Notes from Present Day | Near Death Experience (Massive Surge of Enemy Troops)

Notes from the Present Day:

Talked to an old friend of mine, codenamed: "Green Man" earlier. He doesn't see a damn thing, which isn't surprising considering he had a good portion of his energy sealed a few years back. When he DOES see things, it's generally huge freaking calamities. He hasn't seen anything related to Faceless McFancysuit, so that's a good sign. I've got room to maneuver.

Odd graffiti in the Center City area of Philadelphia:

 

This made my day

While I could comment on the philosophical and existential ramifications of the above statement, I think that would be really stupid. It's just funny graffiti. I think I've still got enough time to do what I need to do. Debating cutting my prep time to zero, looks like that Scott guy's in a bit of a jam. Lets see which way the situation jumps.

Doesn't matter that I don't know the guy personally. Nobody's getting Slenderized in Philadelphia on my watch. Not if I can help it.

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The Past (Cont.):

This was when things got bad. Really bad. The boy's age was 16. He had been on steadily rising doses of Ritalin since age 12. He would complain that it made him feel like he wasn't hungry. What he didn't complain about was how shaky he felt while he was on the meds. How he felt completely out of place.

Around this time, he started really going online for fun, although he'd find that he wasn't actually doing anything. It was as though he was waiting for something. He actually caught wind of that underlying sense of SOMETHING, and could swear when he did that he heard something whisper "you must wait." He didn't tell anyone about this feeling. This time though, it an actual decision. After all, what do you say to someone, "It feels like I'm tasked to find something on this crazy internet thing." Lets also keep in mind that this was the year 2001, and the internet was a smaller thing with a distinct lack of Youtube, Facebook, and other classic time-wasters.

There were other things to worry about. His grades in school suffered, his social life was that of the traditional outsider, meaning not all that much fun, and there was a nagging feeling that he was missing something.

There would be times when it felt like someone was looking over his shoulder. Not in the fashion of "Oh god, somethings going to try to eat me", more in the fashion of "Oh. It's you. What are you doing there?" The presence is familiar. He does not understand it, but he is glad that it is there.

And then a particular day came along. The boy knew it was a bad day long before anything happened. He woke up, and knew fear. The kind of cold, shaky fear that lives just behind your heart. He imagined it to be what soldiers in World War I felt, desperately trying not to say, "When do you think their artillery is going to start firing?"

He helped his father buy something for his mother's birthday that day. This was good, it meant The Boy could stay mobile. He didn't want to be standing still right then. He had a horrid headache all that day. He was shivering in warm, spring weather. Something was deathly wrong no matter where he went. He couldn't place it. It was no longer the feeling of being hunted. It was long past hunted, it was the knowledge that something had him in its sights and was adjusting for the angle and the wind on that perfect shot that would go straight through his skull and leave his brain-matter scattered on the pavement. He remembered being driven around to multiple locations that day. Finally, when they returned home, he left the house and biked to a nearby festival that happened once a year. He was doing his best to stay on the move, and out of sight.

He biked past the church on his way home. It nearly stopped him dead. He knew right then and there, on the spot, he had NO intention of going to that church any time in the next day.

He arrived home. His father said, "How about we go to church tonight?"
The boy said, "Uhhh...okay?"

The boy was gloriously stupid, and would learn to trust his instincts in the future. When a person's gut shouts "Don't go into the church!" you do not go into the church! It's just stupid!

Now that the incident is about nine to ten years in my past, I can address it more intellectually:
-Psychiatric evaluation was performed at my request in the following days. Evaluation determined that I am one of the fraction of a percent of people who, when taking Ritalin, run the risk of a psychotic episode. These episodes can range from large-scale hallucinations to odd chest-palpitations and "hearing things."
-Throughout the one-hour period of mass inside the church, there was all kinds of loud thumping and crashing elsewhere. No explanation for this was ever determined. More than one person noticed, however, so these could not have been hallucinated.
-There was a man leaning against the wall on the left side of the church, holding a pocket watch with a golden chain, wearing a straw hat. My father pointed out that this man was using the pocket watch to "count house". He took his time ascertaining how many people were in the church, and where they were placed.Once again, not a hallucination. It also wasn't a hallucination the way he kissed his cross and glared at the congregation like they were all a bunch of sinners.
-The area felt like a war zone, although no one seemed to notice. Comparing records with extremely unscientific colleagues, a picture DOES come together showing all manner of cosmic hell breaking lose in the Philadelphia Area at that time.
-There has only been ONE point in my life when I was ever in more pain. I barely made it out of the church when the hour was up.

Extended psychiatric evaluation throws Ritalin out the window. Thank god.
I'm rushing through this part. I really don't like talking about it. I know I'm breaking one of my own rules, but I think the key point I'm getting at is this:

There is no way to know if this specific incident was caused by backfiring medication, more attacking entities, or both.