A Past worth Forgetting
Rated T: for violence against a young asylum patient by a doctor(s).
"I'm not crazy Pa…Don't let them take me! I'm not crazy! I'm Not Crazy! Pa…Please!" Explained the fourteen year old as the nurses tried to drag her away.
Her Pa ...looked away from his daughter and to his new wife who smiled slightly. Then took his hand in mock concern…like she cared. "Pa please don't let them take me." She begged. "I'm not crazy!" He heard her screams get quieter and quieter, until they were no longer audible.
"Franklin…she's better off." His wife assured him when in truth it was just an act. Franklin said nothing in return though…
/
The nurse in the hobbit handed the young girl in the hospital gown a glass of an almost toxic concoction. "Drink your medicine, Mary."
"No Mam."
"Take it!" the nurse commanded.
"No." Mary objected pushing the glass back to the nurse, who turned her head and looked at the doctor in distress.
"How pathetic can you be?" Head Doctor Mon Sterling asked rather curtly. "I'll show you how!" he yanked the glass from the nurses' hands. First he put his arm around Mary from the back, next he used that hand to force open her mouth none too gently. Sterling poured the vulgar liquid into her mouth and brusquely closed it.
She refused to swallow though, her cheeks balloon like and red from the vile liquid they held. "Swallow!" Mary still refused, so Sterling grabbed her a second time, this time she struggled and was rewarded with a harsh slap across the cheek. Lastly he leaned the girl back forcing her to swallow vulgar substance. "Was that so bad?" the girl shook her head shaking.
/
"Hold her under, for a bit longer, Darcon." Dr. Sterling stated taking notes on his wooden Clip board.
"Are you sure, Sterling?" Doctor Dwade Darcon asked as he struggled to hold the kicking and flailing girl under water in the bath tub.
"Of course I am, nearly drowning cleanses the soul." Mon Sterling explained not seeming to know the dangers with "trying" to almost drown someone.
"You're gonna drown that poor girl!" Clemmett Maxwells his young apprentice cried out horrified…as the girls struggling ceased and her body went limp.
"No, I won't." Sterling responded tersely. "That's enough, Darcon." The other Doctor obeyed by releasing his hold on the girl… allowing her to come up gasping for breath. Clemmett let out a sigh of relief.
"See, Maxwells, I am a man of my word." Mon Sterling informed his apprentice. He was not lying; he was a man of his word…a very twisted word. "But heed this…never question me again."
/
Clemmett gasped in horror as the patient (Mary) spassed uncontrollably, her limbs and body shaking and moving incessantly, her mouth foaming… as the electricity ran though her body.
It was only the first time he had witnessed shook therapy and he was already positive that he didn't approve of it. "Stop it!" He cried on the dark haired girls behave. "She's Just a child!"
"Yes and one might think you were a six year old by the number of out bursts you have!" Mon Sterling snapped at him, ire on his face where a cruel smile had been only a second earlier. "What did I say about questioning me?"
"You said not to sir." Clemmett stated trying hard not too cower.
"Exactly," Mon Sterling turned back to Mary in time to see the energy effect on her body finally begin to curtail.
/
Fifteen year old Mary sat alone in the basement where she had been put in. She didn't know why she had been put there…why she was sitting on the cold floor in a cold room…that was completely dark save for the narrow lines of moonlight coming through the barred window.
But to her all was good. Mary kept herself the from impending boredom by counting bruises…she had oodles of them, most of which she had received from Sterling or Monsterling as patients secretly referred to him as behind his back. Though typically a optimist…she couldn't tell herself that there would be less of them tomorrow …and couldn't seem to shake the horrifying vision she had received last night.
A figure entered the room…it was a man. "John?" she asked, John Karters was another patient at the Asylum.
"I am not my insolent brother." He shown his lantern on his sleeping look-alike in the corner…that man was John. This man was Doctor Frank Karters, John's twin brother, the one girl patients warned each other about…
He crouched down in front of Mary who opened her mouth to scream, but he quickly slapped his hand over that. "Don't scream…it'll only make it worse…"
/
Mary awoke in her bed as sun shined through the curtain covered window, with no recollection of how she had gotten there. Her left arm hurt like mad and was wrapped in a thick bandage around the lower part, her legs hurt a lot as well and had an each of them had bandages on them ,far thicker than the arm one. Her skin was marred by significantly more bruises than it had been the night before.
"Ali!" A little blonde haired girl explained running over and embracing her friend. It was Evelynn, who was a rather innocent seven year old. "Me and Shelly were worried." Shelly was her imaginary friend and the reason why she was in this place.
Sixteen year old Francis followed. "I swear I'll him to pieces and burn 'um all when I get 'um." See, she had severe anger issues, which explained why she was in the asylum.
"Stop it Francis, she's been through enough." Ellenn another older girl whispered sitting on the side opposite of Evelynn, no one knew why she was in here. "How do you feel, Mary?"
"Terrible."
"I see- that must hurt." Ellenn stated before continuing with another question. "Do you remember what happened to you-what John did to…."
Mary cut her off. "You mean Dr. Karters."
"As in Doctor Franklin Karters….Mary you can't possibly suggest that he…did that to you!" Ellenn expressed, even though she had heard the rumors about his 'acts' she was always very difficult to convince.
"Did what?" Mary questioned.
The two older shoot at her, eyes wide with shock. "You don't remember do you?"
/
The older man sat on the bench in the quiet hallway with Mary in his arms wearing a white gown as usual. Her legs were hanging over his left arm still bandaged thinly even nine months later, her left arm was behind his back resting on his shoulder. Her other arm lay limply on his lap next to her body; his left arm was supporting her shoulders.
Mary gazed up at him, dark brown eyes dazed. Maybe it was the hormones; maybe it was the exertion, either way he hated seeing her like this. Her skin was hot and his was cold as it should be, but they weren't supposed to be the same ashen color.
"How do you feel?" Tecumseh asked her and got only a dazed expression in response. "I'm so sorry sweetheart." He apologized as her right hand went to absently to her stomach as if she was used to something being the, indeed she was. At sixteen she was too young for this.
"I know you miss it…it is a girl…they named her Eliza Ruth you know." Tecumseh informed as she had been completely unaware of the two facts he had just told her. So she only gave a puzzled 'who'.
"Your mind forgives by forgetting doesn't it, child. But your body remembers." He avowed. "But somewhere deep down the mind does as well."
"Huh."
"It's a saying, dear." Mary seemed so upset and he hated seeing her like that. So Tecumseh made a promise to her. "No one will ever hurt you so again…I swear on my-existence."
/
Tecumseh approached the girl with his hands behind his back and asked her a question. "What do I have?"
"A brown rubber ball…with a red strip on it," The nineteen year old answered.
The amber eyed man removed his hands from behind his back and opened them revealing …a brown rubber ball with a red strip on it, revealing that she was right …just as she had been every Saturday for the past three years.
"Precisely," He said tossing her the ball to play with.
"Thank you." Mary replied smiling
"See a smile on your face is thanks enough." It was the absolute truth…Mary always had more bruises on her every time he saw her, more scars and more repressed memories. Tecumseh loved watching her face light up and hoping that these would be the memories her mind wouldn't force itself to forget.
/
Mary's eyes filled with fear as she looked at him. "He's coming."
"How close is he?" Tecumseh asked her.
"Very,"
He hated to say this but it was time to do something he'd been dreading. Tecumseh grabbed Mary's arm and lead her down the hall and down the staircase to the basement. She cringed at the horrific memories this room invoked from repressment. "No!" she cried out, horrified by the memories she suddenly had.
Tecumseh came to the front of the frightened girl and took each of her hands in his own. "How would you like if it made it so no one could ever hurt you again?"
"Could you do that?" her voice was soft.
"Yes, I can, but you're going to have to hurt one last…is that alright?" Mary nodded. Then Tecumseh lowered his teeth into her neck…
/
A few minutes after Mary collapsed to the ground in fiery agony as the venom went through her body…a visitor arrived. He was a tall man with his blonde hair in a ponytail and he did not look happy. "Welcome James, it been a while since I've seen you been?" Tecumseh asked politely.
He did not seem amused. "I've been hunting this human for a very long time…"
"Ah is that so?"
"Yes, would you by any chance no where I can find her would you?" James questioned.
"Well, I'm afraid you're too late." Tecumseh admitted almost smiling in spite himself.
"Too late." He muttered.
"Yes, see for yourself." He motioned to where Mary was spassing in pain.
James' expression quickly turned to ire. "Don't you know brother that I've never lost a prey before in Millennia?"
"Well, there's a first time for everything brother."
"You'll pay dearly."
"Gladly…." Tecumseh informed. "Someday I hope you understand … that even though you killed me… that I am not the one who truly lost, but that I am the one who has truly won and you are the one who has lost…"
Unfortunately, for James he never did come to understand what he had meant, in his last ninety years.
As for Tecumseh, he knew that his end was near and he accepted it. Not even when James was burning his body did he think that changing Mary wasn't worth it…
/
After two long days of suffering the pain finally ceased and Mary awoke to find herself alone in… a basement perhaps, she thought. With no sign what so ever of Tecumseh and no memory of him in her mind…
In fact she had no memory of… how she got here; why was she laying on the floor; why she was here; what here was; why she was covered in blood; why she was craving blood; anything really.
Just then Mary had a vision of two something's she had always longed for… a loving family who accepted her for who she was ….and a husband who excepted her for exactly who she was. Oh how she longed for that…
/
Looking down at Dr. Karters, who lay dead at her feet …Mary wasn't sure what had drawn her to drain his blood or the blood of Dr. Mon Sterling who had preceded him. Just that something inside of her had told her that they needed to be stopped…from doing what she did not know… But something inside of her said that they would never hurt anyone ever again.
Wiping his blood away from her lips…she told that something that it was a fact…they would never hurt anyone ever again...
/
Twenty-eight years later, Alice sat in a diner waiting…waiting for the person her visions had told her would be here. In about …she looked up at the clock … five … four … three … two…now. She looked rather discreetly at the door and sure he arrived just on time not a second later.
The tall, blonde haired young man looked exactly how her visions had portrayed him… yet he was still more than she'd expected. He sat down on the stool next to her just as she hoped.
"I've been waiting for you a long time." Alice told him putting her hand on his. Much to her surprise and relief, he didn't seem that freaked out...