I’m up in the middle of the night again. And I’m not alone.
Ugh, wasn’t everything supposed to be better now?
I guess Dr. Clyde’s new routine for Logan hasn’t exactly kicked in yet. I woke up around 3 a.m. with strange sounds in my ears. Mixed in with my dream state it sounded almost like children playing, or maybe like fairy laughter . . . but eerie somehow. Anyway, I tried to ignore it and go back to sleep, but it kept annoying me, so finally I got up and followed the noise out to the hall. The whole house was dark, except for a blue glow coming from downstairs, and I was unavoidably reminded of the blue glow Chloe and I saw that first time we met Raph.
The sight of it gave me a chill at first, just remembering how frightened I had been that night. But then I reminded myself of how that turned out—not scary at all, right? And this must be the same thing, just the TV on in the middle of the night. Not scary.
So I went down the stairs and into the living room, and . . . well, I was right. In a sense. Logan was sitting in front of the TV, playing one of his video games. That was the music that had been haunting my dreams, of course. But I was wrong to think it wasn’t scary. I don’t know, I can’t explain it. Logan was just so transfixed. But so what? Everyone looks transfixed when they’re playing video games, right?
But this was different, somehow. More like that time he came into my room, and I couldn’t quite tell if he was in a trance or what. It was like he wasn’t even really playing the game—his thumbs were moving, but his brain didn’t seem to be engaged.
So I was like, “Logan? Are you okay? Why don’t you come to bed, honey?” But he just ignored me. It was creeping me out, for real. So finally I went over to him and sat behind him on the couch. My knee was touching his back, but he didn’t react to it at all, so I laid a hand on his shoulder and tried to shake him gently. But he didn’t . . . he didn’t move the way a sleepwalking person would. He resisted me, like he was playing statue or something. Held himself perfectly still and straight, and didn’t make any response to me at all.
So then I tried to be like, “How about we just finish this level, and then back to bed, okay?” And I figured I would watch along and give him tips, both to relate to him, and hopefully to get him to finish faster. But as I watched, I realized something. Logan . . . wasn’t really playing. I mean, he was—his fingers were moving on the buttons, and they were affecting the stuff on the screen—but he kept dying like every minute or two. He hadn’t gotten beyond level 1! And this is Logan—I’ve seen him play this game a million times. He’s basically an expert. He could make it to level 9 in his sleep . . . at least that’s what I would have said until tonight.
Because now, as I watched, he just kept dying, over and over and over. Misjudging a jump or meeting up with a bad guy or just running headlong off a cliff. He wasn’t playing like himself at all. And each time, he would just go back and start again, as if nothing was wrong.
Eventually I left him and came back up to bed, but I sure as hell can’t sleep now. How long is he going to be like this?