection in the couch, which dissapointed him. He was going to change that very soon.
Practically everything in the house was silver. It was Derek's favorite color. He didn't think silver was a color. More of a shiney version of gray.
Everything in the house was perfect. The kitchen was stocked with every utensil and supply, every meat and fruit and dessert and vegetable that Derek was sure existed in the world.
"I belong here, I'm perfect," he muttered. He smiled wide, teeth showing with no one to look. Just how Derek liked it. But maybe not silver. Was silver really perfect? David wanted to be alone, and his reflections were everywhere. There was lots of him. He wanted to be alone.
Derek got off the blue couch. Blue was much better. The ceiling was blue, the walls tinted with blue glass, every single piece of furniture was blue. His house was so much more perfect, and so much more beautiful now.
"Blue is much better," Derek said happily. "Maybe it's my favorite color!"
Derek froze. He was shocked. A crack was in the blue glass wall. "No no no no no no no," Derek whispered, shutting his eyes tight.
When he opened them, the crack was gone. The green glass was fixed, to match the colors of the rest of the house.
"No, I like green better," Derek said, happy again.
"Green looks like throw-up," the woman who had taken Derek's place on the couch said.
"Hello Derek," the man sitting next to her said, giving Derek a smile.
Derek looked over at the two adults, and turned his head away and crossed his arms.
"Are you ignoring us, you little shit?" the woman shouted. She was wearing a pink dress, and she had brown hair that was cut short. She was holding a cigarette.
"Derek, have you been having a nice day?" the man asked kindly. He was wearing a brown shirt and blue jeans underneath a long white coat. He held a clipboard in his hand.
Derek walked around the house, not looking toward the man or the woman on the couch. Instead he hummed and took in all the nice things of the house. A pretty pink and green vase was sitting on a blue desk by the large television. Derek frowned. Pink and green was not okay. A moment later, the vase was gone. So was the desk. Both of them were replaced by that painting of the fat woman smiling.
Derek laughed. He liked that painting so much better.
"What the hell do you keep laughing at?" the woman asked. She coughed, choking on the smoke from her cigarette. Her cruel frown stayed on her face. "I paid good money for that picture!"
"You stooole it," Derek sang.
"Stole what Derek?" the man asked.
Derek finally looked the man in the face. "The picture. It's right there on the wall, can't you see it dumby?" Derek said.
The man looked in a random direction. "Ah, yes, I see," he muttered. The man wrote something down on the clipboard.
Derek growled. The man paused and gave him a blank stare. "Don't growl Derek, you're a person not an animal," he said.
"You're an idiot, leave me alone," Derek shouted. He couldn't even sit on his favorite couch now, because the idiot man and the cruel faced woman were there. He stomped over to the corner of his kitchen, plopping down on the floor and looking into the oven.
"What are you doing Derek?" the man asked, turning around to stare at him over the head of the couch.
"Cooking a cake, what does it look like I'm doing?!" Derek cried. "Stop talking to me!"
"Are you going to keep whining you brat?" the woman shouted. She was not on the couch anymore. Instead, she had walked all the way over to stand behind Derek.
"Go away!" Derek shouted.
"Derek, who are you yelling at? Are they trying to hurt you?" the man asked.
"Go away and let me make my cake!" Derek shouted.
"You are such a waste of space! Why didn't I go to the clinic when I had the chance?" the woman shouted.
Derek whimpered and wrapped himself up in a ball.
"Derek?" he heard the man whisper.
"Please leave my house," Derek said, tears at his eyes.
"There's no house here Derek,"
"Go away..."
"Derek, please sit up,"
For a brief moment, the world flickered. The glass walls vanished and were white. The green was gone and replaced by white.
"No! No, I hate white! I can't be here, take me back!" Derek shouted.
"Derek!" the man shouted. "Get up now!"
"GO AWAY!"
The beautiful house was quiet.
Derek looked around. The awful woman and the cruel man were gone. The bright red glass walls were back, coloring the world outside a scarlet hue.
Derek was alone again.
He smiled and rested his head on the cool floor. Derek was alone, and that was just the way he liked it.
...
"He doesn't seem to be responding to anything," Dr. Tony Zatzas said the moment he sat down in the chair on the other side of the glass window.
"No offense doctor, but I doubt you're going to be able to help my brother now," a brown haired young man said. He was sitting in the chair next to Dr. Zatzas.
Through the window, the two men could see Derek, a man of twenty-six years of age, blonde hair that was long and curly, and scars covering almost all of his exposed skin, lying peacefully in the corner of the room. The room was a pale white, and the bleak colors of the walls were just depressing.
"Mitchell, the abuse your brother suffered at the hands of his mother completely shattered his mind..." Dr. Zatzas explained.
"You think I don't know that?" Mitchell snapped.
Dr. Zatzas closed his mouth. The two men were silent for a few moments. "What exactly is wrong with him?" Mitchell asked, looking at the doctor from the corner of his eye.
"Well..." Dr. Zatzas paused and sighed. "He seems to be...trapped in some sort of fantasty. All my other sessions with him, he seems to believe he's in a house. A house that's all his. Whenever I try to step in and talk with him, he shuts me out completely. I cannot get any reaction from him. It's almost as if he can't hear me,"
"Is that possible?" Mitchell asked.
"Well, if you really don't want to hear someone talk, the mind can shut it out," Dr. Zatzas said, shrugging. "And your brother really did not want to hear anything I had to say,"
"Anything else?"
"...He also sometimes appears...to be talking to your mother," Dr. Zatzas added, this time a bit reluctantly.
"Damn," Mitchell said, resting his head on his hand. "Got any medicine that specifically keeps you from hallucinating a bitch?"
Dr. Zatzas broke out in a laugh, but he just as quickly covered it up. "Um, no," he said.
"So...is anything going to help Derek?" Mitchell asked.
"I don't think so," Dr. Zatzas said. "I'm sorry to tell you this Mitchell, but I have been considering stopping his treatment...and having him placed in the Ward permanently,"
Mitchell nodded. He knew what ward he meant. "The Insane Ward,"
"We don't call it that, but yes," Dr. Zatzas said. Mitchell thought he sounded regretful.
"What if I go in there and talk to him?" Mitchell asked.
"I wouldn't recommend it," Dr. Zatzas said.
"But you practically just said nothing is going to help him now," Mitchell said, his voice sounding angry. "So what is the harm if I say goodbye to my brother before you lock him up in the looney bin?"
Dr. Zatzas remained silent. "Fine...but only ten minutes," he said.
"Alright," Mitchell stood up from his seat. He took a deep breath. Then, Mitchell walked to the door and entered the room.