Doctor, the medicine’s not working anymore.

You know, when I first met you I was surprised that you would accept me as a patient. I mean, you supposedly a human professional, well versed in science, believing I could exist, let alone seek your help…

You were unperturbed by my tail and ears and you didn’t even ask if I just pasted them on. You didn’t wonder if you’re the one in need of shrinks. You’ve given me a lot of pills that stopped my delusions and nightmares when my herbs didn’t work anymore. Thanks very much. You were worth all the gold coins I was giving you.

But as I was saying earlier, the medicine’s not working anymore.

It was an… entirely livid dream. All I saw was in blue in a landscape that faded to black, like it was after sunset in the desert. Then a bonfire flared up and a boy appeared. He’s got a jagan --- a third eye if you will --- and eyes all over his body, all of those with luminous purple irises like amethysts, and his skin looked as if it was well oiled. He was in a chain-link tunic that barely hid all of those eyes, and tall, many-strapped, stiletto-heeled sandals that he danced in as if he were barefoot.

He was charging towards space while he was playing with his sword, as if he were both seducing and battling with an invisible enemy. All the while black fires were dancing all over him, and some of those flames formed a serpentine dragon. He was doing these while his two eyes were closed.

He slowly opened them to reveal massive carbuncle irises that were on fire with hatred… for me? It seemed so, because we were the only ones around that I could see, although I felt that an evil unknown audience was watching us. He smiled slowly, and I could see my defeat in the curve of his lips --- I was only armed with a grass blade, and I’m… not very good with swords.

He then assumed a battle stance. I got more nervous. I was more aware of myself at this point --- my body, I realized, had shrunken to pubescence, I felt a wreath of white roses on my head, I looked down at my costume and I saw sheer gossamer silk and flimsy sandals. How can I fight in that ridiculous get-up?

I tried my best at that duel, Inari knows I did, but I can’t focus on the battle. He was fast and unbelievably skilled, and those stupid shoes were not a problem to him at all --- he must have invisible wings. Gods, he knew he could beat me quickly but he really enjoyed playing with me, he was so much better at it than I ever was with my enemies. And he was so pretty... he looked like the boy I fucked a few weeks ago, you know, that dumb little mercenary I told you about… haven’t I told you about him?

Anyway, he beat me. He was laughing like a hyena would --- that sound was blood curdling, low-pitched and hinting at mania --- as he impaled me on his katana, right at my heart. The blood spurted out of me like I was a fountain, or a busted water pipe here in the Ningenkai. I then fell to nothingness.

I don’t want to stop medication!

You don’t know how hard it was for me whenever I shifted from herb to herb. The earliest memories I have were of myself at early adulthood. I have just emerged from the ashes of what seemed to be some sort of building, or forest, or maybe a building constructed out of live, intertwined trees. This is one of my powers as youko, you see --- I can command trees to align themselves in any way I pleased. But then, I may not have been the one who made whatever the ashes used to be. I don’t even remember why they were turned to ashes. I don’t remember anything before that. Strangely, I was content to be that way.

Then the nightmares began. Among the earliest of those was that one where I was handclapping with hands out of the shadows. I was a kit in that dream. First we were going slowly. We were chanting this rhyme:

But we were building up momentum. It built up gradually, and so I didn’t notice that we were going so fast, and that he was hitting my palms so forcefully that my forearms snapped off.

I started to take mushroom extracts.

Fuck you, Doctor. I can’t sleep --- no; I don’t want to sleep anymore.

I’m afraid of falling asleep now, even of closing my eyes. I’ve taken to drinking extra-strength ma huang extract to keep awake. My heart is now rumbling as if it were an earthquake’s epicenter.

But whenever I close my eyes all those faces hover in the darkness. One of those was that boy’s. Another face was long and pale and narrow, framed with straight black hair, and with blue eyes so clear like crystal.

He was calling me his lover.

This blue-eyed male was in another one of my dreams. We were running over the bamboo forests, and we were so exhilarated as we did so. He was my lover. I was calling him my baby, my partner in this crime. I was holding an ornate mirror in my arm. I was looking at him behind me and his dark wings were unfolded as he followed, and his dark robes were flapping all over his lithe body. He was so breathtaking.

He stopped to pick up something from the ground. In the faint light I saw it was a red gem, fiery and jaggedly cut and hanging from a leather thong. His favorite necklace, I realized. The only solid thing from his past that he holds on to.

Bamboo stalks sprouted from the ground in an instant and impaled him.

I ran to him. I kept mumbling, no, you’re not going; you will not turn your back to me like everyone else did! A chunk of cold fear and impending grief solidified in my throat.

He looked up to me one last time and said, "Run, Kurama." And I did.

Those are among the most notable ones.

Another was of another male, horned, dark-haired and with pink eyes. Pink eyes that I decreed must be blinded for its owner’s insubordination, and for a deeper hatred I felt the first time I saw him, the reason for which I still don’t know.

There were even more faces that pop out in the dark. I can’t discern the features of most of them, not that it disturbs me as much as the most prominent of those faces do.

I stick my hand into his shadow
to pull the pieces from the sand,
which I attempt to reassemble
to see just who I might have been.

He looks so much like me.

But his hair was so black it reflects blue in any kind of light, so glossy you’d think it was satin. White locks were intertwined with red ribbons at his temples. It flowed over shoulders and back that you can’t really decide if they were broad or narrow. I was a toddler beside him, and he loomed over me. It seemed to me, small as I was, that he eclipsed the afternoon sun as we walked hand in hand into a rice field heady with the scent of harvest and golden with the blessings of Inari. His voice, and the size of his hands, and the texture of his palms were like those of the hands out of the shadows.

In another nightmare he raped me.

He had just finished the abominable act. I felt, and looked, like a thirteen-year old would here in your world. I could smell my blood, his cum, and our sweat blended with the remnants of his rage, and the wine he drunk in excess. We were trembling at the same frequency, I hugging my knees in a corner of our den and he leaning by its entrance, blocking out the light.

I looked up slowly while hiccupping. He was closer to me then, and he was reaching out for me, the fucking hypocrite, as he choked on his apologies.

How could anyone say sorry for such an atrocity? I hit his hand away from me.

He could not be sorry after that! All throughout the act he was calling me a slut, just like my mother, a real whore like her, the slut’s blood showing at so young an age. It rang in my ears as he spoke in a hushed voice. His eyes were pouring out a lava flood of grief --- grief that must be faked, what a gods-damned actor! --- and his tears looked like lava to me in the dim light because of his carbuncle irises. The moment it hit his pale cheeks, though, I found it to be a clear river. It was so deceptive, much like him.

It’s not that all my dreams with him were unpleasant. I’ve told you about that one in the rice fields. Many other times I would join him in a meadow full of daisies. We would sit there and eat the smoked venison he packed, then he would tell me about the adventures of the gods prior to the creation. Or we’d chase each other there, play hide and seek, clap our hands in rhyme…

Please give me a new prescription. Please.

I don’t want to see that bastard’s face again, not in my mind, never! I don’t want him worming into my insides and gnawing at my sanity. I don’t want to see him, bullwhip in hand, hitting the air where I should not be as I undulated to the beat of drums, fast like the beating of my fearful heart, prodding me like a lamb to the abattoir in a dumb white tunic and flimsy sandals.

Neither do I want to see my winged demon! I don’t want to see any of those faces I saw the last few nights, do you hear me? Now, you will have to give me the fucking prescription if you still want to get out of your office…

I will not see myself running through thick smoke and flames, human! Say your last words as I break your gods-damned neck…