The darkness ceased to exist.
CHAPTER ZERO: A LIGHT CRASHES INTO THE DARKNESS
The mattress was the color of the sky. It was the only color, other than black, he saw these days. Mostly, though, he saw black, which was understandable since his eyes were closed for about twenty hours every day. Even when his eyes were actually opened, he viewed the world through a veil of blackness. The bright blue color of the mattress was the only color in his life.
There had been a moment...months ago...when his mind cleared enough to allow him to realize what was happening to him. Despite this brief moment of clarity, there was nothing he could do to help himself. The darkness had complete control over him.
The 'darkness' was a term he coined many years ago, when he first encountered the alien force inside of him. He was only thirteen years old at the time, but now, in so many ways, it felt like he had dealt with the darkness his entire life. Many battles had been waged over the years, and each time he'd conquered the horrible feelings the darkness created in him. He had always survived.
Lying on his sky blue mattress, he couldn't pinpoint the exact moment when the darkness had started dominating his life. This time, it had been so incredibly slow...so incredibly gradual...that he didn't realize the darkness was winning until it was too late.
When his eyes opened, the first sight to greet him was the color of the sky. There was a time when sheets had covered the mattress, but he couldn't recall when he had removed them. The likely answer was the sheets were ripped off the worn mattress during his near-constant, restless sleep. Against his will, he shifted his body until he could see the dust-covered alarm clock sitting on the dust-covered nightstand next to his bed. The bright red numbers read 10:12, and since it wasn't pitch black in his bedroom, he guessed it was morning. He had no idea what day of the week it was...he had lost track of that a long time ago. For that matter, he couldn't clearly remember what month it was. He thought it was June, but it easily could have been May or July. He just didn't know...and he didn't care.
He realized he couldn't recollect the last time he was awake so early in the day. It felt so...unnatural. A terrible aroma caught his attention. It smelled predominantly like piss mixed with shit. At first, he couldn't tell where it was coming from. Slowly, it dawned on him. The odor was emanating from HIS body. Like everything else in his...existence, he couldn't remember the last time he'd taken a shower. It could have been a week, a month, or maybe even a year ago. Based on the putridness of the smell, it was definitely one of the latter two answers.
Fighting himself the whole time, he lifted his head off his drool-stained pillow and sat up. He waited for a few moments until the wave of dizziness that struck him passed. In slow motion, he got up from his bed and stood upright. He saw...and ignored...the litter that surrounded him. A couple of flies, he guessed fruit flies, buzzed by his face. He halfheartedly lifted his hand to swat them away.
With no clear destination in mind, he stumbled out of his bedroom, carefully choosing his steps because there was so much clutter on the floor. When he reached the equally cluttered hallway, he turned right, his first inclination to go downstairs into his living room. But, he caught another whiff of himself and made a split-second decision to turn left and head towards the bathroom.
After what seemed like an eternity, but was in reality only about ten seconds, he reached the bathroom. Another foul scent reached his nose, and at first he thought he smelled himself again. But, he realized the smell was coming from the bathroom. Suddenly, he wasn't sure why he was in there. A faint voice in the corner of his mind reminded him that he needed to take a shower, but the thought of doing that seemed so...daunting. He wasn't sure if he had enough energy to perform that mundane task.
During this period of indecision, he happened to catch a glimpse of himself in the huge mirror mounted above the sink, and this caught his attention. For the first time in forever, he actually looked at himself, but he didn't recognize his own reflection. 'Who is that person staring back at me?' he thought.
"Your name is Dax. Dax Carmack. Daxton Michael Carmack." He said aloud to the stranger in the mirror. Despite saying his name, the figure staring back at Dax showed no sign of recognition at this announcement. Dax continued to study the face and body of the person in the mirror. The person sort of looked like him, and Dax guessed the figure was the same height he was, about five feet, eleven inches tall.
Dax began to look more closely at the face of the person in the mirror. The first thing he noticed was the eyes, which were dull, brown, and lifeless. The person also had a grossly unkempt mustache and beard and, just like the eyes, this facial hair was dull, brown, and lifeless. Dax's eyes traveled down even further and, if it could have been possible, he would have seen his lifeless eyes spark for a quick instant. The figure in the mirror was wearing a white shirt that was covered in dried, unknown food stains. The food stains didn't even register to Dax. What did register was the beginnings of a small gut forming on the body. The gut was actually pushing the white shirt out a little bit. Dax took his hands and began running them over this foreign entity. Despite what he saw in the mirror, it was feeling his hands running over his belly that convinced Dax the...addition...to his body was real. It felt completely unfamiliar.
After a few minutes spent obsessing over this new part of his body, Dax's eyes wandered back up to the head of the person in the mirror. The person's dull, brown, and lifeless hair was so long, it almost reached his shoulders. Dax reached up and started combing his fingers through the long hair. Suddenly, he felt intensely disgusted by this long, greasy mess. He hated it. It had to come off.
An old memory flashed through Dax's mind, causing him to reach down and pull open the bottom drawer on the right hand side of the vanity. They were sitting there, right on top, just like he remembered. Dax grabbed the scissors out of the drawer and put them in his left hand. With his right hand, Dax grabbed a huge chunk of hair on top of his head. Without thinking, Dax started cutting the hair with the scissors. He cut so close to his head, he was in danger of scalping himself.
Dax stopped for a moment and stared at the clump of hair in his hand. Without warning, an unknown force possessed Dax and, for the next few minutes, he began cutting all of the hair off of his head. The only sound that could be heard during this time was the snipping of the scissors as he furiously tried to complete this task. He couldn't stop himself; he was compelled to get rid of this nuisance. When there wasn't anything left to cut on the top of his head, he focused on his beard. Dax's eyes, which burned with an intensity unseen for quite some time, had tears streaming out of them. When Dax couldn't cut any more hair from his head or his beard, he began snipping at his eyebrows. They were too bushy and had to be dealt with.
Soon enough, the sound of the scissors ceased and the only thing Dax could hear was his own heavy breathing. He threw the scissors down on the counter and ran both of his hands over his head and face, desperately trying to brush away all remnants of his brash act. Finally, Dax slumped to the floor, collapsed in a heap. His bare feet were resting in a few clumps of brown hair that were lying on the floor and they tickled his toes. After a few minutes, his eyes stopped leaking and his breathing returned to normal. He closed his eyes, exhausted by that burst of energy. His mind drifted off.
When Dax became aware of his surroundings again, he wasn't sure how long he had been lying there on the bathroom floor. It must have been quite a while because all of the muscles in his arms and legs were stiff and his butt ached, and not in a good way. He glanced up and caught sight of the toilet bowl, which sat directly across from him. He was pretty sure the bowl had been white at one point, but now it was yellow and brown, covered in a layer of...well, Dax wasn't too sure. It looked like dried, crusted urine infused with shit. His eyes drifted down, and he was greeted with a similar sight on the floor immediately surrounding the toilet bowl. It looked like a concoction of piss, chunks of shit, and pieces of toilet paper was glued to the floor. The sight made Dax want to vomit.
Slowly he managed to stand up, every muscle in his body protesting violently. The site of the toilet bowl and the floor reminded Dax of his body odor, and he decided he had to take a shower. He looked to his far left, to the built-in, wooden shelves next to the sink. Dax was shocked when he found a single yellow towel sitting on the middle shelf. It was folded and actually looked fresh. Dax closed the lid on the toilet bowl to create a clean area to place the towel. He was disgusted when he noticed even more dried and crusty chunks of shit on the back edge of the toilet bowl, previously hidden when the lid was open. He placed the towel on the lid, and proceeded to remove his clothing, letting it drop anywhere on the hair, piss, and shit covered floor.
Dax pulled open the shower curtain. Like everything else in his bathroom, the sight his eyes took in revolted him. The bathtub was extremely grimy. The entire tub and most of the sides of the shower were covered with brown soap scum. Mold of different colors was growing in every crack and crevice of the tub. Dax tried to ignore all of this nastiness as he turned on the water. He heard the pipes groan as water ran through them for the first time in ages.
When he turned on the showerhead, some brown colored liquid squirted out at first before being replaced by fresh, clean water. Dax adjusted the hot and cold knobs until the water was warm enough, and then he got into the shower, pulling the shower curtain closed behind him. The side of the shower curtain facing the inner part of the shower was covered in mold too, which didn't surprise Dax at this point. Dax closed his eyes and forced himself to clear his mind of everything he'd seen as the deluge of water struck him directly on his head and ran down his body.
Dax glanced down and saw a bar soap sitting in the built-in soap dish. At least, Dax thought it was a bar of soap. It was dried out and had a number of cracks in it, most likely from non-use. Dax could have sworn the soap was supposed to be green, but now it was a dull yellow color. The soap didn't look clean, and Dax decided not use it.
Dax turned around to let the water reach his back and his butt. Since Dax didn't have a washcloth, he decided to reach around and use his hand to wash out the crack of his ass. He immediately recoiled his hand after reaching this area, horrified by what he found there. He felt some kind of mushy substance in his hand and, when he looked down, he was horrified to find a dark brown mess covering his hand. Fuck! His hand was covered in shit! Dax looked down and saw that chunks of shit had fallen out of his ass and onto the floor of the tub. For the second time that day, Dax felt like he was going to throw up. What in the hell had he done to himself? How had he gotten to this point? Dax didn't have any answers.
Despite his revulsion, Dax forced himself to wash out his ass as best he could. He even used some of the dried out yellow soap to assist in the job. It was quite possibly the most disgusting thing Dax had ever done in his life. Finally, he was finished, and after he was done, he put his head back under the stream of water and stood there.
Suddenly, Dax thought he heard a sound. It was loud, and it seemed like it was coming from somewhere close to his condo, maybe even inside of his condo. Dax stood quietly, barely breathing for the next few seconds. He didn't hear anything but the sound of the water coming out of the showerhead. Slowly, Dax started to relax.
'Thud, thud, thud.' Dax heard the sound again. What was that?
An icy fear shot through Dax's veins. He suddenly realized what the sound was. It was someone knocking on his front door. The person, whoever it was, must have been knocking loudly if Dax could hear it all the way up in his bathroom while the shower was running. FUCK! Dax didn't know what to do. His heart started beating really fast. 'GO AWAY! Please, go away!' Dax shouted in his mind.
Suddenly, Dax heard an incredibly loud sound, many decibels higher than the other noises. It sounded like a crack of thunder after a bolt of lightning struck nearby. Dax immediately shut off the water and stood very still, listening, wondering what that sound was.
"HELLO? THIS IS THE POLICE! IS ANYONE HERE?" A deep male voice shouted from downstairs.
'FUCK! DOUBLE FUCK!' Dax screamed in his mind. 'I can't believe this. How in the hell did the police get into my condo?'
The loud crack. Dax suddenly realized what that sound was. The police had broken open his front door. Dax was frozen in place, water droplets running off of his body.
"This is the police. Is anyone here?" The male voice shouted again.
Dax snapped out of his frozen state. He whipped open the shower curtain and grabbed his one clean towel from where it lay. He had no choice but to respond.
"Um...yeah. I'm up here." Dax replied in a shaky voice.
"Sir, are you okay?" The male voice asked.
"Yes." Dax answered uneasily. "I, um, I just got out of the shower. Let me throw on some clothes and I'll be down in a minute."
"Okay." The male voice said.
Dax dried off quickly and ran down to his bedroom. SHIT! He was pretty sure he didn't have any clean clothes. Dax started to panic while quickly searching through the piles of clothes scattered all over his bedroom floor. He finally found a pair of shorts and an old shirt that didn't smell too bad. They would have to do. Dax quickly put on his clothes, and then stopped for a minute to catch his breath. His mind, which had been focused on finding some clothes, started functioning again.
'Why are the cops here? Oh, shit! My condo! They're in my condo! It's...the whole place is a mess!' Dax thought.
A wave of the most intense embarrassment he'd ever felt in his life washed over Dax. People...the police no less...were in his house. He wasn't prepared for this. Oh my god! They're going to SEE me. They're going to SEE everything. They're going to KNOW what he'd become.
Something occurred to Dax at that moment. His hair. He had cut off most of his hair, and it was really uneven and most likely looked horrible. He couldn't let the cops see what he had done to himself. Dax rushed over to his closet and breathed a sigh of relief when he found one of his old Ohio University baseball hats sitting on the shelf. Dax grabbed the hat and covered his head. Unfortunately, there was nothing he could do to mask his beard or his eyebrows.
"Sir? Are you coming down?" The male voice shouted. Hearing the cop's voice snapped Dax out of his paralysis.
"Coming." Dax shouted back. He took a deep breath and tried desperately to calm his rattled nerves. When he reached the top of the stairs, Dax glanced down and saw two police officers, one male and one female, standing at the bottom of the stairs staring back at him. Despite every fiber of his being telling him to run and hide, Dax slowly began walking into the lion's den.
"Are you Dax Carmack?" The male officer asked when Dax reached the bottom of the stairs.
"Y...yes." Dax stuttered. He couldn't bring himself to look directly at either of the officers. He felt so ashamed.
"Are you okay, sir?" The female officer asked.
The officer's question prompted Dax to glance around his living room. There was garbage piled everywhere, on every available surface, on every piece of furniture, on every open space on the floor. Dax realized garbage was piled so high in some areas that if he stepped in the middle of it, it would have reached past his knees.
The shock of seeing the police forced Dax to really look at the state of his condo. He truly saw, for the first time in months, the foulness he was living in. As his mind registered what he was seeing, Dax didn't want to believe it. It had to be a nightmare; it just had to be.
The majority of the trash was fast-food related items. Hamburger wrappers, bags, and cups with straws and lids on them littered his entire condo. Sometimes mixed in the middle of this mess was a towel or an article of clothing that had somehow made its way to that spot. Dax's eyes were drawn to some movement on the coffee table. He saw a McDonald's cup laying on its side, remnants of chocolate milkshake still left in the cup. A huge swarm of fruit flies covered the inside of the cup. They were so thick in some places that you could barely see the cup's lining. Dax tore his eyes away from this scene and closed them, unable to bear looking anymore.
"Sir, are you okay?" The female officer repeated.
Against his will, tears formed in both of Dax's eyes and spilled onto his cheeks.
"I...I don't think I am." He replied. "I...I...Oh my god." Dax covered his face with his hands.
"Sir." The female officer said. "DAX!" She said loudly to get his attention. Dax removed his hands and looked in her direction, but he was still unable to look either officer in the eyes.
"My name is Officer Williams. This is my partner, Officer Bradley." She said while pointing at the male cop. "Can you tell us what's wrong?" The tone in her voice changed from gruff and commanding to soft and soothing.
"I don't know. I really don't know!" Dax replied, tears still leaking from his eyes.
"How long have you been...living like this?" Officer Bradley asked. The formal cop tone was absent from his voice too.
"I'm not sure. A long time, I think. It's...um...it's June, right?" Dax asked timidly.
"Yes." Officer Williams confirmed.
"I...I guess about eight or nine months at least." Dax replied. He suddenly got a pained expression on his face. "Oh my god! What's happening to me?"
"I'm not sure Dax, but we're going to help you." Officer Williams said.
Dax realized Officer Williams was right...he needed to get some help. He looked at both cops for the first time since he had come downstairs. Despite everything that was happening, Dax couldn't help but notice that Officer Bradley was hot. Dax wasn't normally turned on by any kind of uniforms, but young Officer Bradley was a sight to behold in his cop gear. Suddenly, something occurred to Dax.
"Wait a minute! How...how did you guys know that I was in trouble? How did you know to come check on me?" Dax asked.
"Your lawyer, Mr. Webster, called us. Apparently, he hadn't heard from you in over six weeks. He was worried something bad had happened to you." Officer Williams explained.
"Mr. Webster called you guys?" Dax asked. He couldn't believe that grumpy old Mr. Webster had gotten involved like this. He didn't think that Mr. Webster even knew who he was. Both officers simply nodded their heads at Dax's question.
"Dax, can you tell us how you're feeling right now?" Officer Williams asked.
"Truthfully, I'm exhausted. Scared and exhausted. All I want to do is go back to sleep." Dax admitted.
"Neither one of us are doctors Dax, but based on the state your condo is in and from what you've told us, it sounds like you are suffering from some kind of depression. Pretty severe, from the looks of it." Officer Bradley commented.
"What should I do? I...I don't know what to do?" Dax cried out, fresh tears forming in his eyes.
"Try not to worry. There's an emergency medical center we can take you to that deals with this kind of problem. As a matter of fact, we can take you there right now. They'll be able to help you." Officer Williams replied.
Dax glanced around his living room again. He was terrified, but what choice did he have? It was obvious he needed help, and he felt he could trust the two officers.
"Okay, I'll go." Dax said after a few seconds.
"That's the right decision. You should probably pack a bag to bring with you, just in case you need to stay in the hospital for a few days." Officer Williams said.
"The...the hospital?" Dax asked, fear clearly evident in his voice.
"Dax...you need to get some help. It's possible the doctor at the emergency center will want to admit you to the hospital for a few days. I know it sounds scary, but we have dealt with these doctors before. They are good people and they're there to help you. I promise." Officer Williams said in that soothing voice again.
Dax wasn't convinced, but he nodded in agreement anyway. Like it or not, he might have to spend a few days in a mental hospital. But, there was something else that was troubling him.
"I...I don't think I have any...um...clean clothes to take with me." Dax practically whispered. His face flushed with embarrassment.
"Dax, that's fine. Just pack up whatever clothes you think you'll need. We'll explain the situation to the doctors. They'll make sure your clothing is taken care of." Officer Williams said with a reassuring smile.
Dax nodded his head and turned to walk upstairs to his bedroom.
"Dax." Officer Bradley called out. Dax turned around to look at him. "Is there anyone you need to contact before you leave?"
"No." Dax replied sadly as he shook his head. "Everyone's gone. They're all gone." Dax paused for a second. "Well, perhaps Mr. Webster, since he did call you guys."
"Someone from our station will contact him since he was the one to call us. We'll let him know you're alive." Officer Bradley stated.
"Thanks. I...I guess I should go pack." Dax said without much confidence.
Both officers smiled and nodded. Dax turned and started walking up the stairs. He was scared...terrified, really. But, one other emotion started to creep into Dax's soul, an emotion he hadn't felt since the traumatic bus crash last year. Dax felt hope.