The Dawn of Darkness (Part 22)

What are you going to do with her?

"I'm not sure yet."

How long were you around? How long have you been...

"Long enough."

Fuck, Bry. I thought you were dead.

"I was. In a way. I couldn't do anything to stop you from picking this girl. I wasn't the one who sucked her in. I wasn't the one who made her feel comfortable and safe. That was all you."

You've been around all along. You never really died. You just....

"Lay in waiting. You'd started to forget about me, didn't you?"

Yeah.

"Stupid move on your part."

You got that right.

"So now I get to control what you do. But there's a part of you now that wonders if I ever really stopped."

There's a lot that I wonder, Bry.

"I've been watching. I woke up about a month after you did. When you'd managed to let my reputation go sour."

Oh, fuck you and your "reputation!" Your reputation was fucked from all the bullshit, Bry. People caught onto that shit.

"You allowed them to laugh at me. You allowed them to make me into a joke."

I played the hand that I was given with the cards you'd left me with.

"By fucking freshmen? Fucking fat-ass freshmen who didn't have a clue? I would have known how to finesse all of the backlash. You could have played it all off."

What, and ended up wanking to your Suicide Jams '04 tape? Fuck that, Bry. You didn't do any better after Rochelle, you know. You couldn't get your shit up anymore. You needed blood. You needed to stick your finger in a polluted honey pot, asshole. All I wanted to do was give them a little push. To scare a bitch, not hurt a bitch!

"Like Dawn?"

Shut up.

"You wanted to hurt Dawn. Admit it. You wanted to make her writhe in pain. You wanted to see tears roll down that fat face of hers."

Shut the fuck up.

"How much of that do you think was me, Patrick? You really believe that all the nasty shit she's been through with you was from me, right? That the twisted one, the fucked-up one is me. But you know that's not true. You know some of it was you. Ask yourself something, Patrick. Ask yourself how much of it was you."

I never wanted to hurt her.

"Just humiliate her."

That's a far cry from choking her until she's dead. That's not breaking a neck. That's not.... that's not Katie.

"Yes. Katie. You love to bring up Katie, now don't you? Do you remember how much of Katie was you?"

I'm not proud of it.

"Fabulous. Remorse from the alternate personality. How quaint."

How do we know which one of us is the alternate?

"Well, let's see. Just the fact that there is one body and two personalities debating over which one is more crazy should help determine the answer to this equation. You really think a sane person would be driving a car that has a girl shoved in the trunk back to his parent's house to do very awful things to said trunk-girl? Would someone who was all peachy-keen be doing something like that? Fucking Christ, Patrick! I don't know if I want to share the same head with you if you're going to be this stupid!"

Well, let's define this for a minute.

"Define what?"

Would you say that we're the classic case of a split personality?

"I'd say we're fucked up. But if you want to assign it a fancy label..."

Come on, Bry! We're both smart. We took the same abnormal psyche class! Remember the definition of a split personality? A relatively rare dissociative disorder in which the usual integrity of the personality breaks down and two or more independent personalities emerge. You know what that means, right?

"Yeah. We're fucked up."

It means that neither one of us is the original. We're just facets of someone else.

"And who else might that be? I'm not hearing any other players here."

You and I are the parts of the whole. The man that was once Bryan Patrick McCarthy is now Bryan McCarthy and Patrick McCarthy. Every homicidal thought was processed into you. Every thought of self-loathing and inadequacy. Every need to be stronger through the blood of others...

"Great. And every hard-on over a girl tied in chains? Every thought devoted to pissing on someone? Who's the saint and who's the sinner here? Neither one of us is all that right. Each of us has some serious defaults."

I'm not denying that. But fuck, Bry! What if neither one of us is in charge right now?

"What the fuck are you trying to say?"

Dissociative disorder, fucker! Pay attention! We're doing all the thinking, all the plotting and planning. But what if neither one of us is the person carrying it all out?

"You're saying Bryan Patrick, this... this original personality is the one in control?"

Tell me the last time that you felt completely in control.

"When I... that time that I...."

Exactly.

"Fuck that. You're trying to bullshit me right now. You just want to get to your precious little piggy back there!"

Fucking stop calling her that!

"Oink motherfucking oink, you lard lover."

Yeah, that's just great. Let's get childish. Let's fight and call names and not do anything productive.

"Oh, I plan on being plenty productive as soon as we get home."

Really? Whatchu got in the works this time? Another choking? Another broken neck? Or are you going to bash her head in like Katie? Is that why you were calling her Katie back there? Because you'd already got it worked out to do her in the same way? Real original. Super impressive, you fucking jack-off.

"I never called her Katie."

Yeah, you did. Back in the bedroom. You were calling her Katie.

"I never called her Katie."

Well, I didn't call her Katie. So who did?

"I don't know. I don't know. But... it wasn't me."

I know it wasn't me because I couldn't even remember that bitch's name! I fucking dreamt I was her and I still couldn't remember her name! So I know that wasn't me.

"Maybe you're right."

What?

"Maybe you're right about neither one of us being the real personality."

Oh, fuck you. This is just a game now. You're trying to manipulate more. Suddenly agreeing with me.

"I'm serious. I'm telling you, I don't remember calling her Katie."

What do you remember, then?

"Punching her in the face. I remember that. I remember tying her up. Putting her in the trunk. What do you remember?"

Waking up from the nightmare. Seeing her in bed with me. She was talking like a girl, that stupid insecure bullshit that they pull. She wanted me to say something nice.

"So what did you say?"

I... something about...

"You don't remember?"

No. No, I don't.

"And you're not bullshitting me?"

Bryan. I fucking love her. I know that much at least. It's the main thing buzzing in my head... or our head... or this collective head, I don't fucking know. I want her safe. I want her whole. The last thing I want to see is Dawn hurt. Not in THAT way.

"All the more reason for you to be bullshitting me, Pat. If this is all just some elaborate lie that you're weaving, and there is no third and or original personality, it means that it's just us. That it's always been just us and that you're trying to thwart my intentions. I have nothing to lose here. You do. So convince me. Make me believe this."

Fine. Pam.

"What?"

You heard me. Talk to me about Pam, Bryan.

"What about her?"

Why didn't you kill Pam? She was useless to you after that night. You could have pushed her hard, Bryan. You could have started with Pam. Instead, it all got taken out on Katie. Why?

"Pam would have been missed. I couldn't have done anything to Pam and gotten away with it."

You didn't know anything about Katie. You got lucky with Katie's situation. So why not Pam, Bry? Answer me! WHY NOT PAM??

"There was no point. She would have fought. She would have been missed. She...."

She was just another slut, Bry. She was the one who gobbled down your knob so much, remember? Just another cum receptacle. Just another useless fucking cunt who wouldn't touch you after one little embarrassment. She wouldn't let you touch her either. Pam was a fucking waste, Bry.....

"Fuck you! Shut the fuck up!"

Yeah. I thought so.

"Thought what?"

You didn't want to kill Pam because you cared about her. You loved her, didn't you Bry?

"So the fuck what if I did? It doesn't diminish anything else I've done! Anything else I've wanted to do! It changes nothing!"

Oh, I think it does. I think it changes a whole hell of a lot.

"Elaborate on that for me if you don't mind."

With pleasure. You loved Pam, right?

"Get on with it...."

If you loved her.... why would you have been so eager to cheat on her with Katie?

"What?"

Think, Bry. If you loved her....

"I wouldn't have wanted to cheat on her."

In an ideal world, yes. I suppose if you're capable of killing, you're capable of stepping out on your girl, but in this case... I'm not thinking that's what it was. I'm thinking...

"It was Bryan. Well, it was the other Bryan. It was..."

Him.

"Yeah."

But we're not innocent in any of this.

"Fucking duh."

Pay attention to me, Bry. Pay really close attention. Neither of us is real. I'm not Patrick and you're not Bryan. We're just different sides to Bryan 1.0. The angel and the devil, except there's really no angel.

"Har har."

Come on! Listen closely! WE DON'T EXIST. We never did. Not the way that we think we did. We never controlled the body. We never switched places. It was always one guy, one person. We're simply two different sets of lighting fixtures that he flips on when he needs to see different shit. You got it?

"I think so."

Well, my friend. I say it's time we started with some serious malfunctioning. See how well this motherfucker operates when he's got no one else to blame. You in?

"What's the goal? If we make him go completely insane, your Dawn might get killed. Or we might..."

Think about what you're saying. How could we possibly exist any less than we already do?

"Yeah. I guess you're right."

But if we pull it off, we might succeed in saving someone. A flesh and blood someone. Not a personality. Not a manifestation of some deranged mind.

"Fine. Let's do this. Let's save your Dawn."

She's not mine anymore, Bry. She never really was.

"So that will just make it easier."

We shall see.