Storm Of The Heart
Chapter One
Raindrops pelt down against the glass of the only window pane in the room in which he sits. His gaze is directed up at the skylight high above his head. The rain is harsh, driven, with each drop slamming into the thick glass as if they are miniature bullets shot from the sky. Every single one impacts deep inside his chest. His heart aches and burns with their arrival. But his mind does not know why they are so painful.
The rain's rhythmic sound is his sole companion here. He wonders why it is not more comforting. It seems to whisper to him – seems to beg him to believe that he has not gone insane.
There are fainter whispers too – embedded in the storm – made barely audible by the onslaught of a torrential downpour. The ones that tell him he needs to fight for the truth – that there is something precious out there that he has lost and needs to find again. The ones that plead with him to believe he is being kept from everything that truly matters.
But he questions the veracity of the whispers. Seems he would remember if something like that existed in his life. Certainly he would know about it. He comes to the conclusion that it is simply his own wishful thinking echoed back to him by the storm. These are simply plea filled whispers – creations of his own lonely heart. Either that or he has edged over into complete delusion and insanity.
Dim images blink off and on at the fringes of his mind. They arrive and depart so quickly though that the details always slip from his grasp when he attempts to hold on to them for longer than a heartbeat. Mostly he is left only with their residue - impressions and fragile snapshots.
A woman's laughter floats through his mind followed by the sensation of her embrace. There are other happy voices laughing too. These ones are more youthful. Their happiness always brings a smile to his lips and tugs at something deep inside his heart.
There a few hazy images that cling to his mental sight. The pictures are so clouded that any detail is masked. There's one of a child playing – a little boy. Then an image of a woman's elegant hand comes to him. He cannot see her face just her hand and fingers. She wears something on one of them but the detail is fuzzy. But its metallic surface catches the light and creates a warm glow. He would swear it is a wedding band. But the haziness of the image and the glow created by the light wash out its details.
There are other images but they are just as mysterious.
He has no memory to connect up with these fragments. He has sat for hour upon hour searching his own mind for where they reside. He always comes up empty handed and saddened. What little memory he has explains none of these things. There is no evidence to support that these fragile happy sensations are nothing more than a creation of his isolation and loneliness here. He has made them up like a child whose need for companionship brings about imaginary friends.
There is nothing beyond these walls for him. As much as he loathes this place it is all there is for him. Those happy laughing voices don't exist. They were nothing but a figment of his imagination or insanity or perhaps both. Sadness clenches his heart at the realization. Then he thinks that he must be really pathetic if the loss of imaginary companions leaves him feeling completely alone.
The woman who says she's his mother insists that this is where he belongs and that his true place is at her side. That he is better off here and in her care. He doesn't particularly like her version of caring. It has been nothing short of heartless and humiliating. The thought is interrupted as a sharp click resonates inside the sparsely decorated room. This loud click sound always accompanies the door to his room being unlocked from the outside.
"Good evening my dear Victor!" Irene offers as soon as she appears at the threshold to his room.
He simply glares at her as she enters and approaches him. Her two shadows, each a brick wall of a man, have entered as well but remain stationed near the doorway.
"You shouldn't greet me with such distaste. You need me after all."
"I need you like I need another hole in my chest," he responds referring to the now healed wound. Just another thing he doesn't remember – the shooting. They had told him that he had been accidentally shot by security at the facility. He had gone somewhere within the building he was not supposed to be triggering an alarm in the security center. Guards had arrived and in the darkened room didn't realize it was Victor and he was shot – a single 9mm bullet in the chest. Since the facility has everything including a medical area he didn't need to be taken elsewhere to be treated and recover.
He doesn't remember the shooting and wonders how that could be possible. He questions aloud too but all his mother tells him is that he's special and because of that he doesn't remember things very well. There was a vague mention of trauma causing such reactions as well.
"Come along now. It's time for your session," she quips and starts towards the doorway. Only to shortly turn back when she senses he is not obeying.
"We've been through this before Victor. I know what is best for you. You will be better if you trust in that and come along."
He knows what she means. Every time she comes to take him to one of these sessions he refuses and that's when her shadows take over the convincing. The one that is standing to the right of the doorway now, Clyde, had given him a bloody nose the last time around as he had tried to fight them off and keep them from taking him. He always remembers the fight before the session but never the session itself. All his so called mother would tell him was that she would take care of him and to trust her. When she says it his instincts scream at him not to buy it for one second. And he doesn't.
Clyde steps forward towards where he sits and stops. Crossing his arms over his chest he speaks.
"We always win Victor. Why not do this the easy way for once?"
"Go to hell!" Victor snaps back.
So with that the three, Victor and the two brick wall like men, embark upon their struggle. Even Victor knows the man had been right. They always win but something told him never to stop fighting. He is not exactly sure what he is fighting for but at the very least he fights for his imaginary companions. With each passing session they come to him less and less frequently and more and more faintly. As pathetic as it is he does not want to lose them. He fears once he losses them they will be gone forever.
Even his best effort could never overcome the advantage the other two men have upon him - leverage for the most part. He blames his failure on being trapped in the wheelchair with both legs paralyzed, a result of that bullet causing damage to his spinal cord. His mother had broken the news to him after he had awoken from the shooting and didn't have any feeling in either of his legs. Then she had given her version of reassurance suggesting that perhaps it was for the best since he wouldn't be able to make it on his own outside the facility anyway and everything he needed was here. He didn't need his legs they would only cause him to want to stray from where he belonged.
He feels like an idiot which actually backs up his mother's claims that he's not very bright and that's why he needs her. He feels like an idiot but he also feels like he's being manipulated.
On the other hand she reminds him that he is capable of doing horrible things and this is another reason he needs to remain here. Somehow he knows part of this is true. He can feel the anger that simmers under the surface – can feel its power. He knows that the capacity for doing horrible things is the truth.
And a distant piece of his mind wonders if isolation here in this place is his penance for the twisted darkness that lurks inside him.
Another piece of him is tugged at relentlessly to fight his way to something out there outside these walls somewhere that brings out the good in him.
So he struggles against Clyde and Avery, the two massive brick walls he can never manage to overcome. This time is no different as they subdue him and restrain him to his chair.
"We have work to do!" Irene remarks once all is still in the room. And with that Victor clings to hope that when he next returns to this room his imaginary companions will not be forever lost
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Tea sits at the table in the living room and taps at the keys on her laptop. After a few more strikes of the fingertips she closes the computer and blows out a weary breath. Using both hands pressed down against the tabletop she propels herself into a standing position and slowly wanders the few feet to stand in front of the glass doorway that leads outside.
The rain is a mere pitter patter against the glass as it had begun only a few moments earlier. It won't remain so for very much longer however. She has checked the weather on the internet and Llanview was due to get quite a storm. Actually it looked like Llanview wasn't alone – a good portion of the country was getting rain this evening according to the radar map.
She is alone in the house since Daniella is staying over at La Boulaie for the night. Tea is grateful that Starr has been such a good sister to her daughter during the past few months – especially since they have been tough ones at times.
Tea's fingertips fall away from the pane of glass and land gently upon her stomach. Her hand makes soft soothing circles there. Her pregnancy is nearing its end – her due date is rapidly approaching with the passing of each new day.
She is both excited and terrified. The excitement is the more often present of the two. She smiles faintly as she wonders if the baby - which she secretly feels will be a boy - might have Victor's eyes or smile. The terror comes when the thought of giving birth without her husband there creeps into her mind.
Shoving the thought from the forefront of her mind she turns away from the window and her gaze lands upon the floor in front of the couch. At that moment the rain intensifies becoming harsher taps upon the glass. She glances back over her shoulder for an instant to watch it coming down. Then twists back around. Her eyes once again find the area of floor nearby the fireplace and couch.
Some had gently suggested to Tea that she should move out of the house. That maybe it would bring her some sort of closure. She could not bear the thought of it at least not yet. Victor had died in her arms in this very room. She had seen the departing haze in his eyes. She had felt him leave.
Even though the house was emptier than it once had been something lingered. The connection she and Victor had shared especially in that last moment remained presence in the house. Some nights it embraced her like her lover's arms had done so many times. Other times it was a fainter presence – just a wisp of warmth swirling in the chilled night air.
Leaving the house would have meant severing that connection. So she would stay as long as it lingered. And depart if it ever disappeared.
"I miss you so much Victor. I still can't believe you're gone," she whispered.
What she had told John McBain had been the truth. She had been convinced that nothing could ever kill him. Nothing could ever truly crush such as fiercely stubborn and endlessly fighting spirit.
It was an illusion shattered one dark night when he had vanished from her life.
That night had been much like the current one. With that thought she turned back to the window and as she watches the sky cry she cries with it.
To Be Continued...
Author's note: Many more familiar characters to come in this story including Vikki and Todd.