9. Id
Right behind me? The revelation was like a snake bite. There was someone behind me, but who? That usual feeling I get when I’m not alone wasn’t there. I didn’t even hear this person approach. I was afraid to look, but I slowly turned around and looked at him.
For a moment I was frozen from the sheer irony and shock of the situation. It was the same person who I saw in my dream the previous night. The man behind the mask of the night prowler.
It was me.
It was like looking into a living mirror, staring at him. Everything about him, his eyes, lips, hair, clothing, everything was identical to me, like a clone. There was wild fear inside of me, yet somehow my heart continued to beat at a normal pace, as if I was feeling the pure essence of fear and not its physical nature. I looked behind me to see if the Old Man was still there, but he had vanished.
He began to walk towards me. Each step he took seemed to strike a blow to me, yet they were as silent as the snowflakes that seemed to not even touch him. Not once did he take his eyes off me. His eyes were locked onto mine like a pair of missiles, and they seemed just as deadly. Soon we were face to face, his eyes still on me, as if he was studying my soul. Finally he spoke. “Hello, Anthony. At last we meet.” His voice was chillingly akin to mine. Only, it seemed to possess a wisdom that was decades ahead of me.
“Who are you?” I asked defensively.
“Do you not recognize me, Anthony?” he replied. “I’m you. And at the same time, I’m not you.”
“You’re not making any sense,” I said.
“Oh, my friend. I’m making perfect sense.”
“All right,” I said, getting agitated, “let’s try this one more time. Who the hell are you?”
“I was never given a name,” he said. “But you can call me Id.”
I knew that word, id. A key principle out of Freudian psychology, and one of the three components of the human psyche. It constituted our subconscious being: our instinct, our desire, our dreams. “Id?” I said puzzled. “What exactly are you?”
“What I am exactly would take centuries to explain. You can think of me as like a spirit guide, here to show you the ropes.”
At that moment, all sorts of thoughts began to run through my head. All the things that have been happening to me seemed to become more clear. I started to piece them together like a jigsaw puzzle, and work them out like one complex equation. “Wait a minute,” I finally said. “There’s something strangely familiar about you. I’ve met you before, haven’t I. I mean- I’ve seen you in my dreams. Ever since I was a kid I’ve had nightmares. I can’t remember ever having a pleasant dream, well minus the wet ones. But I would always have nightmares though. I never told anyone because I was too scared. Afraid my dad would send me to some shrink. But in my dreams you were always there, lurking in the shadows, whispering to me, scaring the shit out of me. And then you just disappeared. But the nightmares continued. Those never left me. Are you my… alter ego?”
“Please,” he said. “Spear me the cliché. When you were fighting Justin Thomas and he threw you that punch and you caught it in mid flight, crushing his hand, twisting his arm, and sending him flying back, that was me. When you ended up at the train yards after Jaurels’ party, and leapt over that speeding freight train, that was me.”
“Is it you in those dreams that I’ve been having lately?” I asked. “Are you that huge thing covered shadows? The one that calls me Ghost Eye?”
“No,” Id answered. “That’s something else. Don’t ask me what that is because I honestly don’t know. But we will find out together.”
I had to confirmed a creeping suspicion. “Who was it that killed Elicia’s… murderers?”
Looking me in the eye he said, “You know the answer to that question, Anthony.”
“But how could it be me? I was sleeping in my bed when that happened. I was miles away from the damn city!”
He shrugged his shoulders. “I’m sort of like your co-pilot. When you fall asleep, I take the wheel.”
“You gotta be fuckin’ shittin’ me.”
“I’m afraid not my friend,” he said. “By the way, have you found any strange gizmos lying around your house lately? Because you were also the one who broke into your father’s facility.” He said that with such nonchalance.
“You bastard!” I tried to grab him but it was all pointless. In the blink of an eye he slipped out of the way.
“Well, technically it was me,” he confessed. “But you must know, Anthony, that there is a greater purpose to why I did it.”
“Why?” I cried.
Again he looked deep into my eyes. “Why did I do it, Anthony? Because it’s time you knew who killed your brother.”
That exact combination of words paralyzed me. The thought was unimaginable. Who killed my brother? Until then, I had thought that the incident at the Misty Canyon had been an accident: a gas explosion, or even an earthquake, and I believed that the large enigmatic creature that I saw was just a figment of my dreams. But now the possibility that there was foul play involved really shook the ground beneath me. “What did you say?” I whispered.
His eyes never let go of mine. “Would you like me to show you, Anthony?”
I was speechless. I could feel the tears gathering, blurring my vision. All I could do was nod my head.
“Then close your eyes, Anthony. I will show you everything…”
Embryo 