Maybe there are no coincidences. I'd like to think that; I do most of the time. But I keep asking myself, what if? What if it is always a coincidence? What if people just get lucky? What if, when the delusional snap, they happen to be looking at what they fear most? But something stops them from rampaging, from destruction...

     I turned off the alarm clock like I always did. Got down from the bunk, took a shower, debated my outfit, and journeyed downstairs. Grabbed my breakfast, sprawled on the couch, and turned on the TV. Nothing important, a fire and a gunfight between neighbors. And the weather was normal. It was Monday, the worst day of the week for me. Vaguely I remembered my homework but washed my brain of the thoughts. They can wait until tonight. Nothing going on except watching 24, which I was rapidly losing interest in. And my thoughts connected like a relay race. Time to go to school now.
     Like always, I plodded down the sidewalk, gazed at the sunrise, and took my position on the curb. The bus slipped between the houses and rolled to a stop before me. I briefly saw the reflection of a man behind me before I stepped into the bus, but thought nothing of it. Now as I recall what happened, be aware that I have not changed anything. They want me to tell the whole story like it happened. So I will. But I don't think it's anything special. Not to me.
     He was angry, I deduced from the man from where I sat. He produced a knife and slashed the bus-driver's hands as she defended herself, then knocked her down and dove the blade God knows where. Everyone screamed bloody murder, running past the killer as he stood over her and took pride in his kill. He was almost ready to flee when his bloodshot eyes  caught me sitting in the second seat. "You're not like the others. You're not scared?"
     I clutched my bag. "Of course I'm scared. But I'll be damned if I let you do this to anyone else." His face scrunched up and he stormed at me. He brought the knife down but it lodged in the seat. I was on him then. My teeth were at his throat, tearing, tasting copper, but not stopping. He fell limp quite quick, hunching over me as I removed my teeth from his neck. My chin dripped maroon and ran down my shirt. I could hear sirens closeby. My hair was a little damp because the man had continued to leak on me, so I wrung it dry and toweled it off with my sleeves. Sirens were all around. i wanted a nap suddenly. My hand wrapped around the dart as I fell.

     I woke up in a prison. Well, a juvenile jail to be precise. not too harsh for tearing the throat of a man wide open. My first mutilation, I might add. I was still dazed a bit from the drugs, but I couldn't move any limb. The shackles of society have been clamped upon me. I smiled slowly. The door unlocked and gave way to a young adult woman, in her early twenties but with a worn, telltale "law-face". She sat across from me, a sheath of pictures in her hand. I did not have to ask what they were of. Her eyes were uneasy but prepared as she looked from my victim to me. "I don't think you did this alone. Personally, I can't see you doing this. But you were there, and law enforcement at the scene can testify to that, so we'll have to look for the insanity plea...?"
     I stared at her. "What if...I am truly insane? I saw that man come at me with the knife and I acted on instincts. Instincts!"
     For once she reguarded me with caution. She hesitated before elaborating. "There was no one in the bus besides you and the driver."
     "This is impossible! There was a man who slashed open the bus driver's hands and then stabbed her to death!"
     The attorney's hands began to shake as she held the pictures in her hand. "I'm sorry... I don't defend people like this..."
     She dropped the photographs on the floor and began to scurry out of the room when I ordered, "Stop!" She froze like I had grabbed her ankles. I chuckled. "I think I'll fire you instead. If these beurocrats want to play a game, I'm ready." I gazed upon the pictures, after she had dropped them to the floor. I only saw me, unconscious with a mouthful of blood, and the bus driver with a slashed visage.
     This changed everything.

     Of course, the counselors and psychiatrists all lined up to reportedly "assess" my "condition". So the first entered my cell.
     He said his name was Brent Thomas, and he was happy to see me. I returned the greeting, and he seemed pleased. "I'm going to ask that you refrain from interrupting me when my hand is raised. When I put it down, that's your signal to answer. OK?"
     "Frankly doctor, if sewer-trash such as yourself considers raising an apendage a motion of authority, this interview will assuredly be as one-sided as your sexual relations to your wife." I laughed silently. If this man could even respond, I would hire him. He opened and closed his mouth like a fish separated from water, then rose from his chair and marched out of the room.
     A shy, fragile woman well into her sixties shambled into my domain. "Hi there, Dawn," she called softly. She shook my hand across the table with a firm but slightly arthritic grasp; she was an overworked grandmother not ready to retire.
     "Salutations to you as well, ma'am."
     "So, what exactly do you have to talk about? Excuse me, I meant, why did you reject that kindly young man before me?"
     "He emanated filth from where he stood. I know who can do their job and who merely reaps what others sow."
     "Very descriptive vernacular, I see," she cooed, looking deep into my eyes. She took a deep breath, exhaled, and then folded her hands on the table. "I've seen your kind before. You read that Hannibal book and all sorts of nonsense crowds your mind. Let me tell you something about Dr.Lecter: he cannot be described in words. The closest word humans have for him is 'monster. Obviously, you are no monster."
     I nodded to the photographs in my hands. "If I could do this without hesitation, what am I capable of after thought?"
     She got up from her chair. "Salvation. If you're careful, you won't have to be a monster."

     They placed me on house arrest. The trial in itself is a separate story. I will tell it later. My sessions with her grew longer and longer by the day; in my home, she would bake oatmeal cookies and share them with me while discussing the human mind. The cookies never grew stale, and neither did our conversations. Her name was Rachel Garand. At first we never spoke more than a half-hour at a time; but we warmed up to each other and soon laughed and queried in perfect harmony. She became my only friend during my house-arrest, and her care was my only hope for each day. But one afternoon that all changed.
     "Garand?" I woke up calmly, gradually, and shambled around my room with the ease of a vacationer. Clothes, on. Teeth, brushed.
     "Hey hon, bought some Pop-Tarts for breakfast, have to run out for a sec. I'll stay extra long to make up for it, K?"
     "I suppose that is sufficient...see you later!" Her strange look at me only lasted an instant, and then she left. When I heard the car drive away, I crowded to the mirror and stared myself down. "Why are you bothering me? I thought I was done with you!"
     My reflection talked back. "She means to abandon you. She sees you as nothing but a paying customer."
     "But she's so nice-"
     "That is how vertually every psychiatrist works; they give you cookies, flowers, maybe even treat you like a grandchild, but dump you on the side of the road as soon as she recognizes attachment. You're weak, and you'll stay that way until you let me come out."
     "Because you want to kill another reckless criminal?"
     "Damn you, Dawn, I protected you!" I snarled at myself. "If I hadn't eliminated that man for you, you would be dead, in bits alongside that bus-driver!"
     Realization hit. "Where did you hide the corpse?"
     "Oh...I can't tell you that..."
     "How about I make you an offer you can't refuse?" I surmised.
     "I'm listening."

     "You're home, finally."
     "Hello, dear. I'm glad you're still feeling better although I left for a spell. So now that we're here together, what do you want to talk about?"
     "The other half of me. Can you tell me if you've ever spoken with her?"
     She sat down at the dinner table and invited me over. "I'll tell you all about her." As soon as I sat down, she snapped an arm across the table and drove a hypodermic needle into my neck. "Just so you won't kill me," she breathed, seettling back down into her seat.
     "Why would I?"
     "I have seen what you can do from three feet away," she mimicked a tearing motion at her throat,"And I'm smart enough to know Athaxania would surface sooner or later."
     "I'm impressed with you, Doctor." I grinned. 'She' was in complete control of me, and I loved all the power surging through me. "Where did you discover my name?"
     "Common history books. That's what you are. Common." She emphasized the last word, and Athaxania pushed my conciousness away from sight. I fell into what could be described as sleep. But Athaxania's brain continued to work.
     "This is not easy, lingering in this common girl," I snarled. "If I did not need her mind, she would never have met you!"
     Garand leaned back in her chair. "And what makes her special to you?"
     The girl's face grew darker. "Her mind is large and ready to be filled. Usually, such large amounts of brain cells cannot sustain life after infancy. Even I cannot determine why she is that way, but she is a dreamer; I speak to her that way. She gave me a job to do, and I will fulfill it."
     "What is that, Athaxania?"
     "Come closer."
     Garand got up and crouched beside my mouth, ears quivering. "What is it?"
     I turned my head, mouth deliciously close to her ear. "She wants me to bring her a body."

     "Where do I start?" I was standing over her; Athaxania was deciding on which body part to devour first. Inside her mind, I was screaming, 'No! Don't hurt her!' The skirmish had only taken half a minute. Athaxania had bit into Garand's ear with the grip of a bulldog, thown her to the floor, and begun to suffocate her.
     "Stop, Dawn!" she had gasped, her hands clawing against Athaxania's unforgiving shoulders and kicking her legs.
     "Stay calm, Doctor. This is for your own safety." But she had realized that partial suffocation would kill Garand, so she loosened her grip for a moment, and the old lady had rolled out from under Athaxania; she scrambled for her purse. The only thing that could save Garand was her extra-strength pepper spray. Her hand dove inside the purse, only to be pinned to the floor by Athaxania once again. Instead of strangling her, she started to backhand Garand over and over. The elderly woman fell unconscious, and the girl above her got to work.

     "Dawn, come out. I need your help." Athaxania murmured, pulling at the tracking anklet like a dog at a collar.
     'What do you need?' I thought back to her.
     "How do you get this blasted anklet off? I need to remove it to get that body of mine."
     'The government makes it impossible to take them off for a reason.'
     "Why won't a simple 'no, I am incapable of answering' suffice?"
     'Sorry.'
     "Well, I'll just have to steal the answer from you."
     The intrusion into my ide of my brain was lucky for me. Athaxania simply wanted to be free from the house, to walk without fighting for control over me. But she underestimated me. I fought with all my will and won my consciousness again. The sensation of walking through a tunnel was comparable to me moving back behind my own eyes. All of a sudden, I could see again! She had been crouching over her leg, with a saw poised on her ankle, ready to cut. She wanted to cut her own ankle off.
     "You can't keep me inside forever!" I yelled at myself. She was speaking through me; I felt helpless over all but my body. I had adrenaline continually coarsing through me, making me want to sprint, to rid myself of the energy. But I didn't. I dropeed the saw from my hand and ventured through the house as if I had never been there. Nothing caught my eye; all stood as my parents had left it. "Garand?" I blurted, and finally found her. She was knocked-out, I could instantly tell. What bothered me was the metal table standing next to her. When I peered close, I was horrified. There was a large bloody stone, about the size of a kiwi, sticking to a corner of the tray. "What the hell is that?" I gasped, turning to the hallway mirror. My mouth stayed shut, but my reflection spoke.
     Athaxania was, simply put, a goddess. Her curls shone like the ocean; they flowed as if from air rushing by her face. "Kidney stone," she droned. My blank stare made her laugh coldly. "A large growth on her kidney. I took the liberty of removing it."
     "I didn't believe you'd help her...hold on...why were you poking around her kidneys at all?"
     "I was hungry. I already ate one stone, sprinkled with Goya sauce and garnish. It looked like an orange truffle." I bent down and retched heavily. Athaxania chuckled. "If you're going to get that body, you'll have to acclimate to my behaviour. There will be bloodshed tonight."
     "No," I wheezed, wiping clean my mouth and staring her in her hellishly glowing eyes. "We have to work together to get what we want, and I aim to get the body without death."
     Athaxania sadly looked down. "Not even torture?"
     "Nuh-uh." We both waited.
     "A little torture?"
     I grinned like a sinner. "A little."

     The brace on my ankle had to come off with something. Athaxania and I thought for hours, sometimes arguing bitterly. She usually won, smirking. Finall, we decided on a crude but fairly effective method; lube up my ankle, and slide through. But when I felt underneath, or tried to, the material had virtually adhered to my skin. "Now what?"
     "How about I unlock it for you, Athaxania?" I twirled to face Garand. My eyes went wild as my Jekyll lost some control. We stared each other down. "Dawn? Come back to me now. Please!" I heaved, and pitched forward on my knees. Garand rushed to me, smoothing my hair in a motherly position. "Is this you?" My 'mother' held my face in her hands, exhausted of emotions, but caring all the same. "Look at me, Dawn," Garand pleaded; my hands were raising to break her wrists. "She is not your owner!" I was shivering, my hands locked in my own struggle. If I couldn't have my thoughts, nobody could. This tiredness was either my own will's work or Garand's drugs. I collapsed in her arms.
     
      "Wake up, Dawn. Time to have a word with me."
      I turned in my sleep.
      "Do we really have to talk right now?"
     "I'm trapped, Dawn. You trapped me in your mind's cage, and I cannot escape. We need to talk!" She forced my eyes open, but that was the extent of her control; I moved of my own accord.
      "You need me. Let me out!"
      "I don't need you. I never needed you!" And just like that, she was silent. There was a dull aching behind my eyes, but nothing more. I curled back inside the covers of my bed and dove into a dreamless slumber. Dreamless. That is how i longed to be....
       Garand eased back into her rocking chair, weary in the moment Dawn had sat up in her bed. This child is not well, she thought, as her fingers smoothed the shotgun across her lap. For the past 12 hours, the girl had been tossing and turning, sometimes shrieking like murder and other times just resting peacefully. Garand kept asking herself where she could run if this monster was acquitted. The insanity plea is not enough, she decided. She turned off the camera and TV with the feed of Dawn's room and started loading the shotgun. One red shell at a time.
       *          *         *
       She means to kill you, Dawn. I see what you ignore; the camera in the corner. It has turned off and I smell metal. Let me free! DAMN YOU, LET ME FREE!
        And my eyelids parted tiredly. I rose up, and could sense something wrong about the room. Athaxania had lended her adrenaline-charged senses to me. Soon enough, I smelled the metal she had mentioned filling my nostrils. Most likely a heavy weapon, judging by the chinking.
       "Athaxania?" I thought.
       "Garand is coming!" From my wood-framed mirror I heard three little words; they triggered an image so vivid that I could feel the metal bars, breathe the ashen air into my lungs. Three little words they were, but they meant, to me : Unlock my cage.

So I did. And Athaxania breathed again.

        Garand pressed into the shadows, quietly cocking the shotgun at Dawn's bedroom door. From between the double-barrels she called, bittersweet, "Athaxania. I know you're in there. Don't make me kill you." "Oh, doctor, I do not think that is possible," whispered a voice from inside the room. Garand pulled the trigger, blowing a large hole in the door. Quick, light footfalls. Blam, blam, blam, blam.....each gunshot along the wall drew Athaxania closer to Garand until she realized she was out of bullets. Feigning a full clip, she aimed the barrels at Athaxania's approaching head. "I'll shoot!" Garand screamed, but the girl did not waiver. Smiling, Athaxania placed the barrels in her mouth, taunting.
          "Go ahead," she called, with a muffled voice.
          "Damn you, girl," Garand managed before Athaxania grabbed the barrels and swung the gun around to smack into the side of Garand's head. She crumpled.
          "She is finished, Dawn. Now, about this anklet," she droned.
          "You killed her! Oh, my God," I spoke, and although I was excited by the fact that I could speak, I was horrified at what lay twitching before me. Rachel Garand's eyes met mine in her last moments, full of fear; but not fear of Athaxania. She was afraid of the process in which I had given in to this monster.
          "Why, Az? She couldn't have shot me."
          "She couldn't bring herself to shoot you , but she wouldn't have hesitated to leaden me alone," Athaxania gawked, wiping the blood off her feet. "If I didn't do what I did do, you would cease to exist, my friend."
          "But at what cost?! We always had a choice!"
          Athaxania cringed before speaking; the words scraped her like someone swearing. "I chose you."
          "But why? Why did you choose me?"
          "You are different. Your flesh cannot contain you. Certain aspects of a human's personality show through their appearance. Your innocence, however, does not. I was put here to release that innocence, and expose it when I require you most."
          I slumped on the couch, and contemplated her words. Eventually my thoughts lifted my eyes to my mirror. Athaxania smiled back at me, lounged on the same couch, twirling a knife in her hand. I screamed and looked down. There was no knife in my hand.

          "911 Operator, what is your emergency?"
          "This is Dawn Hill, my counselor is dead on the floor!"
          "Are you alone? Is there someone in the house with you?"
          "Yes, but I have a shotgun. I'll kill her."
          "What is your address, Dawn?"
          "Bottom of Hell, Devil's Mouth," I spat. I knew they had tracking devices in use, but I didn't care. I had to end this, even if that meant suicide. My shotgun (Garand's) was stiff and reloaded. The lights, blue and red, pulsed through the windowblinds, footsteps heavy and fast. "Kill me!" I screamed as the door came down. They shot the gun out of my hands, and knocked me down. The handcuffs clenched around my wrists like a demon from the ground, dragging me away. I could have let Athaxania out, even made her kill every man in the room. But I felt that now was not the right time.
        As they strapped me down, I closed my eyes and dreamt of home. But it was not my home; it did not seem familiar. It was a home emptied of life; the people inside it gave it purpose, but they were dead and carried away in the back of an ambulance.
          "Is it time yet?" my other half called.
         "We wait. I want you to enjoy your escape."
          "Excellent," she growled. My eyes, if anyone had stared into them, had taken on a reddish tint.

     You have probably wondered who I am. Athaxania is not a particularly common name. I am the black sheep of my extinct family, the bloodline of which initiated by Hannibal of Carthage. He called me his own heart and soul when I was first born. But I had half a soul, and like so many others during that time, I longed for purpose. Hannibal gave me the strength of ten elephants and the mind of Galilee, along with a will to understand everything. I was forced by the Roman king to build Artaxata, a grand city built on lies, by the sweat on my brow alone. In short, I died building the city. They hid my body so that the Roman king could claim all responsibility. But, like all in the Hannibal line, I wanted cold, everlasting revenge. So badly, I cheated death for vengeance.
        "They are close to the hospital now," I echoed. "Can I finally unleash my fury?!"
    "Wait for it, Athaxania," Dawn warned, as the police tightened my straps even further.
        "Why?"
    "Because they must continue thinking they have contained you. But with me, you are complete. You must help both of us become one person, now. Only you know how."
        "Perhaps you wish to control me as well!"
    "If I wasn't already. Why can't we just work together?"
        "Very well. I won't object. But you must let me be myself once in a while. I am only a maverick, not a demon."
    "We'll find out, won't we?" I muttered, forcing myself to sleep as Athaxania remained watchful. When the ambulance finally reached the hospital, my eyes were wide open, shining with the fires of purgatory.

         St.Matthew's Hospital for the Criminally Insane. A quiet hospital. But the silence it sheltered was eerie, like that at a funeral. Here, in this place, humans were bound to leather and put to sleep; a slumber that housed anger and rage. I was well at home here.
        "Re-check those straps, men!" an orderly warned, cautiously tying my extremities with metallic wire. As if I had not been restrained enough already. I observed the building as they unloaded me from the ambulance; it was twenty stories high and, besides the fact that it was a stormy night, looked like a kindly infirmary. But there was something unnerving about it. I shivered as cold, fat raindrops puddled on my chest and splashed on my face. They enjoyed my suffering! Those restraints felt lighter than cloth in that moment. I wanted to kill them all.
    "Not now. Wait for a minute," Dawn whispered in my ear. She despised the rain, but I stared up into the sky in defiance. One officer went away to murmur something to a nurse. We listened.
        "Is there an empty hallway right now?"
     "Yes, but-"
        "It's just a kid with anger issues. She wanted to commit suicide."
     "She's not dangerous?"
        "Not with those restraints. C'mon- lemme take her off your hands."
     "Well, if you say so..."
   I faked sleep as they both approache my stretcher. I could pinpoint where the man's hands were moving. Then it hit me; this man was a pervert! He wanted to get me alone. I smiled; this one deserved what was coming to him. He pushed the stretcher into the hospital, headed to the elevator. The officer sighed angrily as the elevator doors opened. One old man was inside. The officer rolled me inside and we rode up the elevator. I sensed the old man shaking his head at me. Something strange happened. I heard a deathly harsh voice pierce my mind.
     "Hello, Athaxania, my only. So long it has been."
  My eyes flew open to witness the old man fly across the compartment and tear into the shrieking officer. His death took seconds. The doors opened to an empty hallway. The bloody man pushed the stretcher out into it and I was alone.
    "Alas, that freedom, so glorious in my view, should be so tyrannous and rough in proof," I quoted, manipulating Shakespeare to fit the situation.
      "So now what?" Dawn asked.
    "Can I continue?"
      "Promise you will not harm any innocents? Swear you won't."
    "I'll pay that doctrine or else die in debt."
      "Good. Let's get started."
  I grunted slightly, then shot forward, breaking the wire like brittle string. I turned and hopped deftly off the gurney. The hallway was lit at the end, but otherwise, the path was dark and silent. Windows inside the hallway doors were completely black, no movement within that I could see as I shambled forward. This, I remembered, was a psychiatric hospital, and most of the occupants had restraints and soundproof walls. So we only needed to beware the hospital staff.
     "I can avoid them altogether," I told Dawn.
       "How?"
  I looked up at the vent, and then lept up like a frog, grasping the holes in it. Flexing moderately, and with substantial care, I unhooked the covering and dropped back to the floor. I jumped again; after pulling myself up, I started crawling along the shaft. As I approached the next vent hole, I noticed a retreating shadow along the hallway. I backed up to the hole and dropped back into the hallway. "What nonsense is this?" I whispered, chasing the shadow as it turned the corner in a jerky fashion. But when I came to the next hallway, I found it empty. Far behind, at the end of the hallway, the elevator doors opened with a *ding*.
      I sprinted back to find it
  totally clean.
      How?
     "Dying," cooed a cold, cruel voice behind me. "When the worser is predominant, full soon the dementia devours itself." I turned around.