"Derranged"

By Shawn Campbell

Chapter One: Mal's Lament

"If only I knew what my heart was telling me.
Don't know what I'm feeling, is this just a dream?"

It was all a dream; an elaborate pipe dream that Mal's erratic mind had conjured to escape the dismal existence that she was forced to experience day in and day out. She had no Prince Ben here, no Auradon Prep, no bright smiles. Prince Ben never became a king that decided to let her and her friends out of the terrible Isle and she never fell in love with him. In reality, she had never even seen him. She just imagined how he would look, how he would smell, and how sweetly his lips would taste.

She had created this fantasy when she was fifteen, celebrating her fifteenth birthday in the dungeon beneath Maleficent's makeshift castle. With tears streaming down her grime covered cheeks, she unconsciously began to weave a new fairy tale- one where she actually had friends again like when she was ten. Those were better days for Mal. She had hung out with Evie, daughter of Evil Queen Grimhilde, Jay, son of Jafar, and Carlos, son of Cruella DeVill.

Maleficent had been in an unusually foul mood that day and when she found Mal playing at by the Isle of the Lost's shore. Upon seeing the children happy at play, she had flown into a rage. Mal and her friends were not disturbing anyone, just skipping rocks along the waters of the island trying to make it to the invisible barrier that separated the island's boundaries from the rest of the world. When a rock made contact with the barrier, it sent small ripples of bright orange shockwaves throughout the dome. With the Isle's dreary atmosphere and boring, beige buildings, this private light show of theirs was the closest to fireworks as they were ever going to get or could even fathom how fireworks looked.

Perhaps Maleficent was angry that none of her adult friends wanted to be anywhere near her. Perhaps she was lamenting her exile on the island and the ripples in the dome reminded her of how she was trapped there. Maybe she was angry that Mal was happier playing with rocks that she personally could ever be on that cursed Isle.

Whatever the rhyme or reason, Maleficent screeched and rushed down to pull Mal away. With surprise and terror, Mal turned to face her mom's gritted, yellowing teeth and gaunt greenish skinned features. She yanked at Mal's arm so hard that an audible pop was heard and her friend's faces turned pale as they realized that Maleficent had dislocated Mal's arm. Mal cried out in pain and Maleficent slapped her across her face for her troubles.

"Shut up you little beast or I'll give you something to cry about!" hissed Maleficent as she dragged her daughter away from the shore with only the strength that a frenzy could have supplied her.

The last Mal ever saw of her friends through tears and blurred visions was that day at the shore. She replayed the event in her head often as she sat through punishment after punishment from her mother. She was her mother's own personally voodoo doll. It was if hurting Mal would somehow hurt everyone that had ever wronged her. She seared burn marks onto Mal's arms, smiling as she pictured King Adam's arms stinging with the pain. She stripped her daughter bare and lashed out at her with a whip, taking delight in picturing the marks appearing in sequence along Princess Aurora's back. Mal had long since stopped trying to reason with her mother. Any attempts to appeal to Maleficent's logic resulted in a thick cloth gag being tied through Mal's mouth and an increase in the ferocity of the attacks.

Every birthday since age 10 has been spent in this wretched cell, Mal's wrists shackled above her. She turned 19 today, but only the rats were in attendance to witness the event. Unbeknownst to Maleficent, Mal had long since worked the chains out of their bolt in the ceiling. Every time her mother brought her down and locked her up, she waited until her mother was gone and then easily popped out the bolt from the stone hole. She would occupy her time in the cell pacing around and doing a few workouts to keep herself fit, though her limited food supply could only do so much.

It was only when she heard her mother coming did she work the bolt back into the hole and pretend to be helpless. She was sure that her mother would be furious to see that Mal wasn't suffering as much as she was capable of, but Mal was, though not fully aware of, reaching her last straw with her mother.

At times, Mal feared that she was responsible for everything, irrationally thinking that she had done something wrong every time she was punished and deserved it. These years in the dungeon had eventually forced her to think otherwise. Her mother was mad, deranged. The Isle of the Lost was not a rehabilitation center, nor is it an intensive care unit of a mental hospital. The villains and their unfortunate offspring have been thrown in a pit of hell, fighting over meager supplies sent over from the mainland. No one is offered sanctuary, nor are their pleas for mercy heard. The inmates of this prison become more dangerous and mad over time until they are only broken shadows of their former selves. Mal thought that if the mainlanders had any gumption, or any sense of decency, they would have just killed all the villains in one fell swoop. They could have done it easily, just stop sending food and let the whole island starve. Then again, Maleficent would probably end up doing that to Mal. She was keeping her in the dungeon for longer and longer periods. Was she even aware she was doing this at this point?