THIRD BOOK! boo yah! XD
...
Danny was in and out of it for a few weeks. There were days when he seemed perfectly fine, not even registering the pain he was in his medicine was dosed so high because the pain alone would kill him while he was awake. Those were the good days, when he would smile and laugh along with me, or even just by himself as he tried to get me to laugh, too, saying that it would help him get better faster if he could hear me laugh instead of see me cry. He told me, on those days, that my smile and my laugh were better medicines than the spirits in the medical building could ever provide him, and that he'd be out of t he 're sooner if I kept smiling for him. He always smiled on those days, trying to encourage me to smile, too, and eventually, I did, unable to resist smiling along with Danny.
But then there was those days where he didn't even recognize me. I'd be sitting there, waiting for him to wake up, going off of only a couple hours of sleep myself, and when he did, he'd start to panic. He wouldn't know where he was, would always try to unhook himself from the medical equipment hooked up to him. He'd always sout and scream at me to leave, claiming that I was trying to hurt him, even though I'd only be sitting there, next to his bed, with tears brimming in my eyes. He didn't recognize me.
Every day I played a new role. I was either a complete stranger on those days, never seen before in his life. Or I could be an enemy, a half monster like him, sent to his room by Cyril to kill him. One day I could be his sister, or the next his friend. Some days I was even his best friend who met him at school and who hung out with him a lot at that diner just a ten minute walk from our high school. I don't know. I never knew. His mind always created fake memories for me on those days, those days he didn't remember who I was, the days he didn't remember a single day we had spent together. Or at least not correctly. He didnt remember a single one. And it made me cry more than usual on those days, because he couldn't even tell me he loved me on them.
Yesterday was one of those days. I remember clearly the panic in his deep blue eyes when he had seen the tubes snaking down from monitors and attaching to his arms and face. I remember him trying to pry them off unskillfully, adding more scratches to his skin when he pulled out the needles. I remember trying to get him to calm down, only to have his panicking blue eyes turn on me viciously, his panic being replaced by an uncontrollable anger.
"You," he had growled uncharacteristically at me when he had found his arms constrained, bound to the bed he was resting on because of what had happened last time his mind had forgotten everything.
I winced, waiting for that new role I knew I was going to get that day.
Danny sneered at me when I didn't respond. "What are you waiting for? Huh? Aren't you going to kill me? You've tortured me enough as it is today. What happened to your toys, huh? Did Cyril take them from you?"
So that was my role... to be the one Cyril sent to torture Danny. My most dreaded of all roles, because it always ended badly. He'd never let me leave the room till it was done, never let me try to explain to him the truth of who I was, only taking them as lies so he'd drop his guard.
Silently, I shook my head.
That seemed to catch Danny of guard, like he wasn't expecting it to come from the whoever I was to him that day. His shock only lasted a few seconds, though, before anger grew on his face again. "Then what are you still doing here? Leave!"
I just remained silent, staring at my hands and trying not to cry as Danny yelled at me.
"I said leave!" He screamed, and my tears broke free. I started to cry, but that only seemed to anger him more. The constraints on him seemed to do no good as he shifted his arms and legs into the fins he swam with, the band's slipping right off of him. He pulled the tubes out of him and off of his face, feeling no pain from his wounds as the medication dripping from his iv continued to flow through his blood, pulling the pain to be nonexistent.
I stayed where I was, afraid to move in case he'd target his unruly anger at me. But again, his anger only increased.
Shifting back to full human, Danny lumbered over to me. "Get up." He growled. I remained seated, having been told by the spirits to react to his more violent episodes as little as possible. "I said get up!"
In a blur of motion he had me by my hair, forcing me to my feet as he pulled me up from my chair, making me cry out in pain. But for once Danny didn't seem to care about my pain, and especially didn't care that he was the one causing it. This started to scare me, because this was already becoming the most violent of his episodes. He had never hurt me during any of his other episodes, and I could tell already that it was just going to get worse.
Danny continued to pull on my hair till I had to get on the chair to be eye level with him, crying as he continued to pull up on my hair. His deep blue eyes were narrowed, almost as if he was trying to tell if my current role really suited someone like me. It seemed as if his brain was trying to give him new memories of me at that moment, but he refused to accept them, whatever they were. And in that moment of hesitation, I had tried to escape his grasp, which was the worst decision I could have made then.
Danny grew furious once more, and balled up his other fist, the one not grabbing my hair. He pulled it back, and the next thing I knew pain flared up in my lower ribs, knocking the air out of my lungs. I let out another cry of pain, almost screaming he had hit me with such force, and I began to bawl. Danny didn't seem to like my tears, and he growled, releasing my hair and letting me fall to the ground, gasping as I clutched my side and tried to catch my breath. He clutched at his own hair before he began to pace, muttering and growling at himself, periodically hitting himself as he did.
After I had caught my breath, Danny was still pacing and hitting himself, still pulling at his hair as he did. He dug his fingers deep into his biceps,piercing the skin and causing blood to well up beneath his finger tips before creating small rivers down his arms. I knew I should have left him like that, like the spirits had told me to. I should have left him to get the spirits to put him under sedation. But I couldn't leave him like that. I couldn't leave him to hurt himself, because what if he took it a step further than just hurting himself? I didn't know what I would do if he killed himself...
"Danny..." I croaked out. He didn't hear me, and I stood. "Danny, stop it." Still no response.
I crossed the room to where he was pacing, and rested a hand on his arm. Immediately he turned on me, wrapping his hands around my throat and bringing me down, slamming me into the ground. He straddled me, pressing his thumbs down on my air track as he pinned me to the ground. I instantly grew fearful as I looked into his eyes, knowing well as soon as I looked into them that he was really going to try and kill me. He was no longer Danny. He wasn't the Danny that I had fallen in love with that day. He was violent. Out of control. And he wasn't afraid to kill.
I began to struggle, but his hands only grew tighter around my throat as I gasped for air, trying to get it to my lungs but unable to. I tried clawing desperately at his hands with my own, tried digging my nails into his arms to get him to let go, but he never registered the pain. He kept pressing, trying to suffocate me, trying to kill one of Cyrils minions, and he seemed or be enjoying it, too. His deep blue eyes shone with a thrill for power beneath the anger that had taken over them. He had a wide grin on his face as he kept his hands wrapped securely around my throat. Everything about it him at that instant shone with an uncharacteristic, murderous joy as he attempted to take my life.
As a black haze began to cloud my vision, as Thanatos began preparations to use his scythe and cut my life line tot make me to the Underworld for judgement, the spirits finally came. They were armed with sedations, readying them to inject Danny with.
He saw them coming, saw them fling the door open, and his hold on me released. He stood, shouting something I couldn't understand as I gasped for breath, gulping air greedily to fill my lungs. The black fog lifted from my vision, letting me see a clear picture of the floor in front of me as I coughed and gasped for air, finally hearing what Danny was shouting.
"Where's Cyril?" He screamed to the spirits. "Tell me where Cyril is! I'm going to kill that son of a bitch right now. Take me to Cyril!" I assumed he had noticed the needles in the spirits hands, because he began to throw things at them. "Stay away! I want to see Cyril! Bring him here now! Let go of me! Don't touch me! What are y-!"
He went silent, and the sound of his body crumbling to the floor sounded, making me wince as I continued to try and catch my breath. I rubbed my throat with my right hand as I did, listening as the spirits hauled Danny back up onto the bed and reattached all of his tubes. My left hand moved of its own accord, propping me up for a better advantage to get air into my lungs, and something on it flashed. I looked to it, spotting the ring Danny had given me as a promise ring to marry me in the future wrapped around my ring finger, and I began to cry again. The spirits came to check on me, but I told them off, saying that I was fine as I continued to cry, still staring at the ring.
Oh, Danny. What's happened to you? What happened to the Danny I fell in love with those months back, in the middle of summer? What happened to him? Is he still even there, or is this the new you?
I looked towards him, then. Looked towards his form, which was now sleeping peacefully upon his bed, the anger in him gone. I need to stay hopeful. I can't let this ruin us. I'm going to stay here, with you, even if you try to kill me again. I need to keep up hope. I need to believe that you will return to normal. I need to believe that, for us. I need to...
I started to cry harder as I thought those words, wondering when Danny would ever return to me, and if it would ever be soon enough.
...
Yeah. Bet ya didn't expect THAT for a first chapter, huh? XD
