Chapter 1: Flower

Your face reminds me of a flower, kind of like you're underwater

Hair's too long and in your eyes, your lips a perfect suck me size

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

"I'm not crazy!"

Avery Reynolds screamed when they took her away.

They always scream in the end.

"It's YOU! It's YOU who's crazy!" she screamed when they dragged her away from her home.

"I am not making this up!" she screamed when she tried to get away, but they restrained her.

"I didn't do it! I didn't! I am not crazy! I didn't do it! How could I have done this?" She screamed when they shoved her into the back of the ambulance.

"Why are you telling me this? Are you crazy?" she screamed when the police told her what had become of her sister.

"Oh my God! Why is this happening?" she screamed in the ambulance, the driver telling her to shut the fuck up already, loony.

They dragged her down the halls, while she cried, and whispered silently to herself, "I didn't kill her! I didn't.. kill anyone."

The nurse looked at her with a kind smile, standing before the padded cell she knew they were going to lock her in, "You're a very sick girl," she said.

"I didn't do it! You know I didn't do it!" the girl screamed from inside the room, after the door was slammed shut.

The nurse sighed, "That's what they all say in here… little one."

--

Avery had moved to Haddonfield, Illinois, with her older sister, Dominique. They moved into a house that had been vacated for a couple of years. It was a really lovely house, just in need of a little repairing, and really cheap. The realtor called it 'The Meyers House.'

Two weeks after the Reynolds sisters moved in, Avery had fallen asleep next to her sister, and then woke up to find her half-dead, a butcher knife stabbed into her throat. She was gurgling and hardly breathing when Avery phoned the police.

It was midnight.

They arrived, and found no trace of an intruder anywhere near the house. The doors were all locked, and none of the windows were broken. There were no footsteps leading up to the house. They had found Dominique on the couch were the sisters had fallen asleep while watching a late night horror movie special. She was already dead. They found Avery upstairs, hiding in Dominique's bedroom closet, shaking with fear, crying, and, obviously unknown to her, drenched in her sister's blood. She was taken to Smith's Grove Sanitarium.

Dominique was twenty-two. Avery was turning sixteen. Their mother had died five years earlier due to a heart attack. Neither of the girls knew who their father was. And just like that, Avery became the ward of the state.

--

I woke up and glowing white walls pierced my vision. I immediately shut them and thought it was so weird. None of the rooms in our house were white, and I remembered falling asleep next to Domi in the living room. We had been watching John Carpenter's THE THING.

The walls in our living room were painted a fetching shade of maroon and a pale shade of gold. I know because I had bitched and fought about this with Domi. She wanted to paint it green, which, in my opinion, isn't a cozy color at all for a living room.

Then I thought it was pretty weird to thinking about the home & design of our house when I should have been worrying about where the hell I was. I opened my eyes again and faced to piercing glow that made my eyes hurt, and I saw padded walls.

Padded wall? What was this? There was a door, a white door with a small sliding window that you would see in a nuthouse. And then I realized I was in a nut house.

Not the best place to find yourself in.

I had no memory of this place. I do remember having a really whack dream. That's what shocked me awake, but it was only a dream.

Why was I here? And where was Domi? I discounted a kidnapping theory, because if someone tried to break in, Domi would have heard it, because she's creepily a light sleeper, and that made it harder to sneak out at night.

And she would have kicked the intruder's ass, because she a scary ninja that way.

She would have done the same to anyone that would try to take me away, police, social workers, hell, even our hair-brained, half-crazy grandmother that was convinced I was a boy.

So how did I end up here?

I walked up to the door, getting even more successfully pissed off because I was wearing a straight jacket, and no pants for some reason, and yelled and the sliding window.

"Hello..?" I managed to squeak out, my voice hoarse from yet another unexplainable reason, and I tried again, "HELLO? ANY ONE OUT THERE? WHERE THE HELL AM I?"

Just as soon I was done yelling, a face suddenly appeared in front of the window, and I yelled and jumped back.

"You're awake? Good. Hold on now…"

There was a click and the door opened.

There stood a man, old enough to look like my grandfather, but looked really tough. Like as if he's seen a lot of things in his time. His hair was graying, and he gave me a kind smile. A smile that looked forced on those lips, like when someone is trying to tell you in a nice way that your new haircut doesn't look too bad. Tough old bird. That's what came across my mind.

He was a tough old bird.

"I'm Dr. Samuel Loomis, and I'm going to try to make you better. I don't know if you understand this, but I'm afraid you're a very sick girl. But we won't get into that right now, I'll just ask you a couple of questions, and then we can make our way to the kitchen, where, I've heard, they are cooking up quite a delicious breakfast. So how about we get this out of the way quickly, and I'll escort you there?" his smiled widened a little, and he closed the door behind him.

I could tell he liked to talk a lot, and before he began, I decided to ask a couple of questions first, like, why he did he feel the need to lock me in a padded room?

And where the hell was I and whether I not was I being held hostage or being kidnapped or something?

"Um, Dr. Loomis?" I asked, trying so hard to be polite, and not chew him out right then.

"Yes, Ms. Reynolds?" he asked. Ms. Reynolds. I shivered. That used to be my mother.

"Uh, you can call me Avery. Ms. Reynolds sounds a little weird for me." I told him. Seriously, being called Ms. Reynolds gave me an overwhelming urge to put on a suit and start yelling at people to get me coffee.

"Alright Avery, what's on your mind?"

"Can you tell me where I am? And can you call my sister Domi? She's going to be worried sick about me. And if I don't get home soon, she's going to lock me out in the rain for seven hours, or dirty all the towels while I'm taking a shower, because sometimes she can be such an evil cow sometimes."

"Is your sister generally mean to you, Avery?" Loomis asked.

"No, not really no. She doesn't take the piss out of me like most other older siblings would do, and she doesn't really mind too much if I'm missing a term paper like my mother would've. Can you tell her I'm fine? I don't want her to get to worried about me. If I'm just being kidnapped, I can just tell her that, but I don't want her to think that I'm dead or anything like that."

Loomis looked down at me with a dead expression, the kind of expression that you knew no good could come out of it.

It was like a bad sign.

A bad sign like a wall of fetuses, cause when is that evera good sign?

He sighed deeply and asked me to sit down.

I did unwillingly.

"Avery, I'm sorry to be the one to tell you this, but you're in Smith's Grove Sanitarium. Your sister, Dominique, is dead. You killed her last night while she was sleeping with a butcher knife. I'm sorry."

I felt sick. Like throwing up sick. But I felt more angry than sick. I stood up abruptly and shouted at the creepo, "YOU SICK FUCK! Who do you think you are? Getting off by telling kids that their siblings are dead! Where's Domi?! I want to talk to her! I need to get the fuck out of here!"

I ran towards him, but he stepped out of the room. I ran after him, but a large bulky guard that must have been a celebrity's body guard caught me, and held me down away from Loomis.

Lucky, smart bastard. He'd do good to stay away from me, I felt like eating him alive.

How dare he try to mess with me like that.

He straightened himself out, and said in a clear voice, "I know it's a little hard to understand, Avery, but your breakfast awaits. I think we should get some food in you before we explain your new life here.

--

The cafeteria was like any other cafeteria in the world. Reminded me of my old school.

I got my hash browns and toast, with an apple and orange juice, and went off to sit in the more secluded part of the eating area. No way was I going to sit with a bunch of loonies.

I didn't belong here. I know I didn't. And they can talk and shovel me all the bull shit they wanted, I knew there was no way I had killed Domi, and that she was alive, no doubt worried sick about me.

I sat at a table where no one but a lone blonde boy sat. He didn't appear to be eating. He just stared at the wall like it was the most interesting and confusing thing in the universe.

I sat a little away from him and started to devour the delicious, but fattening and oil stuffed fry up potatoes.

I ate and loathed every one around me, when I saw Loomis came up to me.

I was perplexed for a moment. He had on that fake smile, but in his eyes, held utter fear.

That's when I noticed the blonde boy was staring attentively at me, like the wall was shit, and I was now the most interesting and confusing thing in the universe.

He wasn't really blonde, but a dirty blonde, as if his hair decided it didn't like its color and decided to dye itself brown very slowly. He was very pale, and looked a little younger than me. Fifteen tops.

But he was extremely bigger than me. His face was youthful, but I mortally scared of trying to get into a fight with this kid, which was saying something, considering I like to get into fights, it was a hobby of mine, and the bigger the better. But not in this case. No way. I would get knocked into next Friday by this kid.

Although he was big, he was slender, and toned.

And I know I'm sweet sixteen, and I'm supposed to be this hormonal volcano, but I think someone forgot to turn on the switch that made me 'Sexually Active.'

Even without sex, I found this whole love and boyfriend/girlfriend thing utterly confusing.

So I just didn't think about it, concluding it would make me age prematurely and that I would just make it easier on myself and die a virgin.

So this big, slender, muscular body did nothing for me, or the fact that the face attached to this body was super cute. I have a theory were I'm asexual, like a plant, and the only thing I would have to worry about is feeding myself.

Loomis reached me, and the boy that was staring at me, and tried his best to appear casual.

"Ah, Avery, I see you've met Michael."

I gathered he was talking about the boy that was gazing at me like I was the eighth wonder of the world.

"Whatever you need to tell yourself to sleep at night Doc."

He ho-hum'd and sat before us. "I believe you and Michael might have lot of things in common."

The boy didn't tear his gaze away from me when Loomis started talking.

"You both share a similar entry ticket anyway." he chuckled at his own joke, but I didn't find anything funny about being locked up in a loony bin.

"Why, did you guys kidnap him from his family too, for kicks?" I drawled, and looked at Michael, "I can understand why you're such a weirdo now kid, being stuck here with this quack for so long."

Michael didn't answer, he just continued to stare at me, and it was creeping me out, but I didn't show it. No need to make the poor guy feel any more isolated than he already was.

Loomis grunted, "No, what I mean is, both you and Michael killed a family member of yours. He killed his sister, like you, and with a butcher knife, like you."

I looked at Michael, searched for any sign of denial, found none, and turned the full force of my wrath on Loomis, "I'm seriously getting bored of that subject. You're not fooling me, and you never will. If you bring it up again, I'll hold it as a grudge until I finally get out of here, and one day you'll wake up to find your legs missing, got it?"

I stood up, Michael's gaze never leaving me, and I picked up my plate, "I think I'll go find somewhere else to eat now, in privacy, unless you want to follow me around to make sure I don't gouge someone's eye out with my plastic fork?"

--

Loomis never did leave me alone, and he continuously tried to get me own up to something I never did.

It made me boil up inside.

It's like when you're mother tries to get you to admit that you were sneaking a couple of twenties from out her purse when you know you didn't, or when you're sister tries to get you to fess up about breaking the head off her Barbie after you swore you didn't.

Needless to say, it was making me pretty furious, and it made the road to a lifetime in prison for 1st degree murder a valid lifestyle choice.

And every day, Loomis swore on his out-of-style trench coat, like it was the holy grail or something, that me and Michael had this deep connection just because we supposedly offed our sisters the same way.

So we had to spend an hour each day with each other, in his room.

I suspected Loomis was just looking for some way to get through to Michael. He had been admitted to the place when he was six, and he hadn't spoken since.

So, to piss the old man off, (and hopefully give him a serious medical condition) I just sat on a chair staring blankly at Michael, with a face that no doubt read that I really didn't want to be here.

After a couple of days or so of staring at Michael and not really thinking about Michael, (most of my fantasies included getting out of here, seeing Domi, and cutting off Loomis's head and sticking it on a car antennae and driving around) I noticed that even though he was staring at me the same way he did when I first met him, I realized he wasn't staring at me.

I know that when I stared at him, I slouched and my eyes glazed over and my lids drooped a bit, but when he stared at me, he was in sick fascination.

He sat up straight, and his eyes perfectly open, not wide open, but, open. And he seemed to stare through me.

And he was staring at the walls, and the building and whatever was outside this god forsaken building. It was like he was studying something both horrible and beautiful, and it was beyond human understanding. He was staring at something only he could see, and it was something no one would ever full understand.

I knew than, that I had an unexplainable urge to talk to Michael.

I wanted to understand him, not only to fuck over Loomis, because if I understood him, that would piss off Loomis really bad, and that would make me very happy, but because Michael was driving my curiosity crazy.

I didn't just want to understand Michael Meyers.

I wanted to know Michael Meyers.