Started: 04/05/11 1:49:22 AM
Author's Note: Supposed to be sleeping. I wanted to, really, but you all know how plunnies are: once they dig their teeth into your brain stem and release their creative venom there will be no rest until there has been either a complete mental breakdown or fics. As I like my sanity, as frayed as it is, relatively intact, you all get this instead. Sorry for the many of you that are disappointed. I know mental collapse is fun to watch. Reading about it will have to suffice for now.
This never should have happened.
Nny clawed at the wires digging into and slicing his flesh. He reared and thrashed, pulling at his confines until more and more blood slid along the wires from his back and limbs, making them slick. The all-consuming rage that fueled him blinded and confused him. A litany of expletives and threats were shot into the void of black that he laid suspended before; a marionette with reddened strings. No sight. No movement. No control. No power. How had he gotten here?
Creeeeeeeeeeeek.
Chung-chung. Chung-chung.
Whiiirrrr.
Above, a machine set in motion. Nny screamed and howled at the noises. If the operator was there, they made no attempt to answer him. More blood slicked the wires and fell into the void, feeding it. It was lavishing the taste of every drop, wasn't it? Demanding more, never sated. Would there ever be enough? A quotient waiting to be filled?
Not with me, not with me!
The stings pulled taut. His ankles and left wrist were pulled from below, his middle trapped by something solid and heavy, his right elbow forced out at an angle and then his right wrist pulled across his forehead. Nny's body was forced into an awkward salute. So horrendously wrong. The wires grated across his bleeding flesh and revealed bits of bone. He hissed when the wires in his back tore up another modicum.
There was laughter now.
A door opened.
"Hi there, Squeegee!"
The boy's eyes in the bed flew open and his little body went rigid. So amusing how just his voice sent the child into a fit of fear. It was a wonder his tiny heart didn't just tear open and start to leak blood into his chest cavity, making him all purplish and squishy like a fruit snack with too much artificial flavoring in the center. Why was he here, again?
"Please don't hurt me, Scary Neighbor Man."
Nny closed the boy's door quietly behind him. The smile that stretched his face twitched in the corner from the strain. No, he wouldn't hurt his little Squee. Not yet, anyways. He still had a while before he joined the ranks of the rest of the scum in the world. It was sad, really, that poor little Squee would become one of them. But such is life. Nny giggled; the noise sounded forced and made his throat hurt. He smiled wider.
Todd took a moment to resign himself to his fate before looking up over the top of his bear's head. Rotten fucking trash. Eyes so accusing like it has any idea what it's doing to him corrupting the child how dare he was going to—
"Why are you here?" Squee asked in a quiet, quiet voice.
Nny stared. "I don't know. What am I doing here?" His smile slowly zipped into a tight line.
Silence.
It must have been a while that Nny just stood there, staring at him, him staring back with wide, fearful eyes. Well, didn't he have an answer?
"You're covered in blood again. Did you hurt someone?"
He looked down at himself. Nothing was there. His shirt was clean, his pants, his shoes.
"What about your hands, hmm? Are your hands clean?"
"The fuck did you—"
The bear, Shmee, sat on the edge of the bed with his head cocked to the side. His padded legs dangled and swung idly as he spoke.
"You're hands will never be clean, Johnny. Your filthy, bloodstained hands. Do you understand this? Do you realize? A head so saturated with the corrupted ideals you cannot hope to grasp, just a puppet to be toyed with by a rouge figment of imagination. Do you see just how truly pathetic your disturbed little mind is?" The bear stood, pointing to the maniac. "You're just a sack of meat to be used. You have no control."
"Fuck you, bear!" he retaliated. "You would never understand how my mind works! Never could you see past the blindfold of your own egotism to even attempt. I control me. Nothing else. My mind is my own, my body is my own. And fuck each and every one of you that try to steal it away from me!"
"It was taken from you long before you ever came here, Johnny. Before the Sickness. Before the doughboys. You cut all ties with anything that reminds you of your own humanity, becoming a machine. A vessel. An embodiment of all the waste and debris that pollute the world." The bear sneered wickedly. "Why are you here?"
Nny still couldn't answer.
Red water flowed around his ankles in shallow surges. The leather of his boots repelled most of the seepage, but the skin beneath was beginning to feel a little damp. He should probably move soon, get to shore, but he didn't feel the need. The red water began to steadily rise up to his shins. It spilled into the tops of his boots. Well, he needed new shoes, anyways.
Something in the water bumped against his leg. Nny looked for it but could not see in the murky depths. He kicked his leg out, hoping to bump into it again, but the metal clove of his toe brushed against something else. Softer, more pliable. Whatever it was began to drift away in the rapidly increasing stream. He tried to walk towards it. Motions were slow and lagging in the water. He needed to hurry if he was to ever catch up.
Other things were speeding by him. What looked to be...hair. Teeth. Clothes. Eyes. Fingernails. He stopped. What was all this? These things looked so very familiar. Where had he seen them before?
Little bits and pieces of the lives you took. Of the souls you had no right to claim.
The red water was rising higher and higher. Up to his torso now. Paraphernalia of the deceased floated by. It was disgusting. Every bit that passed him brought forth unwanted memories. The entire point of killing them was to rid himself and the world of their presence. All these horrible people should have long remained buried beneath the layers of his subconscious and the dirt of his front yard. But here they were, stinking up the very air they inhabited. How had he not noticed the putrid stench before?
Water kept rising. His arms flailed and splashed, trying to keep from being completely submerged. The shore was no longer in sight. There was no returning to it now. Waves forced him underneath the surface again and again. Some of the liquid filled his mouth when he screamed then spilled into his lungs. He was drowning in the sea of his own creation.
What reality is this?
"I don't think I'm supposed to be here."
The man at the table looked up from his work.
"Oh no? And just where, pray tell, do you think you should be?"
"Anywhere but here," Nny said. It was amazing how calm he felt, hands bound by strong braided rope that attached to the floor. Somehow his wrists were already bloodied and sore, and his back was starting to hurt. He would really like to be able to stand up and stretch.
"I can't let you go. It took so very long to catch you. I wouldn't want to waste all my hard work when I spent so long to achieve it." He swiveled in his seat so that he faced Nny. It was strange. Pretty sure there was supposed to be a face there.
"Why me?"
"Why not?" The man sat back and sighed. "Well? I'm waiting."
Nny thought. "I don't know. But shouldn't there be a reason?"
"Karma's a bitch, that's the reason. You're gonna die here."
He tried the ropes binding his wrists again. He didn't have anything sharp on him, at the moment. He could probably start to gnaw at them. Might be easier to gnaw through his skin, however. Not as thick or tough to chew. A shiver made his hair stand on end. When he looked up the man was staring at him with cold eyes. There was no emotion here; it was the same as looking at glass.
"Who are you?"
"Your death."
"Shut the fuck up. You're impressing no one."
"Not trying to. Just stating facts."
He bit into the rope at his left wrist. The threads ground against his teeth in an excruciatingly annoying way. Not much progress was made. Bit into his wrist; teeth made it much farther in. Through skin it was.
The man just sat back and watched with cold, glass eyes, and gently folded his hands in his lap to watch the show.
The laughter wouldn't stop boiling up from his gut to his throat. The blood was draining down his arms and back. The wires shifted abruptly, positioning his body spread-eagle in midair. The pain was unbearable. The laughter never ceased.
"Why don't you stop?" the abyss asked in a voice that shook the very fibers of the atmosphere.
"Like I'd give you the pleasure!" Nny burst, then lapsed back into a fit of jarring chuckles. Each movement of his body shifted the wires to drag harshly along the wounds. The noises coming from his throat were a mixture of pained hisses and uncontrollable giggles.
"You only hurt yourself by resisting. It would be better for you to just give in."
In rebellion he only yanked at the restraints harder. "I can't let you win. I won't lose myself to you."
"You've already lost, you just choose not to accept it," the abyss said in a tone not to be argued with.
Nny ignored the warning, instead screaming, "So long as I'm fighting, so long as you have to fight me, you haven't won!"
"Hmm." Nothing was said for a moment, and Nny kept struggling against the wires. Finally, after a long while, "We'll see. You'll break soon enough."
"Piss off."
They were above him and below him. All the grotesquely rotting segments of human bodies long since departed. They reached for him through the red water that pervaded his lungs. Was he upside down or right side up? Nothing moved in a linear pattern. He was dying without the mercy of losing consciousness. Limbs too weak to struggle floated idly at his sides. All he could see was the red water. The red water around him. The red water flowing out of him.
It wasn't water, was it?
How did he get here, again?
Shmee was still sitting on the edge of the bed. Little Squee remained at the head of the bead, semi-shielded by his barricade of covers. He was looking at him, too. Expectantly. What did they want from him? He had no answers to give. Only take.
"How did I get here?"
Shmee grinned.
"Irrelevant. Why are you here?"
"I don't know!" Nny seethed, ripping the toy from the bed in a rush of animosity. But when he looked at his hand it was empty.
The bear laughed, his voice coming from the other side of the room. "Temper, temper. I would think that with your loathing of all things mortal, including emotions, you would be able to control yourself better."
"I don't hate my emotions. I hate the need that drives them."
"What about the need that results from them? All the killing, that derives from your emotions, doesn't it? A need to express yourself. A catharsis of sorts." He snickered. "It must get so terribly lonely in there, huh? Always being told what to do. Always being pulled one way or another. You need to be able to relieve the tension. You need to be able to vent. Because it's all you can do to prove you still exist in that hollow worlds you inhabit."
Worlds.
Blankly, "This isn't real, is it?"
"They're all real, Johnny. They all exist because you dreamed them so. They reside in your mind. The only question is which one you choose to dwell in. And of all the different realities, of all the different worlds, why are you here?"
He looked down at the blood seeping into the carpet at his feet.
"I'm not wanted anywhere else."
"You're not wanted here."
"I know."
The abyss was calling out to him. It cried in a voice too otherworldly to be comprehended. He didn't want to listen to it, anyways. He just wanted all the noise to stop, for all the pain to end. The suspended body hung limp above the black, black void that greedily consumed the blood that fell into its gaping mouth. All this time, it was just eating away at him. Absorbing, in each drop, a little of everything he was. It really was all lost, wasn't it?
The wires released, and he was falling.
"You're not fighting anymore," the man stated.
The maniac's head hung low. "Fuck you. I'm tired of fighting you. I'm so sick of everything. I just want it to end."
The man stood from his chair to stand before his captive.
"You're giving up your life."
"I'm going to let it end, not give it up. I don't plan on leasing it out or letting it go to the highest bidder."
The man with no face lilted his head.
"Then what, exactly, do you suppose will happen to your body if no one is inside?"
"It will decompose until it is nothing more than dust for the next asshole to trudge upon. Maybe if I'm lucky it'll go up into his lungs and cause an asthma attack that'll kill him."
The man gave a weak noise of approval.
"But you're too late."
Nny's eyes narrowed. "The fuck do you mean?" he demanded.
"You're waking up."
"What do—"
"You've been asleep. And now you're going to wake. Your time here is over."
"I thought you said I would die here."
Slowly, like tearing paper, his face split into a deranged grin.
"You will, just not today. And don't doubt it for a second, I will be the cause of your death."
"Another day."
"Another day."
"Doctor! Doctor, he's coming to!"
White, there was too much white light here. Where was he, yet another reality? All the movement was making his head pulsate like an amplified heartbeat.
"How did I get here?" His voice was so rough and broken, it hurt his ears. He wanted to claw the foreign sound out of his throat but his limbs still felt weighted down.
"Everything's all right now. You sure are lucky, son. Someone fished you out of that river, brought you here. We didn't think you were going to pull through on us, what with the blood loss from your wrists, the wounds on your back, and then the malnutrition."
The red water. Bleeding out into the red water. Suspended before the abyss that would claim him. The voices kept shouting at him. No, shouting within him. Never free, never alone. Never in control.
"I'm still dreaming. I'm still fucking dreaming."
"No, boy. You're here with us. Barely, but you made it."
"I'll kill you for this, you goddamn piece of shit! I'll murder you for doing this to me! I should have died! I could have been free! You fucker! I was so CLOSE!"
"Now settle down, you're just—no, no, no, no, no! Lay back down—nurse! Nurse, get in here! Sedate him, now!"
She never even got a hold of that needle.
Nny stepped slowly, watching the ground beneath his feet as it slid by beneath his skin. Ahead was the visage of the city he knew. Another illusion meant to deceive him. Another place his mind made him see. None of this was real. What was he doing here?
A voice: "You're not wanted here."
"I know."
He looked up.
"But I'm staying, anyways. Until I find a reality where I am."