Snake on a Brain

The sky was filled with grey clouds when Nate Loren, his wife Misty and their son Enzo pulled up to the rusty iron gates. There was no security booth, or any buzzer in sight. Nate had unfastened his seatbelt and was about to get out of their bright yellow Volkswagen when the gates creaked open. He drove slowly through the gates, there was nobody in sight as they drove toward the front door of the ‘Hospital for the Psychologically Challenged’ building.

A man with dark black hair smiled at them as they neared the entrance. He wore a white coat and held a clipboard in his hand, he couldn’t have been older than 30.

“Couldn’t they have assigned us someone with more experience?” Nate mumbled to himself as he parked the car.

“I am sure he knows what he is doing Nathan!” Misty replied coldly.

“You know what I mean, we have an extremely peculiar case. The boy is an outlier, Dr Michaels said so himself.”

“I am well aware of what Dr Michaels said, honestly it’s like some-”

Someone knocked on Nate’s window which caused Misty to stop speaking.

Nate looked to see the smiling face of the man in the white coat, which caused Nate to involuntarily jump from shock.

The Loren family exited the car, and the smiling man wasted no time in making his introductions.

“Forgive me for startling you, I am Dr Olar; I will be in charge of assessing Enzo and ensuring that we get to the bottom of what has caused his strange reaction to the treatment that Dr Michaels advised. I am afraid that I must encourage haste as I have many patients to attend to and my superiors have been clamping down on all forms of tardiness. So, if you’ll be so kind as to follow me to our state-of-the-art testing station, I would appreciate it greatly.”

Dr Olar didn’t wait for the Loren family to confirm or deny their acceptance of his request, he turned on his heels and began walking towards the main entrance. He was halfway up the staircase, still smiling, when the Loren family obliged and followed him inside the dilapidated building. Moss crawled up the walls, a few of the windows were broken and the bricks were cracked in many places. The inside of the building was not much better, and the silence amidst the lack of people was eerily disturbing.

The Loren family followed Dr Olar down a series of corridors before he opened a door – nearer to the end of the corridor they were in – and held it open while Nate, Misty and Enzo walked inside the room.

Nate and Misty both shared the same shocked expression when they observed the cleanliness of this particular room. The floors and walls were so white that Nate thought he would not hesitate to eat a meal from the surface. There was a chair with straps on either arm, and a huge screen that took up almost all of the wall in the room.

“I understand that Enzo was being treated for panophobia, and after Dr Michaels correctly treated him with hypnotherapy and gradual desensitisation he has since become overly desensitised, is that correct?” Dr Olar asked Nate, as if Misty and Enzo weren’t in the room.

“That is correct, Dr Olar,” Misty chimed in. “I mean, look at the boy. His expression never changes, he used to jump at the smallest of sounds and now he doesn’t blink when you clap your hand in front of his face.”

“I see, Mrs Loren. Well, not to worry, I can assure you that if anyone is going to find the cause it will be me,” Dr Olar said as he smiled at each of them before he settled his eyes on Enzo.

Enzo looked at Dr Olar with a blank expression, his dark hair hung irritatingly over his left eye and yet he never made any effort to move it.

“Well Enzo, would you mind having a seat in this chair for me? I ju-”

Dr Olar hadn’t finished his sentence when Enzo took a seat on the chair without saying a word.

“Well, I suppose I should go get the headset,” Dr Olar said to himself as he walked out of the room.

“Some doctor, he hasn’t even taken any notes on his clipboard,” Nate said when he was thought that Dr Olar was far away enough.

“I’d like to see your medical degree!” Misty retorted.

Dr Olar came back into the room holding a pure-white wireless headset. He placed it onto Enzo’s head and began strapping his wrists to the chair.

“Why are you doing that?”

“Nate, shut up! Dr Olar knows what he is doing!” Misty punched Nate’s arm.

“No, no. It’s alright Mrs Loren, Mr Loren has every right to know the full procedure. The headset is able to access memories and project them onto the screen on the wall. We will first be looking at Enzo’s memories from the past, before he was treated for his panophobia, and then we will take a look at what he sees now. It will provide valuable insight to allow us to try and identify the root of the problem. The straps are just in case the memories from the past re-trigger Enzo and he has a small panic attack.”

“I don’t know if I like the sound of that,” Misty said.

“No! I think that Dr Olar knows best! He is the one with the medical degree, we should listen to him!” Nate replied sarcastically.

Dr Olar smiled as if he knew that Nate was indirectly mocking him.

“Can we stay in the room, just in case he needs some comfort?” Misty asked Dr Olar, ignoring Nate’s sarcasm.

“Of course, I would prefer if you did. Now are you ready to get started?”

“Yes,” Nate and Misty said, as if they were racing to see who could say it first.

Dr Olar chuckled again before he knelt in front of Enzo. Dr Olar moved the irritating strands of hair from Enzo’s forehead, and Enzo looked back at him with the same blank expression he had since they had met. His pupils were dilated before they rolled back into his eye socket when Dr Olar pressed a button on the side of the headset.

Dr Olar walked to the light switch by the door and flicked it off as the screen on the wall began a projection.

Nate, Misty, and Dr Olar – who began to take notes – watched as the ashy, white-skinned figure of Enzo sat in a room with Dr Michaels as he held up images of different things. Enzo whimpered and held his knees against his chest as each image distorted into a snake.

Dr Michaels was taking notes after each reaction and after he had showed Enzo 7 different images, he proceeded to write something down for a very long time. Enzo’s eyes shifted from Dr Michaels to a python that slithered into the room.

Enzo scurried against the wall, sweating as the python moved slowly towards him. He pointed at it with tears streaming down his cheeks. Dr Michaels looked to where Enzo was pointing and remained calm as he wrote down more notes.

The python slithered onto Enzo’s leg, its skin was cold as it made its way under his shirt and wrapped itself around his neck.

Enzo tried to pull the python off of his neck, and after a while he was successful. He gasped for air as he tried to recover.

“I’m afraid our time is up for today, Enzo, I will see you the same time next week,” Dr Michaels smiled as he said it. He opened the door and ushered Enzo out of the room.

“Same time next week, I’ll email you my progress report,” Dr Michaels said to Nate and Misty, who were in the waiting area outside of Dr Michael’s office.

“Thank you, Dr Michaels,” Misty shouted, so loud that everyone in the waiting area looked at her.

“Thank you, Dr Michaels,” Nate said in a sarcastic tone as the Loren family climbed in their car.

“There’s no problem being nice!” Misty replied.

Enzo screamed as he saw a black mamba slither out of a gutter grating.

“Look what you’ve done to the boy, no wonder he is so fucked up!” Nate said.

“Our Enzo is not fucked up! He just struggles to deal with his nasty, foul-mouthed father!”

Dr Olar pressed a few buttons on the headset and a new memory appeared. Enzo was in the bathroom brushing his teeth when a king cobra came out of the toilet, a tiger snake came out of the shower drain and a boomslang came out of the sink. He screamed and cried as he ran for the door.

Nate and Misty ran towards the bathroom as Enzo opened the door. He rushed past them, pointing at the snakes that slithered towards him. They argued before Misty slapped Nate after he said something that Enzo hadn’t heard.

Nate stormed to Enzo’s room and grabbed his wrist so hard that Enzo thought he might break it.

“You cause so much shit for me and your mother! We are taking you to Dr Michaels right now and you better not leave there until you learn to not be scared of absolutely everything! Do you understand me you little shit!?”

Enzo cried as he was shoved into the car and driven to Dr Michaels by his dad.

Nate remembered that visit as the one that had, in fact, been on the day that Enzo became desensitised.

Enzo was sitting in Dr Michaels office the doctor was once again holding up various images and writing notes when Enzo screamed as hundreds of snakes slithered into the room. He was hysterical, unsure of what to do or where to go.

The snakes slithered all over his body, their hisses were deafening. Enzo could hear the thumping of his heartbeat in his ears. The heartbeat sounded muffled when a puff adder slid inside his left ear.

He screamed in pain and held his ear.

The view of the projection changed as it showed the puff adder slither and reach Enzo’s brain. It hissed before it bit down on his hippocampus.

“Relaxssssss,” a voice said in the projection.

Nate and Misty both looked at each other in shock as the projection ended. Dr Olar was taking notes at a rapid pace.

“You told our son that he was the reason for our problems!” Misty shouted as she punched Nate in his chest.

“Hit me again, see what happens!” Nate replied, puffing out his chest.

“I would advise both of you to calm down,” Dr Olar said as he struggled to keep his familiar calmness in his voice.

Nate and Misty locked eyes for a minute before they turned away from each other with a sigh.

“That was very insightful, now let us see what Enzo recalls from today,” Dr Olar said.

He pressed a button on the headset that was strapped to Enzo’s head. Enzo was still extremely calm, the white of his eyes still the only part showing.

The screen lit up with an exact representation of the room where Dr Olar and the Loren family were watching the projection.

Everything seemed quite ordinary until they saw the puff adder slither out of Enzo’s ear. It coiled itself on top of his head and Enzo’s eyes suddenly rolled back to normal, his dilated pupils looking even bigger. The Enzo in the projection had a sinister smile as he calmly broke free of his shackles and extended his right arm for the snake to slither down. The snake wrapped itself around his arm and Enzo began to stroke it, still with his devious smile. He looked straight at the real Dr Olar and then at Nate and Misty.

The puff adder suddenly hissed as it lunged for the projection and forced Dr Olar, Nate, and Misty to jump back as the projection went dark.

Dr Olar was the first to compose himself, and when he did, he rushed to switch the lights on.

Nate and Misty were uncharacteristically quiet as sweat glistened on their foreheads.

They all heard a loud bang, and they watched as an anaconda burst through the door. Hundreds of snakes slithered out of all of Enzo’s eye sockets, ears, and nostrils. Dr Olar, Nate, and Misty screamed and attempted to cover every part of themselves, somehow. They couldn’t stop screaming as snakes slithered into each of their ears.

A woman in a white coat rushed into the room to find Dr Olar, Nate, and Misty screaming in the corner of the room while Enzo turned to look at her. She was confused when the screaming stopped, and the room fell silent.

“Are…are you okay Dr Olar?” The woman asked.

The young doctor looked up at the woman, his dark black hair rested over his one eye as he smiled at the woman and stood up.

“Never been better, nurse Lipsig,” he said in a monotone voice before his expression went blank.