He had messed up!
That was Aiden's thoughts after he woke up from his sleep. Although he knew that there was bound to be repercussions of his actions, the thought that he might just become unconscious during the climax of the scene never crossed his mind.
So, when he had woken up in the hospital, a lot of worried faces were in front of him.
The cast and important members of the crew had stayed at the hospital and aside from them, there was also Wade and Tom who were with him during the whole shooting.
All of them were glad after seeing that he was fine.
According to the doctors, his body was also fine and he had just 'exhausted' himself.
Jeremy and Wade had asked him what exactly had happened and they could only answer that he got too much into the character and had started imagining things so vividly that in the end, they had affected him.
The veteran actor didn't seem to be surprised and had just told him to take psychological help as soon as possible.
He stated that it wasn't uncommon and won't be a big problem.
All of them talked a bit more before leaving due to something coming up. Apparently, some reporter had heard about Aiden being admitted to the hospital and had written articles about it.
They needed to go handle it and notify everyone that he was safe.
Only Wade and Tom left who wanted to talk more but Aiden asked them to leave him alone and they didn't object, thinking that he needed rest.
But the truth was that he needed to go over the system notifications that he had gotten.
[You have advanced to Intermediate Grade 6 from Intermediate Grade 5.]
[You have advanced in such a short time. Congratulations on maintaining such remarkable speed.]
[You are in the second half of the Intermediate Grade. Leveling would be harder and harder from here.]
Those were the normal system messages that he was expecting. Though, levelling up again was a surprise to him.
It seemed like the system was surely appreciating him risking his life for a scene. After those system messages, there were the ones that made Aiden freeze.
[You have ignored the warnings of the system.]
[You have experienced an immersion that is dangerous. Your body and mind have been affected.]
[Due to your high affinity with the character 'Finn Wheeler', some damage had been neglected but there would be future consequences.]
[You have reached a high affinity with your character. You are not at the skill level to control it. The personality of the character might start affecting your real personality.]
[The user is advised to not switch off the security protocol from next time.]
Reading the system notifications, Aiden really wondered about the consequences that the system was talking about.
The line 'The personality of the character might start affecting your real personality' was something that Aiden was very wary about.
He wondered how it would happen. Was he actually going to see ghosts like Finn?
A few days later, it all revealed itself.
***
It was very quick for Aiden to get out of the hospital. Although he had lost consciousness in the last scene, it had come out pretty well, so the shooting for [Sherlock of the Shadows] was finally over.
Only some dubbing in a few scenes and shoots for posters of the show and characters were left, but all of them were going to happen in LA.
So, for the time being, Aiden came back to New York City.
He had nothing to do now as he had no further work related activities, so he was very free and even Wade told him to rest but it was then that strange things started happening to him.
Aiden noticed that he had started being paranoid and his nightmares were just getting worse. In the middle of the shooting, he had gotten control of them but it got worse.
At the same time, he had suddenly gotten strange habits out of nowhere.
One of them was that no matter what he would wake up at 5 and would feel like going outside to run and then would do shadow boxing after coming home for half an hour.
This was not something that he has as a habit.
It was actually a habit of Finn Wheeler.
Out of nowhere, Aiden had gotten that habit like it was always there. His affinity was at striking 87 percent after the last scene, so he wasn't a lot surprised.
Day by day, his thoughts also started becoming like Finn and his talking style also became more like a teenager.
Once when he was at The Rabbit hole bar with Wade, he had even started hitting on a waitress, something that Finn was more likely to do. Aiden had been left gawking at her number with confused eyes in the end.
His changing personality coupled with his nightmares and paranoia made him a mess for a while and he quickly arranged sessions with the psychologist that Jeremy had recommended to him.
"How's your health improving? Are my pills working?"
Aiden came back from his thoughts as the therapist in front of him asked. She was a brunette woman in her early 30s, wearing a white coat and glasses.
Her name was Dr. Penny Johnson, a psychologist that had worked with a lot of actors before and the person that Jeremy had recommended.
Both of them were currently sitting on the sofa in her office. Aiden had to say that it was a very cosy office, built in a way that the patients could relax.
"They are helping me to sleep. Just that. My habits are not going away and the nightmares still keep coming. Just my paranoia had lessened…"
As he spoke, the doctor wrote it down on a notepad before putting a hand on her chin.
"Do you wake up in between sleep when you have your nightmares?"
"Yeah, I do. My back is mostly drenched with sweat too even though the AC is always on."
"Strange. Can you explain to me the nightmares you get?"
When Dr. Penny asked that, Aiden struggled to speak.
"I don't know how to. They are very unexplainable. I can't put them in words. It's like they are on the back of my mind but it would slip away whenever I try to explain it. I can't get the right words."
He was having a lot of problems due to it. Not like it was making his life a living hell, he hadn't gotten a good sleep in days.
The worst part was that the nightmares were pretty abstract. He won't even remember half of that but a creepy feeling would always be present in his mind.
"That is becoming a problem in your treatment."
Dr. Penny said, frowning. Aiden was a pretty trick client for her as he was dealing with inner demons and it was interfering in his real life.
These types of cases were very rare for her.
Normally, she would just have sessions with other celebrities on the topics such as past traumas, failed relationships and drug abuse.
Suddenly, Dr. Penny got an idea and opened her mouth.
"How about you try to write it down?"
"Write what?"
"Your dreams. Nightmares. Whatever you see when you sleep. You can't explain it in words but maybe try to write it down like a diary or even a story. It might help you release whatever is brewing inside of you. Anyway, you are a writer."
For the record, Dr. Penny had read Aiden's books to get a better idea of his personality.
"I think that might work."
Aiden said after thinking about it. He honestly didn't mind doing anything his pyschologist told him until it helps him out.
Only he knew that he was only sane because he had good mental fortitude.
"Okay, do that. And you are not working, right?" Dr. Penny squinted her eyes at him.
"No, I'm not." Aiden said. "I don't have anymore projects to do and I'm not taking any singing gigs. I'm still going out and just having a few small meetings with my agent and I need to attend another one in a few days but aside from that, I'm just reading books and trying to tell myself that there's no ghosts around me."
Penny chuckled at that and wrote it down too before opening her mouth again.
"Good enough. Just continue it. You are a workaholic from what you told me, so stay away from work and enjoy your life and heal. You don't want to ruin your image by having some sort of panic attack on stage."
"Noted."
It was then that the timer on the table buzzed. The session was over.
"It was a good session."
Aiden said as he stood up. He was early on in his treatment and although the effect was minimal, he trusted in Dr. Penny's ability.
"I need to do my best when I'm charging so much."
She laughed and Aiden said goodbye and walked out of her office. It was situated in a residential area in New York as it was built in her home.
As he got out of his house and made for his car, he suddenly got a vibration in his pocket.
Taking out his phone, he saw a surprising name there.
[Ava: Are you free? I'm in New York. Wanted to meet you?]
'What she want?'
He thought, typing out a reply.
***
