Erotomanic Delusions

It’s amazing how nice a witching hour night spent with two drug addict cultists can be when you share each other's delusions. Mond told himself he wasn’t bought into their desperate grasps for the beyond, but hadn’t that been what his whole life had consisted of up to this point? He could let himself indulge these men for a little while, if anything perhaps they could loop their logic around and help him find some grounding techniques, it would be productive, healthy.

It only took another half a beer to get Mahou opening up, throwing off his medical coat and lounging about in an untucked dress shirt and sweat pants. “Ya know, Sonne was a lot more polite back in the day when he got me all wrapped up in this mess” he chuckled out, swirling his drink in a gesturing circle.

“It was rather obvious you were the type that required a gentle approach from a stranger, I didn’t want to scare you away”. “Scare away?” Mond muttered to himself, “Where the heck was that sensitivity for me and my poor glass door?”

“Oh yeah sure, and I'm sure it had nothing to do with you needing a new dealer yeah?” Doctor Maouh shot out sarcastically, lifting his classes in an attempt to peer into his beer can. “Go on, tell Mond about the pills, yeah?”

Sonne’s smile persisted, as it had since Mond so naturally grasped the concepts, and with such vigor. “Lesson one of Synchronicity, that is, the technique of using one’s perception to influence the world around us.” He nodded to Mond with a wink, who for a moment couldn't help but find bliss in the tattered, scary old man's approval. “This world's magic, as you demonstrated before.

He dug in his shaggy coat pocket made of a fabric Mond couldn't seem to recognize due to the frayed loose ends that covered nearly all of it. In his long skeletal yet firm fingers, he held a crystal decanter filled with orange and white pills. “Our adult minds are products of reality, and thus could never twist themselves enough to fully believe the results enough to give them any tangibility, that is lost when we are no longer children.” He took one of the pills out with a simple pluck out of the bottle, gazing down at it with hazy sad eyes, yet his smile persisted. “Even those who’ve gone crazy could never influence the unreal side of the coin, trapped in a hell they can only ever feel, and never touch”

“That is why Doctor Maouh over here is such a genius for developing these, and why I had to search him out”. He lifted up the little orange oval and held it to the moonlight, gesturing at Mahou who had flipped himself upside down in his chair, one and a half beers clearly having been too much for him.

“We called it Somnium evanuit…” Mond didn’t even attempt to pretend to know latin, but he seemed to intuit the gist of the name as he had with so much else that night. The pill made you gullible, as well as whacked outta you’re gourd. You really believed what you saw, on one level or another. So add that effect on to the theory of synchronicity, and bing bang boom ya’ do a little fingergun to a fire hydrant and it suddenly pops open like a sprinkler because it just so happens some ditz fireman forgot to check the pressure that month. You do magic, by prying away the unreal cause and forcing in a tangible world effects. Pulling in the final results of an unreality and butchering it into its innate opposite, the death of fantasy for a hint of real power.

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Sonne ducked under the awning of the doorway, Maouh slung over his huge shoulders completely knocked out. “Thank you again Mond, for lending us an ear and for your hospitality. I am sorry about your glass door”. Mond kicked a piece of discarded glass out onto the concrete, “well, sorry ain’t gonna fix it, but I appreciate you guys not killing me and all”. Sonne laughed a hearty but quiet chuckle, “How could I kill you? I saw you ya know, the other night with that serpent-” Mond's face went white in that moment, had he been talking in his sleep at the hospital, had Doctor Maouh just overheard his nightmares or-. “That powerplant explosion was no coincidence. We could use you for our hunt tomorrow, have a goodnight Mond” Sonne winked once more, and silently made his way into the night.

For the first night he could remember, Mond had a dreamless sleep. Perhaps his mind was sufficiently stimulated already from the conversation of that night, which in itself already felt like a dream. Maybe it had been a dream, he thought to himself, collapsing back onto his sofa with the faint relief of returning to bed after a violent vomiting fit. His face felt cold and clammy, sweat beading down his forehead. But he fell asleep with a smile on his face, and an odd sense of satisfaction

The dusty sunlight leaking through his broken window tickled his nose till he finally woke up, feeling surprisingly well rested for someone who had their home broken into just a few hours ago. The warm summer wind had blown in during the night and provided the perfect white noise, and he couldn’t help but greet the morning with a smile. The sun was high overhead, meaning it must have been around noon at this point, a realization which quickly slapped his face into a panic, “Aw crap, Mr.Masuda! I completely went AWOL, he probably doesn't even know about my hospital stay.” Mond thought for a second about the proposal from last night, now being faced with actual responsibility, the fact he’d even considered anything they had said felt silly, if not completely irresponsible. He wanted to say deranged, but that somehow made it more appealing.

He flew through his clothes, finding the closest thing to clean, a lime green hoodie and some brand new bluejeans he had buried at the bottom of his storage bin forgotten. “Ack!” he quickly snapped, lifting up one foot. Blood streamed lightly down his heel and soaked into the wood floor, he picked a small piece of glass out of it with a wince. “Dammit Sonne…” though as he said the name, the ideas flooded his mind, replacing the urgency almost instantly. “A hunt huh? Wonder what they’re hunting for, probably some racoon dog that's been diggin’ in the old man's trashcan house” he laughed to himself as he bandaged the wound, imagining what wild beast a creature like that must look like when they’re all hopped up on their psycho pills.

He looked back at the bottle sitting there on the counter. Now in the plain white plastic bottle and not in that glass decanter Sonne had kept his in, they seemed so much more normal, less intimidating. The allure that prodded him in the corner of his mind as it always did, but this time it had an edge, a physical reminder of that constant pull in his life to a fling of dangerous irresponsibility, to adventure.

Eyes closed, deep breaths, it had already been over two days since he should have been back to the cafe, Mr.Masuda made his ramshackle life here possible in the first place, he would be undeniably in the wrong to leave him by himself there. Hell it was possible the old windbag was even slightly worried about him, Mond thought as he slid on his shoes, wincing from the pain in the injured foot.

He down the alley he had coming home that night, feeling like he should have some kind of aversion to the place after such a traumatic incident, but trauma just wasn’t something that ever seemed to bother him, like his brain stored the fear in the back of the memory dump and burned it to fuel his recklessness. The noon sunrays that beamed through one side of apartment windows to the other made the place feel full of pleasant nostalgia, which he thought must be like a sort of good trauma, right?

Whatever his feelings were, now he felt at peace leaving all of that behind. “Guess I really did get it all out of my system,” Mond laughed to himself as he approached a long set of perfectly paved steep stairs, leading up a tall hill to Mr.Masuda's cafe. “I gotta admit, those old loons really oughta become authors or gurus or something, they make ya think but…” He gazed up at his place of work, Mond genuinely did enjoy his job, his normal life here, even if the call of something beyond tugged at his soul occasionally, he felt content now, he was sure of it. He lifted his right foot to the first step, "I think I'm actually satisfied for once-”

The cry of a warhorn sounded behind his back, one that turned to the shallow cries of a big white vans honk, with Sonne at the wheel and Doctor Mahou hanging out the side window. “Hey! Mond Mond buddy, come hop in!” Mahou slurred his words as he cried to him, seeming to have only gotten more drunk since the last night. “I told you we had a hunt today,” Sonne’s appearance was nothing like he remembered from the night before, except for that one fraction of a moment that he seemed to radiate regal aura, as he did now. Rather than a tattered vagabond, he really seemed like a wise court wizard, someone who he would follow and trust at heartbeat, if he didn’t know any better.

The side of the large blank van slid open, revealing three other passengers crammed in the back. A large dark skinned man, who had been the one to lean forwards and open the door, caught his eye first, balanced on two prosthetic curved limbs as naturally as he would feet. Two women were back there with him, one was a tall, very adult looking lady with dark grey hair, leant back against the wall of the van, who nodded with a bored yet oddly warm smile. The other was a small thin girl with bright yellow hair who waved with both hands, her sunny smile contrasting the lunar face of the other woman. “Hiiii Mond! Doctor Mahou told us all about you, com’on! Get in and let's go!” she cried to him from behind the large dark skinned man.

Mond just stared for a minute, his foot raised still to head up the stairs to his job, to Mr.Masuda and his cozy cafe. He sneered and closed his eyes “What a buncha loons, for real, this is what happens when you let strays like him into your home Mond-” His eyes shot open when he said his made up name, the one he was so used to that he taught himself to hear others say. “Ya coming Mond?” Sonne’s smile didn’t change, but his eyes were piercing.

“Coming where? Who are you people, why do you want me? And how… How did you know that name?” He wanted to ask all these questions, but there was no time. “Who cares, I gotta go get to my job” but oh no- the cafe got smaller and smaller from his view in the back window of the van. And his smile was just way too big, “Oh well”.

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The yellow haired girl's name was Vertigo, and she killed monsters. That was the first thing that was spoken to him when he got into the van, and it came almost instantly. “Verti, were trying not to scare him here, yeah?” the older woman shifted a piece of chalk in her mouth like a cigarette,”Then again, if something like that was gonna scare this psycho away he woulda booked it up those stairs in an instant, I gotta admit I really thought you were gonna go call the cops and bust all our ass’es.” Mond suspected she was in her 30’s, while vertigo had to have been his age if not slightly younger.

“ Quite the cast of characters ya’ got here Sonne” Mond shot with a slightly nervous laugh. “Ey you’re part of the peanut gallery kid aintcha’?” The massive man on prosthesis pulled him into a headlock all of the sudden, an action that made him just slightly more weary considering their cramped and distinctly kidnapish environment. His deep European accent was immediately obvious, “Name’s MF, pleasure to meetcha g’’ he took Monds hand in his, a fairly painful handshake that felt like Texas hit Rhode Island. “Mond, MF huh? Like… Metal foot?” He immediately regretted the joke, the second of silence that followed even more painful than the colossal handshake. Quickly though, a hearty laugh filled the vehicle, “You real funny boy ya’ know that?”. MF let Mond go, pointing over to the dark haired woman. “That ol’ hag over there is Roses, she’s real friendly when you get to know her, the real motherly type” He lowered his head and chuckled deeply, clearly expecting the heavy axe kick that crashed over him, slamming his huge body and rocking the whole van. A visceral noise came from the front seat as Maouh puked all over the dashboard, a groan coming from all in company, “Oh come on Mahouh, dammit’ all got our freakin vices, but cantcha’ just make due with something less messy?” Roses sat up and crawled over to help out the dazed Doctor, MF was right, beneath the muscle and thick black hair, her nature could be felt instantly. A warm laugh could faintly be felt Sonne between all the chaos, and Mond felt a connection in it, and he understood. He wasn’t sure how yet, but these people were his family in some way or another, and they needed him just as much as he did them. Perhaps Mond needed them too, needed him.