Disclaimer: I do not own Sly Cooper.
What Fell As Sly Fell
"I want to go home! Please let me go home!" Sly cries out; the sound of sobbing as is quite calming for a patient at a mental center.
"Mr. Cooper, you can't go home now," says the doctor as he leans back in his chair and sighs heavily in frustration, "Your wife is worried and scared. You nearly killed her out of unknown panic, as if she were something that she wasn't. What happened Sly, tell me what happened that caused you to give her such a fright?"
"I didn't do anything, she's lying. It's the thing in the darkness. It has been watching me for a while. I don't understand it, but it's watching me. It wants me. I heard it howl in the night-no, it made a horrifying-distorted shriek. Yes, that's what it was; a horrifying-distorted shriek that calls out and says, 'I'm coming for you.'"
"Patient seems to be suffering a case of paranoid schizophrenia," the doctor notes to himself to the recording device and then looks at the broken master thief, "Tell me Sly, what is this creature? When did you first meet it? You have to tell me; don't you want it to go away? I can help it go away."
The terrified raccoon looks at the psychiatrist, and begins to laugh. "You? You can help it leave me alone? Do you promise you can make it leave?" the laughing continues; then the weary looks out at the moon in the sky.
"Are you okay Sly?"
"That moon, it's a full one. Just like the night I met it, the creature that continues to haunt me," Mr. Cooper looks away, and sighs as he embraces the light that comes through the window as if it's a blanket for a bed. "At one point I had bullies, which hated me a lot. It was over at the orphanage. My friends, they were off to sleep when they came and attacked me."
"What did they do Sly? What did these bullies do to you?"
"They tied me up, and put a sock in my mouth so I couldn't scream as they beat me until I blacked out. When I came to, I found myself falling down in the darkness where the creature was."
The listener reaches into his files for this patient, and flips through it until he finally comes to a page he needs. "Yes, I see that you mentioned to our staff about the bullies, and that they beat you to blacking out. Only it also says that you provoked them."
"No, that's a lie. I didn't provoke them. If I said that, I was tired and not thinking correctly doctor."
The asker clears his throat, and smiles. "You have seemed tired the past few days you've been here, so I can see that you may have said the wrong thing. However, if I find your lying to me then it'll open many questions, which I will have to ask."
"Can I continue my story?"
"Proceed."
"Darkness was all I knew, and it seemed to never end. A hell? No, far worse than that, but then again to a kid what is hell? A time out, or perhaps a loss of something precious that's nice and comforting," The broken master thief gets up and looks out the window. "I had lost my will to scream for help. The darkness to me loved to play with my mind because at times I could catch glimpses of light."
"Why didn't you see the light as hope?"
"Why didn't I see it as hope? Well, I thinks its because I had lost hope in my self. That would explain why the creature called out to me."
"What did it say Sly?"
The raccoon relaxes his body; breathing in and exhaling. "It told me that if I really wanted to leave it, I had to reach out a hand and it would assist me."
"And you reached out your hand Mr. Cooper?"
"I was scared, I just wanted to leave. However, I had flashes of horrid visuals of the deaths of those that had taken me to this darkness."
"And what happened next?"
Sly turns around slowly, and smiles. "I found the bullies had been waiting for me in case I had escaped the darkness, only they had died just like the horrid visuals. I didn't do it, but I can recall a voice calling out to say thanks for setting it free and that it'd watch over me. Only now it's after me because I betrayed it."
Click; the tape has run its course, but the doctor will dare to ask the question. "How did you betray it Sly?"
"I sealed it away in the darkness I had save it from, but somehow it's escaped where it belongs."
"Which is?"
"The well. The well where in times past, orphans that died horrible accidental deaths were buried there as if they had never existed. Massive hunts were made by police to find them, but ended up giving up. They would've searched the well but it was a waste because even if one did- they'd find were only falling into an endless eternal night."
Knock, Knock; the door to the doctor's office opens and an orderly pokes his head in with a serious face. "Sir, we've got a problem."
"What is it?"
"I'm afraid one of the patients has gone missing."
"What?" the psychiatrist stands up quickly, his face fills with fear. "Where did he go?"
"That's the thing, we don't know. All we could find was a message, which reads: Alone with the creature in the darkness," replies the orderly.
"It's followed me here doc. Now, what will you do?" Sly asks, and as the doctor looks at the broken master thief; the psychiatrist watches as the moon disappears behind the clouds in the night sky.