Jeranimo was trapped in a nightmare of his worst fears, all the cases where people had died, how and why he had failed them. The visions were replaying inside his mind over and over. Not things that he had actually witnessed but the logical conclusions his deductions had drawn from the facts of each case. The worst one was all the missing kids and their crying pleading parents begging him to find them. Seeing his worst fears of what happened to those kids made him feel guiltier than he thought was possible.
All of a sudden a bright light appeared in the middle of this septic vision. It became a line that spread horizontally and erased the terror from his perception. The light became all consuming and the darkness faded away. He began to be aware of a four walled white room with a flat metal table, two chairs and no doors that he could see. He began probing the walls with his fingers and knocking, looking for any weak spots. He tried to pick up a chair and throw it. It was as much a part of the room as the walls. To his dismay, so was the table. He tried to think of how he had gotten into this situation but the last thing he could remember was Rosie climaxing in his arms. Maybe they had been found on the highway by Carbine. Hauled off to some black site in Nowhere. As the worst scenarios he could think of were spinning throughout his noggin, he heard a voice in the silence that was not his own.
"I'm sorry Sir," Rosie said appearing naked in the room, "Butler created a toxicity side effect to piggyback on my orgasm delay program. It caused some havoc with your mental and physical systems but I have done my best to counter your body's physical needs."
"Okay great...but can you tell me where the fuck we are right now?" he said.
"Umm...how best to describe it," she said. Instantly, she was wearing a lab coat, glasses and a ponytail before she began her tirade. "Well...we are inside of your mind. I formed a bridge to save you from your meltdown and built this room around your psyche to stem off the bad scenes. What you were seeing could be described as a bad acid trip but much worse. A typical hallucinogenic experience has many phases but one that all pass through is ego death. Wherein your psyche is broken down and dissolved to nothing which allows you to be a part of the one which is all and nothing. When I climaxed you were exposed to a chemical much more potent than I had thought was possible. It caused your body to react and your mind to shut down. I put these walls up to help you learn to control your mindscape. Since we are in your mind I have limited functionality but it was enough to stop the haemorrhaging."
"So how do I get out of here?" he said.
"You can't go back to your body until things calm down some more up there. I am monitoring the situation internally and will let you know when your body is back to normal. For the time being, we can just explore your mindscape together. Who knows? It could be fun. You just have to imagine it to be real. You have to stay focused on what it is you want. When your mind wavers so does the terrain or clothes. If you would prefer them to being...naked," she said with a coy smile and an appraising look giving Jeranimo the old up and down.
He concentrated and was back in his street clothes. She sighed and said, "Aww too bad. I liked seeing you exposed." The hunger in her eyes said more than her mouth ever could. "Now close your eyes Sir and think of a stone garden. It has statues and groves of cherry blossoms as far as you can see. Don't think of what is beyond the garden, your mind will fill in any blank spots," she instructed him.
"How do you know all this?," he said.
She blushed and replied, "Alanna showed me the inner workings of her mind and taught me the basics. Since cons cannot dream, we have no frame of reference for your internal world. She showed me the ropes," again blushing, "and the rest I just picked up with other interactions I have had over the years. It looks like things are taking shape, are you ready to open your eyes now?" she asked.
"Yeah, let's get this show on the road," he said as he opened his eyes and beheld his own inner self. It was incredibly barren with the cherry blossoms in a state of decay. It was more like a graveyard than a garden he thought. Instantly, the scene became filled with tombstones. The names of people he had lost over the years decorating the markers. He could make out a huge mausoleum in the center.
"Hmm, this is different," Rosie said. "I guess you just can't avoid the darker things Jeranimo. I don't know what we will find but I will go with you." She moved up next to him and wrapped her fingers with his. She gave him her best smile, letting him know she thought everything was going to be okay.
He looked at her and smiled back. He caught some movement above and behind her. It was the sky but it was wrong. "What the hell is going on up there?" he said aloud and gazed in wonder at the kaleidoscopic, fractalized madness spinning and twirling above him.
"Oh don't worry about that. The sky here reflects your body's current state. Think of it like fire alarms you can see. When the storm passes we will be safe to go back into our bodies. Until then, let's just walk a bit," she said. She was out of the lab coat and into a tight pair of jeans with a crop top while barefoot. Curiously, he noticed that she left healthy grass after every step. The color was quickly consumed by the gray around it though,
The first statue in this necropolis that they came across was of a woman. She was naked and kneeling, prostrating herself with her hands palms up and flat against her knees. She was wearing a collar and a blindfold. She was weeping but had a huge smile on her face. They were tears of joy mixed with pain.
"I think someone likes to get kinky?" Rosie said as she huskily chuckled. "I'm not going to judge you for your darkest desires Jeranimo, but they will give me insights in how to better be of service to you...Sir." She laughed again as they continued down the paths of his labyrinthian mind.
When they had finally arrived at the center, Jeranimo felt thoroughly embarrassed and exposed. They had somehow managed to only see his carnal desires. Rosie had gotten a big kick out of most of them. The only one that upset her was Jeranimo seeing himself with a child. That was the one thing she could never give him. She did her best to hide her bitter disappointment at that realization.
She was still thinking about it as they crossed the threshold into the center. "Jeranimo, how much do you know about archetypes?"
"Arch what?" he said.
"Shit. Well you are about to get a crash course on the shadow. It is a primal trixter, usually trying to teach you a lesson. The knowledge always comes with a price tag of personal pain. If you have had some deep trauma, it can sometimes manifest itself within the shadow. I think we will be okay though. I haven't seen any animals yet and we only need to be worried about crows," she tried to explain quickly.
The sound of flapping wings in the distance drew her eye to the south and she saw them. Like a black cloud they descended into the cemetery and landed on every tombstone. It was a whole murder of crows in attendance. She had never seen so many before and she knew they saw her. They watched her with black, merciless eyes.
Jeranimo muttered "What the fuck?" and it was enough to startle them back into the air. Once airborne some began circling in a bizarre pattern that seemed to spin both clockwise and counter. It was hard to look at for long. Something more disturbing caught their eye regardless. Some of the crows grouped together on the limbs of a bare apple tree. It had not borne fruit for some time. As they coalesced, they formed a dense shade that seemed to stretch over the entrance to the mausoleum. The shadow seemed to flicker and bend in a place without any light except the rampaging sky. It looked to be human sized and had no discernible features. It slipped inside, going deeper into the crypt.
"Okay...let's go somewhere else," Rosie said quickly.
