Lilli had never felt so trapped.
She had been locked in cabinets for not doing well in class. Kept in her room without dinner when she failed to complete her chores. Frozen in shame by scornful admonishment if she did anything even remotely wrong. But those times, she at least knew that she would be let out eventually, that any lost meal could be made up in the morning, that Mother Superior would grow tired of scolding. In those times, she knew in the back of her mind that the torture would end and everything would turn out alright.
But now, as she stood in the center of this dark office, the world was closing in on her. Unlike her taxing life in the convent - a life she never thought could get any worse and a life she suddenly wished she could return to - , uncertainty surrounded her.
A ray of moonlight caught on the blade in her hand, drawing her eyes to the glinting metal. Could she end everything here?
"Don't do it!" Came a familiar voice from behind her. "Don't do it, don't do it!"
Lilli couldn't find the strength to face her friends. Or were they her friends anymore? They were telling her to stop when they would once urge her on. And according to Dr. Marcel, they didn't exist anywhere besides in her imagination. In better spirits, she may have found the twisted irony almost amusing, that the only friends she had ever had weren't even real. The truth hurt, but it sadly made sense. Edna had been invented for the purpose of saving Lilli from loneliness, just as Gerret had been invented for the sake of justifying her inhumane actions as lawful.
As if on cue, he called after her, "Put the knife away!"
Unable to look at her hallucinatory allies for fear she might cry in despair, the girl was forced to look forward, where Dr. Marcel sat in his wheelchair behind his desk. Silhouetted against the moon and stars' light, Lilli could only see part of his face. When she looked into his only functioning eye, he returned with a glare and spoke sternly.
"Do as you're told."
Lilli looked back down at the knife. It wouldn't be hard to put away the weapon and submit to the doctor. And maybe it was the right thing to do. She remembered what she saw in the Valley of Unpleasant Memories, not only seeing the fates of her fellow students, but realizing that it had all been her fault. Capu, Shawny, Freeman...everyone was dead and she was to blame. She was dangerous and sick. She needed help.
Suddenly, from a dark corner of her mind, Lilli heard a voice. Occasionally, she heard voices like this, which, in hindsight, was probably another indicator of her poor mental health. But this voice was different. The other ones urged her to burn things and wreck havoc. This one had only one command for her:
"Continue."
The light glinting off of the knife entranced Lilli. At the convent, Mother Superior didn't trust her with so much as a crochet needle, and any other sharp objects she had encountered had been but simple tools to her. But now that she was really looking at one, she found she couldn't take her eyes off of it. The gleam of the strong thin steel was divine, like the creatures she had read about in Bible study. What were they called? Angels? Yes, somehow the knife reminded her of an angel: inhumanly beautiful, but strong enough to strike down anyone in its way.
Her gaze returned to the wheelchair-bound psychiatrist, a man who exerted power and commanded fear. A man with his reputation for cruelty struck fear into a child's heart with the mere mention of his name. But like with the knife, Lilli now was able to see him for what he really was: a crippled, half-blind old man sick with the belief that he could reform every reckless child in the world with the tug of a string. He had said it himself. He was defenseless. All she had to do was lift the knife above her head -
"Don't do it, don't do it!"
But wasn't that very desire, the urge to brutally murder a helpless old man proof enough that she was sick? The other children's deaths had been accidental, shielded from her eyes by blankets of imaginary pink paint conjured by her broken mind. Could she really kill someone on purpose - ?
"Put the knife away!"
Of course she could! Dr, Marcel was evil! He had done so many horrible things to so many people. And for what? To fix them? The Edna she knew was only a hallucination, but that hallucination had been inspired by stories she'd heard of a girl once imprisoned in a tall asylum tower. That girl had been real, or at least real enough to push Dr. Marcel down a flight of stairs. Lilli could finish what the real Edna Konrad had started -
"Do as you're told!"
But what about afterward? Where would she go? She had no family to turn to, or at least none that would conceivably forgive her. Her only home was the convent which had already been stained with her peers' blood. Would she be allowed back into a holy sanctuary after intentionally murdering this man or would she be struck down by a bolt of lighting once she stepped inside? No, she would have to leave, live on her own. But she knew so little about the outside world and such a sheltered life left her unequipped for survival. And maybe her crime here would embed blood thirst into her soul and drive her to kill again, maybe someone as innocent as she once thought she was -
"Continue."
She didn't care. Morals had been drilled into her from a young age, even more so when she came to the convent. But what good were following morals when you lost your free will? She couldn't let herself be conquered. The behavioral treatment would destroy everything she was and rebuild her as an obedient dog, a puppet dancing on strings from Marcel's grubby fingertips. It didn't matter if they called her a murderer. In an instant, he could be dead and she could be free. It would be as simple as -
"Don't do it!"
Dammit!
Lilli's head began to throb as the voices swirling around her grew louder and louder. A torrent of orders filled her brain, muddling her thoughts. She couldn't think with this noise. Hesitantly, she attempted to protest.
"Erm…."
People usually jumped in to finish her thought before she could get more than a syllable out. But this time, her stutter went ignored, trampled by the others' pleas and commands that continued to jumble her thoughts. They just kept repeating the same things over and over until she wasn't sure whether they were really still speaking or their voices were just echoing in her head. Their words seemed to create pressure in the room, like the very air she breathed was tightly gripping her body. Lilli was familiar with the feeling of crushing insignificance, but never quite like this.
"Sto…."
"Continue!"
"Don't do it!"
"Put the knife away!"
"Do as you're told!"
"Sto…!"
"Continue!"
"Don't do it!"
"Put the knife away!"
"Do as you're-!"
"STOP! SHUT UP ALREADY!"
The room went silent as all opposition suddenly halted. It took Lilli a second to realize she had been the one to speak.
"Very good Lilli!" She heard the voice of the old rebellious Edna she knew rise up from the back of her mind to encourage her, "Now let him have it!"
"That goes for everyone!" Lilli shouted. The voice did not reply and neither did anyone else. Even her hallucinations were too stunned to speak. She swung around to address them first. Their widened eyes alone reminded her of everything she had sacrificed and forgiven for the sake of a tiring friendship.
"You've just been bossing me around this whole time! Lilli do this, Lilli do that!" "But get this: I'm not your lap dog!"
Her words flew like needles into her targets, whittling their forms away. In mere seconds, Gerret had completely disappeared. Edna, however, still held tight to her corporeality, and pleaded with her eyes for Lilli to spare her. Unfortunately for her, any sentimental feelings had left the little girl. She would surely mourn later, but right now she could only feel satisfied at her traitors' demise. With one final look of death, the last of Lilli's false friends dissipated, leaving behind only shadowy nothingness.
She directed her attention away from their faded forms, and towards Dr. Marcel who could only gape at the previously docile girl. There was no one left to distract her, and she wasn't about to spend precious mercy on her chief tormentor.
"And you, Doc?" She hardened her gaze, ready to cut into the old man, "If you want to hypnotize me, you'll have to learn how to walk first! Because that's what I'm gonna to do now!" She was on a roll now. All of her pent up aggression spilled out like a fountain, "Your therapy is garbage! Why don't you worry about yourself grandpa!?"
Lilli continued to shout and yell for another good minute or so, listing his many faults and barraging him with any insult that applied until her voice grew raspy. Then she spat a few colorful words she'd learned from her sailor of a father before she stormed out, slamming the door behind her and taking one last glance at the doctor as she left. The look on his face made the burning in her throat worth it ten times over.
The girl stomped down the hallway, grumbling more curses under her breath. She felt confident and empowered for the first time in her life, but as amazing as it was, she was still fuming from the absolutely absurd turn her path had taken. Her past was already tragic enough, but now things had taken a majestic swan dive into madness. It wasn't fair. None of this was fair.
Only when she came to the stairs did she pause as the cell door at the end of the hall caught her eye. She gulped, and a host of new emotions miraculously pushed her anger down a tad. He had told her they were in her imagination, but what if…?
No no, it was as she had just said. They had treated her terribly, and made her do their bidding. If they really had existed, their mistreatment would only be even more inexcusable.
But...they were all she had left, weren't they?
The steel door was still somewhat ajar and a little difficult to push open. The bright overhead lights temporarily blinded Lilli and she had to cover her eyes until they adjusted. When they did, she was able to erase the last of her doubts.
The padded room was filled with piles of handmade Harveys. Every single one of them had a set of beady red eyes that stared right through whoever was unfortunate enough to be pulled into their trance. To think, Dr. Marcel's weapon in reforming bad behavior was a cute blue ragdoll rabbit. It would be laughable if Lilli hadn't experienced it first hand.
She could see lengths of blue yarn strewn across the floor and a stitch on the padding of the right wall, closing off the exit where the Edna Konrad had made her escape. But Edna Konrad was not here, and neither was Gerret. It suddenly hit Lilli hard that after every hardship and heartache, at the end of her grand adventure, there was no one left to congratulate and console her. As it turned out, there never had been.
Rage started to creep back up her spine again. It made its way into her chest and
built up in her lungs. Lilli had never expressed herself as much as she had in the last few minutes. All that she thought she knew had been obliterated right before her eyes, and in its ashes Lilli wanted to scream. She wanted to scream, no matter how much it hurt, even if she never uttered a word again. Teeth gritted, she took a deep breath and -
"Hello? Is someone there?"
If her lungs weren't already full of air, Lilli might have gasped. Startled, she looked around the room for the source of the voice.
Huddled and hunched over in the rightmost corner of the cell was an old woman clad in a long white dress. Her long thin colorless hair obscured her face, but she somehow seemed familiar. Clutched in her arms was one of the blue rabbits, only this one had a unique pair of felt cartoon eyes instead of the cold menacing red ones, gazing up at her in what she swore looked like fear. The whole sight struck Lilli as incredibly sad for some reason and for the first time, she felt pity for someone other than herself.
Abruptly, recent memories buried by her heart-wrenching epiphany resurfaced. A vicious mental battle of restraints and recklessness, pitting self control, honesty and cautiousness against aggression, irresponsibility and willpower. And in the end, Lilli had won and freed her own will from Marcel's control. But she had left the loser behind to peacefully bask in the realization that childhood was not a disease, but a blessing to be treasured even as an adult. Even remembering her caretaker's transformation, the little convent student could hardly believe her eyes.
"Mother Superior?" She whispered.
The woman looked up and smiled for the first time since Lilli had met her. "Lilli, thank goodness you're alright. When you walked out with that knife in such a daze, I was worried you might do something you would regret, especially after I heard all that yelling. That was you, wasn't it?"
Lilli knelt down by the soft-spoken woman. She was still trying to work into her head that this sweet elderly old lady was once the rigid Mother Superior Igantz who just hours ago was mercilessly admonishing her for raking leaves incorrectly. Unable to find words, she nodded and gave a hoarse "mm-hmm."
"Oh, no wonder you can't speak. This is the first time you've said more than one word, not mention so loudly." She gently put both wrinkled hands to the girl's cheeks, "Oh well, I'm just glad you're okay."
On any other occasion, Mother Superior's hand - or really anyone's hand - would have made Lilli flinch. But this time, it was a kind touch, a sort of sympathy she had never felt before. For once, someone didn't just pity her for her misfortune and lack of skill. There was a soul in the world that actually cared for her well-being and who understood her sadness. This person, this real person, once the cornerstone of Lilli's troubles, was now the only person who cared about her welfare.
The little girl in pigtails suddenly became aware of the weight her shoulders were bearing. Unlike the pressure that earlier had threatened to crush her out of existence and squeezed rage out of the deepest caverns of her body, it was a feeling that washed over her, flowing through gaps in her bone and flesh. Her throat stung even more, her eyes began to cloud with tears, and her breathing shifted from smooth to uneasy. Mother Superior drew Lilli into her chest as the tired girl began to sob quietly.
"There, there, dear." The nun stroked the girl's hair, "You've been through so much in so little time and you mustn't hold these feelings in. There is no shame in crying after a long battle."
Lilli would have done just that had she not again noticed the unique stuffed rabbit who had been placed aside. She gingerly picked him up, feeling the texture of his terry cloth fur. She was surprised to see his expression had changed, at least to her. His look of fear had been replaced by one of guilt. He opened his mouth a few times, but always shut it awkwardly without saying a single syllable. Lilli knew exactly why. Harvey was a purveyor of mischief and happiness, created by a prisoner who yearned for freedom and the return of her carefree childhood. He could cheer people up, sure, but wasn't equipped to handle such severe negative emotions. In time, she would reconcile with him, but for now his appearance had summoned a futile naive thought to her mind.
She sniffled. "Mother Superior...I do have one question."
"Anything, dear."
A hesitant pause. "Do you know anybody named Edna?"
"No, dear. Why do you ask?"
Lilli didn't respond. She began to cry again, this time uncontrollably. Her wails were so loud that neither she nor her new friends could hear the sirens rolling up to the darkened asylum.
Dr. Horatio Marcel was arrested that night for multiple charges including kidnapping, negligence, and manslaughter. In addition to the goldmine of physical evidence against him, it seemed every remaining patient was willing - no, eager - to testify to their overseer's crimes. At the top of the list of witnesses was a son abandoned by his father, two women kidnapped and hypnotized into performing unrewarded labor, and perhaps worst of all, a small helpless child clutching a stuffed animal, voice raspy, and eyes reflecting tremendous heartache. Clearly, she would never be the same again.
And she had never felt more free.