Sphiel’s Song
Alara Branwen
Copyright © 2017
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This is a work of fiction. All characters, names, places and events are the product of the author's imagination or used fictitiously.
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ONE
Mandy sat on the red roller chair in front of her small wooden desk, chewing on her cheek. She twirled her fingers through brown hair that cascaded down to her bony shoulders, and kept her green eyes forward, staring at the eggshell-white wall. She was glad she wore her loose fitting red button up pajamas. Otherwise, her sister would see her shiver.
Natalie sat behind her and rested her hand on her sister’s shoulder.
“It’s okay sis, you got this,” Natalie said, her voice a calm whisper.
Mandy’s sister tossed back her long hair, streaked with black and pink. Natalie put on a soft smile and small dimples formed in her cheeks. The little curvature added a touch of cuteness to Natalie’s face that always seemed to put Mandy at ease.
Mandy’s shivering subsided a little bit, but her heart still slammed into her chest. Her lips spread into a thin smile. “I’m alright, I just want to hurry up and get started is all.”
She tried to say it dismissively, but Mandy knew that Natalie could see right through it. It was hard to hide anything from her sister.
“Just take a few deep breaths and count to ten like Dr. Braun said,” Natalie squeezed Mandy’s shoulder gently.
Mandy did this, counting up to ten and back again three times, but she still chewed on her cheek and her heart was still trying to imitate a snare drum. She took in a deep breath and closed her eyes, trying to imagine a gentle waterfall flowing beneath a beautiful rainbow. She regulated her breathing and attempted to lose herself in the image. It was a bit faded, since she hadn’t seen a rainbow in a while, but it was still nice. She thought it was anyway, there was no sound to accompany her vision and the sparkling water seemed a bit dull.
There was a little blip sound and it shook Mandy from her reverie. On a floating screen with a blue translucent border was a bald man wearing thick black bottle cap classes. He wore a soft smile that Mandy had grown used to seeing over three years, but that still didn’t stop frigid fright from cascading through her chest.
Mandy uttered a little yelp and tried to scoot her chair away from the monitor. Her sister held her shoulder and kept her in place. She struggled for a few seconds before she looked the man in his soft brown eyes. The young woman took another deep breath and steadied herself.
“Good afternoon Mandy,” the bald man said in a gentle baritone.
“Good afternoon Dr. Braun,” Mandy fidgeted and chewed on her lower lip. “I’m sorry I - you spooked me a little.”
“That’s alright. I hope I’m not interrupting anything important.”
“No sir, not at all. I was just trying to imagine a waterfall that didn’t make any noise so I wouldn’t freak out and...yeah, it didn’t work. I’ve been practicing them but I still get nervous.”
“That’s okay. Today I was trying to meditate and I kept getting interrupted by my dog. Even with years of experience, I still have difficulty focusing sometimes. The important thing is that you keep practicing. Have you been working on some of the other exercises we talked about?”
“Yes, I managed to look out of my window for twenty minutes yesterday before I had to close it. I could’ve lasted longer, but I heard three people talking on the street and I had to get away.”
Dr. Braun nodded. “It still sounds like you’re making progress. Have you tried leaving your room again?”
Mandy looked at her knees. “I tried yesterday. My dad and sister held my hands, but when I tried to step out, I felt really sick. I wanted to try again but my dad told me to wait until I talked to you again.”
“Your dad was right. You shouldn’t push yourself.”
Mandy sighed. “I want to push myself. I want to get out. It’s just my body keeps doing stupid crap and stops me.”
“It’s because you’re not used to the idea of going back out yet. It’s going to take some time, but you’ll get there.”
“I wish I could hurry up.”
“With a little patience and a little more time, you will be able to. I promise.”
Dr. Braun had been saying that for the past three years. Just a little more time. Mandy got so tired of hearing those words.
Three years ago Mandy was a typical high school senior. A bit on the nerdy side, but still fairly standard. She spent her days at school, migrating from class to class while she gossiped about who was doing what and occasionally who was doing who.
During her spare time she would go to the VRcade, go out to the movies, ride around town aimlessly with her friends and spend an inordinate amount of time on the net or texting.
She even had a boyfriend, Aaron. They met at the VRcade when they were both sophomores. Mandy remembered that he was just the right mix of nerdy and awkward and fell for him instantly. They dated for two years and even planned to go to college together.
The future looked bright. Then graduation day came.
Mandy didn’t really know how it happened. She was sitting by Aaron in her black gown, listening to the principal drone on about the importance of the future, when she felt her heart race. Her vision blurred and then went to white. She felt Aaron grab her shoulders. He was screaming and she lost consciousness.
She woke up in the hospital and found out she had a panic attack. The doctors couldn’t explain it. They gave her some meds and told her that once she started taking them she’d be back to normal. Except that, she wasn’t.
After that day, going to public places brought an onset of panic. Anyplace with loud noises or loads of people would cause an attack. Mandy started avoiding places like the mall, the movies, and even the VRcade. Eventually, it got to the point where she couldn’t even go outside without feeling nauseous and scared.
The government sent her aid and set up a psychiatrist for her to see. The visits helped a little. Dr. Braun taught her coping mechanisms. They helped her feel better, but she still wasn’t able to go outside.
Aaron eventually broke up with her because she didn’t want to go anywhere with him, and very slowly, her friends stopped texting her. Were it not for her little sister and her father, she wouldn’t have any link to the outside world.
Natalie stayed with Mandy in her room as often as she could, reading Manga or watching anime together. Sometimes they would talk about what Natalie did at school or some of her friends, but doing so made Mandy fidgety and look at the door as if an axe murderer would burst through at any moment.
Her younger sister tried to get her to attend a support group or even just go for a ride in the car, but Mandy couldn’t bring herself to leave her room. Natalie and her father worked tirelessly with Mandy to get her to get out and see the sun. They never seemed to get tired of spending time with her or bringing her meals. Even when they were tired, they always had time to chat. Were it not for them, Mandy would have given up a long time ago.
But she didn’t. She tried everything she could to get out of her room. Every calming exercise, every strategy her psychiatrist advised, but nothing worked. She even tried getting drunk once, though that only made her fear worse.
Mandy tried to isolate the reasoning behind her anxiety. She spent a lot of time thinking about it. It
was all that she had to do, other than the few distractions at her disposal.
She couldn’t make sense of it. After all of the psychiatric evaluations she asked Dr. Braun why it’d happened, but he didn’t know. No expert they brought in could diagnose the exact reason. They said it was probably due to some kind of brain chemistry. They explained the particulars but Mandy didn’t understand them.
All she understood was that all of the plans she’d made for her future were gone. Her friends, boyfriend, and her very life itself vanished, seemingly in an instant. Now it was just her, sitting in her room, usually in the calming and secluded darkness, waiting for her dad or sister to come visit her from the outside world.
Mandy wondered what the outside world was like. Whenever she finally managed to go outside, if she ever would, everything would probably seem alien. It had only been three years since the day of her graduation, and she was already forgetting what the world was like. She could barely remember what Aaron’s face looked like.
Thoughts of her past brought on a small shock of anxiety. She shook it off and focused on her conversation with Dr. Braun.
They talked about what she’d done that week and the improvements she made. The psychiatrist did most of the talking. Being a shut in, Mandy didn’t have much to talk about. A lot of the topics were things Dr. Braun had heard before, but he listened patiently.
That was one thing she liked about him. No matter how many times she said something, Dr. Braun always listened. It was this that helped her calm down enough to talk to him, even if it was through a computer screen and she had to have her sister there to reassure her.
Dr. Braun went over a few more things and talked to her sister a few moments about Mandy’s condition. This was normally the end of their conversations. Mandy promised that she would continue work on not being so anxious and Natalie agreeing to help her.
“That just about does it for our hour,” Dr Braun said, taking off his glasses to wipe them off. “Is there anything you wanted to add?”
“No,” Mandy said. She frowned inwardly. After this she would face another week of exercises and pretending like she was a creepy old woman staring out of her window while everyone else outside enjoyed their normal lives. Why did she bother? She was never going to be able to walk out of her room.
Mandy bit her tongue and shivered. Natalie squeezed her shoulder. She looked back and her younger sister gave Mandy one of her soothing, dimpled smiles.
“I guess I’ll see you next week,” Mandy said with a little sigh.
“Before we stop talking Mandy, there was something I wanted to bring to your attention,” Dr. Braun placed his glasses back on.
Mandy’s eyebrows went up. “What is it?”
“A few weeks ago I was contacted by one of my colleagues about a new study being done at Travis Cramer University. He and a team of undergraduate students are researching the effects of virtual reality video games and their effect on social interaction in anxiety sufferers.”
“That sounds interesting. What about it?”
“You mentioned that you have an interest in anime and manga, and I was wondering if that interest extended to video games as well, particularly those in the realm of virtual reality.”
It had been a long time since Mandy had taken part in a virtual world. The last time she had was when she was a teenager at the VRcade. She’d forgotten many thing that she did when she was in high school, but she could vividly remember the games she used to play.
It was always fun to take the part of a hero in an alternate world that had to stop some great evil. No matter what mood she was in, she would always find swinging a sword at a dragon or firing a laser at a fish headed martian exciting. That was back before her anxiety of course. She had no idea how she’d react to those situations now.
“I used to be interested in that stuff when I was younger. I don’t know how interesting it would be now.”
“I bring it up because my colleague is looking for volunteers for the experiment. There have been cases in the past where patients used virtual realities to help overcome or at least cope with their anxiety, and I was wondering if you would be willing to look into my colleague’s study.”
The idea of interacting with a stranger over the internet brought on a bout of fear. She thought about trying to interact with people in VR chatrooms in the past, but she’d get jittery just trying to imagine it. The amount of stress that might be involved in having a conversation with another person’s avatar might throw her into a full on panic attack.
Mandy shifted in her chair. “I don’t know if that would be the best idea.”
Dr. Braun nodded. “I understand. Venturing out, even into a virtual world, can be frightening. I’ll link you some information in case you do become interested.”
Two hyperlinks appeared in a little white chat window beneath Dr. Braun’s face. With that Dr. Braun said his goodbyes and his image disappeared from the screen.
When he was gone Mandy let out a sigh and her sister gently spun her around so they were facing each other. Natalie was sitting on her knees on the bed, bouncing a little, using the springs to help propel her movements.
“How are you feeling?” Natalie said.
Mandy bit her cheek. “Scared, and my heart is going a thousand miles an hour, but other than that I’m okay.”
“Just take a deep breath.”
“I’ll be okay.”
“Are you sure? You’re white as your bedsheets.”
“It’s because I was talking to Dr. Braun.”
“He still makes you nervous?”
“A little. I know nothing is going to happen but still, talking to him face to face scares the crap out of me. I really wish we could do the text chats like we used to. You wouldn’t have to sit in here with me like you do when I have my psychiatry visits.”
Natalie shrugged. “I don’t mind.”
“I know, but you shouldn’t have to sit in here with me. Aren’t you supposed to be at soccer practice?”
“Yeah, but it’s not important. Coach says she’s not going to put me in next game anyway, so I don’t really want to go.”
Mandy’s jaw nearly hit the floor. “What? Are you kidding? I saw the vid of your last game, you’re freaking amazing.”
“I don’t know about that. I’m pretty good.”
“Isn’t Qualmore College still talking about recruiting you?”
“They talked to me about going to their tryouts in the summer, but I don’t know if I want to go. It’s a rich kids school and I don’t know if I want to be around a bunch of stuffy pricks all day.”
“Are you kidding? Even if everyone there is an asshole it’d still be worth going. You know the Dallas Ruffians send recruiters there every year right? If you played really well they might ask you to try out.”
“Maybe, if I could make varsity. A lot of the girls that go to Qualmore are awesome. I doubt I’d stand out.”
“You don’t give yourself enough credit. You’re the best player on the high school team. Even when I was in high school I don’t ever remember a girl being as good as you are. I sure as hell wasn’t.”
Natalie giggled. “That’s because you kept accidentally kicking the ball in your own goal. You led one of our rival’s teams in scoring, and you weren’t even on that team!”
Mandy grinned, even though a gloomy pit settled in her stomach. She used to love soccer, even though she wasn’t good at it. It was just one of the things she missed out on being stuck in her room.
“You should still go to practice. Even if he doesn’t put you in the next game you still need to stay in form for the next.”
Natalie pursed her lips and sniffed. “There’s a new girl that transferred over from another school. She led her district among strikers in goals, and coach is training her to take my position.”
“Why would they do that?”
Natalie shrugged. “I don’t know, she’s just good I guess.”
“As good as you?”
Natalie shrugged again.
The gloom in Mandy’s stomach grew. Natalie had spent a great deal of time with her in her room, especially in the last year. She usually came right home after school so she could spend time with her sister, especially during times when Mandy would call her father and tell him she was feeling very uneasy.
“Is it because you’re not going to practice as much?” Mandy said.
Natalie stopped bouncing on the bed and looked over at a bookshelf filled with manga novels.
“Natalie?”
Natalie jerked her head toward her sister. “I - I don’t - she...she’s just good. Okay?”
Mandy was silent for a long moment. She looked into her sister’s moistening blue eyes.
“You shouldn’t skip practice to be here with me,” Mandy said.
“I don’t mind,” Natalie said, her voice was a bit strained.
“I know but, this is really important. Dad should be the one coming over.”
“He can’t.”
“Can’t he take time off from work?”
Natalie blew out a gusty sigh. “He just can’t.”
“That’s not a reason. He says his boss knows about me and he doesn’t mind if my dad takes a little time off to see me.”
“That’s what he says.”
“What’s that mean?”
Natalie was quiet. The room started to buzz. Mandy scratched her ear, she hated the sound of silence.
Natalie worried with the sleeve of her brown shirt. “I...promised dad I wouldn’t tell you. He...doesn’t want you to feel bad.”
Mandy had an inkling of what the problem was. She’d been calling him more lately and he had to miss quite a bit of work because of it.
“His boss won’t let him leave as much, will he?” Mandy said.
Natalie swallowed. “He said his boss got on him about it, so he asks me to come see you to make sure you’re okay.”
Mandy shook her head. “You shouldn’t do that.”
“Yes I should, I don’t want you to feel bad.”
Mandy grinned. “I think I can get over feeling bad.”
Sphiel's Song Page 1
