Chapter 2: Whispers in Therapy and Echoes from Other Worlds
Dr. Helena's office was a contrast to the chaos in Joey's mind. Soft colors, indirect lighting, and the faint scent of lavender created an atmosphere of calculated calm.
Joey sat in his usual armchair, hands clasped in his lap.
He always found it difficult to speak about his feelings, preferring people not to know what he was thinking unless he chose to tell them, and this setting, while peaceful, still felt like a stage for his vulnerabilities.
"So, Joey, how was your week?" Dr. Helena's voice was patient, without judgment.
Joey hesitated, his mind racing to organize his thoughts before speaking, a common habit when he wasn't entirely comfortable.
"It was... normal, I guess. I had breakfast with my parents today." He offered this fact, a safe, observable event.
"And how was that?"
"Like always," he replied, a slight trace of resignation in his voice. He felt uncomfortable expressing emotions beyond anger, and resignation felt like a muted, acceptable state.
"My dad... well, he is who he is."
"And you, how did you feel?"
"A little anxious." He paused, then added, "But I stayed there. My mom made cake." A small, fleeting smile touched his lips but quickly vanished.
He thought about mentioning the flash in the garden or the hooded figure. The images were persistent, but a deep-seated fear of being misunderstood or judged as even more unstable than he already felt made him recoil.
He was already battling depression and social phobia; adding "seeing things" to the list didn't seem like a good idea, especially given his own doubts about what he'd witnessed.
Still, the image of the disoriented person lingered, an unsolved puzzle for his analytical mind.
"Did anything else happen? Anything different?" Dr. Helena asked, her calm gaze noticing his hesitation.
Joey drummed his fingers on the arm of the chair, a small tell of his internal debate. He trusted facts over emotions when making decisions, and the lack of facts here was troubling.
"I don't know if it was real," he began cautiously, choosing his words with care.
"I saw... a person on the street, near the bus stop. They looked... lost. Their clothes were very strange."
Dr. Helena listened attentively. "And how did that make you feel?"
"Confused, I think. A little uneasy." He looked at his own hands.
"Sometimes, I feel like the whole world is a little off-kilter. Or maybe it's just me."
This sentiment of being an outsider looking in, of feeling fundamentally different, often haunted him. And this new, inexplicable observation amplified that tendency.
The therapist jotted something down in her notepad. "It's common, when we're dealing with anxiety and depression, to feel that our perception of reality is altered, Joey.
But it's good that you're noticing these things and bringing them here." He knew it was important to understand his own feelings and those of others, and therapy was, in theory, the place for that.
They continued the session, talking about Joey's small goals, his interaction difficulties, and his persistent dream of a more peaceful world, a world without the wars and malice he so reviled, a world where his own pursuit of harmony wouldn't feel like such a constant battle.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the city, in a bustling park, a peculiar scene was unfolding, completely unbeknownst to Joey.
A young woman with long, silver hair and pointed ears, wearing light armor that looked straight out of a fantasy novel, gazed around in amazement and apprehension.
Children pointed, adults whispered and took pictures with their cell phones.
The young woman, whose name was Lyra, tried to ask where she was, but her tongue was incomprehensible to the locals, and their language sounded like barbaric noise to her.
She backed away, frightened by the "noisy metal birds" (cars) and the "talking boxes" (cell phones). To her, this place was a noisy, incomprehensible nightmare.
A municipal guard approached, cautious, trying to communicate.
Lyra, feeling threatened, instinctively drew an ornate dagger, causing a small panic among the onlookers. She didn't want to hurt anyone, only to understand where she was and how she had ended up there, so far from her enchanted forest.
This was just another of the anomalies, another being from another universe torn from its reality and spat out onto Earth.
Just like the hooded man Joey had seen earlier, Lyra was profoundly confused.
….
Joey returned from therapy feeling a bit lighter, as always happened after unburdening himself to Dr. Helena, but the unease about the strange figure at the bus stop still lingered.
At home, he found silence. His mother was probably resting or shopping, and his father, to his relief, was nowhere in sight.
Léo hadn't returned from college yet.
He took refuge in his room, the sanctuary where reality felt less oppressive and his need for security could be met.
He turned on his computer, the screen illuminating his pale face.
On impulse, driven by a need to analyze and collect data on the unsettling things he'd witnessed, he started searching the internet for "people in strange clothes appearing out of nowhere" and "reports of disoriented individuals in public."
The results were a mix of local news about Lyra the elf in the park – already going viral with shaky photos and videos under headlines like "Cosplayer Woman Causes Commotion" or "Mysterious Visitor Surprises Residents" – and countless conspiracy theories, UFO videos, and discussion forums about unexplained phenomena.
Normally, Joey, who trusted facts over emotions, would dismiss much of it as fantasy, but after what he'd seen, and the flash in the garden, a seed of doubt had been planted in his usually logical mind.
He read about Lyra, the description matching the kind of disorientation he himself had felt upon seeing the hooded man.
He felt a pang of empathy for her; being lost and scared in a hostile environment was something he knew all too well, that feeling of being an outsider looking in.
He often felt that something was missing in his own life, a sense of belonging Lyra clearly lacked in this new, strange place.
His father came home noisily, his powerful voice echoing down the hallway, complaining about traffic or work.
Joey quickly minimized the browser tabs, his heart racing.
He didn't want to have to explain his "useless research," a term his own inner critic readily supplied, anticipating his father's disapproval.
Confrontation was something he studiously avoided to maintain his peace of mind.
Meanwhile, a few blocks away, on a busy commercial avenue, the afternoon was abruptly interrupted by a deafening metallic boom, followed by a shower of sparks and a brief power outage in several blocks.
People rushed out of stores, frightened.
In the middle of the street, where moments before there was only asphalt, now lay a sort of metallic pod, smoking and dented, about two meters long.
The pod's doors hissed open pneumatically, revealing a middle-aged man wearing a tight, dark-blue jumpsuit, covered in soot, with a cracked visor over one eye.
He coughed, looking around with an expression of pure shock and disbelief, muttering something in a language full of clicks and whistles.
In his hands, he clutched a damaged device emitting erratic beeps.
"By the rings of Cygnus Prime! Where... where in the blazes am I?" he babbled to himself, his voice muffled by what remained of his helmet.
This was Zylar, a spaceship engineer from a solar system light-years away, who had been on a test flight when a malfunction in his warp drive hurled him across space-time.
Chaos erupted. Sirens began to wail in the distance.
People screamed, some filmed with their cell phones, others fled.
Zylar tried to stand, his legs trembling, completely unaware that he wasn't just the only confused one there; he was the cause of the confusion.
Joey, in his room, heard the distant sirens. To him, it was just another noise from the big city, another reminder of the chaotic world outside from which he tried to shield himself.
He couldn't imagine that the metallic echo some neighbors would later comment on was intrinsically linked to his research and his dreams of a different world.
_________________________________________________________________
I'll be redoing the story. Many things will remain, some will change. I hope to count on your feedback to know if you're enjoying the story or want me to change anything. This is my first time creating a story, so I made several mistakes the first time around. I read one of the comments on the chapters and decided to redo the story to make it more pleasant for you all.
If you like the story, I'd appreciate it if you could check out my Patreon. I'll be posting 40 chapters in advance there. I believe this week I'll be able to create the chapters for paying members. Unfortunately, I don't think I'll be able to today as I'm redoing the chapters and deciding what direction to take the story. If you could comment on the chapters with your thoughts, I would love it. Thank you to everyone who added my story to their collection.
patreon.com/JoeyLean