Daltonious

What have I become. What monster has consumed me? I used to swear on my sister’s life that I would never be like them. Now look at me. It is because of Him. He has consumed my body, made me the monster that I am now. His influence was far greater than I had ever anticipated. He has taken over my entire being. I was going to be the change in our cursed family bloodline. Now I am the root of the evil within the bloodline. I blame Him. He was a god, or pretended to be as such. He took control. He promised me safety and immortality, and he delivered, but at a price. Every one of his deals have prices.

I watch my own actions through the screens of the Mindscape. It horrifies me. I wouldn’t call Him a part of me anymore. I am Daltonious, one is Dalton, and the other is Him- Antold. It was a clever play on my nickname. He despises it. So much so that I have been banished from my own Mindscape.

They have consumed my own body. They have my faint memories and emotions. I watch from the vast outer world of the Mindscape as they live. A dim blue light illuminates from my petite body at all times, showing that I am still alive. I still exist, and no matter how much Antold wishes to eradicate me, I still plague him. I am Daltonious. The original. Dalton is the plagued version of me, twisted by Antold into his perfect pawn, and Antold is God. A horrible, corrupt God.

I am the spirit of the younger Dalton. The good that happened in his past. The cheerful memories among the horrible. Antold has eradicated my existence from Dalton’s mind, and only left the bad. Any memory gaps he has are filled with more violence that hasn’t happened. Any fairly happy memories end with horrific incidents. Not all of his memories were bad. Only nearly twenty percent of them were. Antold has twisted the narrative into a sick fantasy of himself, and turned me into a monster. World class serial killer, mafia godfather, billionaire, egotistical, narcissistic…

Antold has more influence than anybody knows. He has the power of manipulation. Dalton doesn’t know of my existence in the Mindscape. Nobody does. Only a faint blip billions of miles away. Wandering has always been my strong suit. There’s nothing else to do, anyways. Cheerfulness and childlike wonder always is on my mind. As Antold had taken the bad memories, I was left with only good, but also the consciousness to know that they had been taken.

I always notice when one enters and the other leaves, or when they are both in the Mindscape. The lights of their room swirl brilliantly, almost threatening to merge into a purple before being ripped apart again by some yelling. Sound in the Mindscape has no walls to swallow it. It echoes into eternity, so eventually the sound reaches me. Nearly ten minutes after the original conversation had taken place, in most instances. I have visited far and wide, the pitch black floor and the empty void comforting. I visit the hub of Mindscapes quite frequently, though. Dalton and Antold’s resides next to an orange and green Mindscape constantly. Next to the orange and green resides a yellow. Farther out is two more that sit next to each other- a lime green one and a dark yellow and dark green one. Farther out is a brown mindscape, that one is new. Every Mindscape connection that Dalton or Antold has also transfers to me.

A pitch black Mindscape sits farther out. It never comes anywhere close to the Hub. This Mindscape is my father’s. He never leaves when he is here, and it is very hard to notice his Mindscape. Only once have I visited him. He never speaks when here, only his faint breathing can be noticed that indicates when he is. I doubt that others know of his existence. The same goes for the white Mindscape that is home to Dalton’s cat Diamond. The cat is never here. His mindscape is empty, and only here because of the small amount of virus in the cat’s blood. It is a good thinking spot if I need a rest.

It grows tiring some days. My estimate is that it has been 150 years since I last saw the sun. There is no clock here, my only guess is when some person mentions the year it is, which last they said was 2016, but it has been far too long for it to be that year anymore.

I do believe that I will someday become Dalton again. I will try to redeem him. He will become me, I should say. I am the original. I am what he was supposed to be. The problem comes when Antold is the one that keeps him alive. Antold is the reason for him being 180 something. Without Antold, he dies. It has almost happened. Only for a day I had been out of the Mindscape. For only about ten minutes. I opened my eyes and saw my arm glowing a bright purple, crystals protruding out of the skin like glass shards. I screamed, it is all I knew to do. I didn’t want to leave, but I had been forcefully grabbed and tossed into my body. My heavily modified body. Antold was gone, Dalton was gone, only me. I didn’t recognize the place, but it was damp and obviously underground. A dead purple flower laid beside me, having the same petals that were painfully sticking out of my arm. Pain surged through my body, it was shutting down.

My hair had gotten grey, my face wrinkled, and my body decaying at its appendages. I spotted corpses of my Metatonian brothers and sisters coming to life before quickly dying again, the trail of them leading towards me. Antold.

Antold took over a body for only a few moments before his power destroyed it, then he switched to the next. Whatever was protruding out of my skin was obviously toxic to him, so he fled, but he still needed a host in the meantime.

I tried to stand using my arms. I wished to be free from Antold. This was my freedom. I fell back to the ground and cried, my freedom swiftly ending as my joints gave out. The smell of rotting flesh wafted through the tunnels, and I couldn’t tell if it was my own or my fallen brethren beside me. I used my teeth to try to take out the shards of glass, managing to remove the majority of it. The light on my arm dimmed.

I fell backwards and cried again. My body was finally dying. This was the end of Antold’s reign. I would finally be home with Madge. I would get to hug her again. I smiled, accepting my fate.

I quickly was snapped back to the Mindscape, in the same place I was in when I was pulled out of it. Had I been dreaming? No. You cannot dream in the Mindscape. The room of Dalton and Antold returned to its spot, the red of Antold dimmer than usual. Somebody had saved them. I grow sad reliving the memory, but the sadness is quickly taken away. Antold tsks from his spot in the Mindscape. I can see his smug grin from here. He has my thoughts, same as Dalton. He monitors everything.

I stand right outside of their Mindscape, not able to see in because of the lights, and not able to enter anyway.

“We do not think of that, Daltonious,” Antold speaks in my native language of Metatonian. It is the only language that he can speak.

I don’t reply to him. I never do. I frown, knowing that he can see it. I push the large round rimmed glasses I wear up the bridge of my nose, wiping my nose with the sleeve of the school uniform I have been wearing for the past 150 years.