"Some of us don't belong here," Schizoid Sam had told her, fitting the last piece in the puzzle. His grin was crooked, his gaze far-off. "We're like the puzzle piece that doesn't fit." He held up the extra that had been in the box, the one that had nothing in common with the others, the fifth corner. It was a record completion - five hundred pieces in twenty minutes. Sam had that gift.
Wanda nodded quietly. She was twelve, skinny, bags under her eyes from the late-night medicating. She understood why, of course, she needed to be woken at precisely 2:48 every morning, so her medication levels didn't drop too low. She liked the calm feeling, so she didn't complain often. After all, they'd been doing it for years. After the first six months in the asylum, she'd come to accept their schedules, their reasoning. She associated the aide's soothing voice with the ativan's serenity, and she'd accepted that too, just as she'd accepted his physical examinations of her body. As long as she accepted, she could socialize, have her couple of hours a day in the playroom. She was supervised, yes, but it was the closest to freedom she'd ever known.
If she could only ignore the bars on the window, it would almost seem normal. Some days, she could remember normal if she squeezed her eyes tightly.
"I do," she finally whispered. Schizoid Sam fixed her with his eyes, which seemed to look right through her skull. They were incredibly bright blue. "I'm a monster."
"Now who told you that?"
"My father," she replied. She fiddled with the red puzzle piece, unable to rouse anger while under sedation. Then again, what anger could she feel? He had been right about her.
"He told you that?"
"Said I was a witch. Said I wasn't safe."
"So, he locked you in here? Sounds like he's the monster."
That was the moment the passivity left. The room seemed sharper. She was more aware of the weight of the plastic around her wrist, the clinical stench to the air. Could Sam be right?
"Don't let them convince you otherwise," he said in a conspiratorial whisper. "They're working with him to keep you down. That's why they drug you. They don't want you to leave. That's what they did to me."
"What did they do to you?" Wanda asked, holding her breath. Sam leaned forward; she reciprocated the action.
"They locked me here," he began, fingers twitchy as he slowly but methodically took apart the puzzle piece by piece, row by row. Wanda held tightly to the outsider, the red piece, to keep it separate. "Because I had to get rid of a very evil spirit. It took away my son, replaced it with an impostor, a changeling." His hands flew faster, never dropping a piece. "I [prayed to get rid of it, make it leave, make it give me back my son, but it wouldn't, it taunted me. Wouldn't do it. Said my son was gone, said I'd never get him back. Said I couldn't win."
"How did you-"
"I did what I had to. Did my research. I don't have a PhD for nothing. I learned the most thorough way to do it. I got rid of his agent, the changeling, the falsification, properly. Purification by water. Salting. Burning," he said, the last word a shriek. "And I lost, Wanda, I lost, because the bastard, the demon, he made them put me here, they're working with him, all of them, they're trying to keep us good people down, we know what's right. I got rid of the evil, but it escaped, it's working with them, they know, they're evil, don't take what they give you, you'll see what you notice, what you learn, you'll see what they're really doing to you-"
"Restrain him!"
"Tranquilizer, now!"
The aides were shouting, security was there with their batons, and Schizoid Sam was on the ground in a heartbeat, pieces of the puzzle flying everywhere as he flailed and struggled against the restraints they clasped around his body. Wanda watched, still too sluggish to react, though her mind raced with what he had said. She watched him get carted away, desperately wanting to help, but unable to make her body do so.
He was right. Their drugs were keeping her down.
The day aides tried to escort her away to her own room, but she tried to walk on her own.
They didn't understand. She wanted to be strong, like Sam. She wanted to prove she was okay.
She made it four steps before she felt the needle in her arm and saw the world slip from her eyes.
The first two nights without her meds were hell. She was disoriented; the world was loud, the asylum was scarier. She could only avoid taking them at night; she didn't risk skipping the three daytime doses, not yet, not while they watched her. And those early one? She didn't want to remember them. There were chills; there were the nightmares. She'd scream, she remembered that, she'd see the Old Days in her mind, and it made her room - her cell- seem more oppressive than ever before. She wanted her freedom, but her body, unused to those unmedicated periods, seemed foreign to her. Jumping from her drugged-up days to those terrifyingly free nights took some adjustments. But she survived. She always did.
With the third day came lucidity.
"It's okay, Wanda, it's just me," came the aide's soothing voice on the third night. She vaguely remembered him being there on the other two. He wheeled in his cart, locked the door, and strode to her bed, holding the cup of pills in his hand. He was tall, strong, with green eyes and hair so blond it might be white. He reminded her of someone.
She took them automatically, tipping them into her mouth. As he turned to throw out her cup, she spat them into her hand and surreptitiously placed them under her pillow. She'd dispose of them at her bathroom break in the morning.
"Good girl," he said, stroking her head. His free hand worried at his belt buckle, loosening it. "Now, you know what it's time for."
She, for the first time since her incarceration, hated him. She remembered every detail, the taste, the force, the lingering pain in her throat. The way her mouth felt stretched, the pain in her neck. And with her newfound clarity, she obsessed. She felt she would explode with the anger she felt welling up inside. The room took a red tinge through her tears.
She almost wished she had the drugs back.
The fifth day brought revenge.
He hadn't tried anything the previous night, but had caressed her head again, which made her blood boil all the more rapidly. Tonight, he simply tried to overpower her, held her down with a muscular arm while his right hand again moved to his belt. Bruises were already forming on her wrists. He nearly succeeded, if it wasn't for The Red.
It took over her like a spirit, like Sam's demon, but it couldn't have been, because it saved her. All she saw was scarlet, an overlay, covering the scene in front of her. The aide flew into a wall with a sickening thud; she stood from her bed as the sound of alarms filled her ears, but she paid them no heed. Her anger had a form; it was freed from its cage, and it would have its revenge. She now knew who she saw in the aide's face : her Captor, the one who had sent her here. The eyes were wrong, but she could still see him hiding there, in that limp body just barely coming to.
Two guards went flying as they tried to enter her cell. Wanda smiled, if it could be called that. She raised her hands with their nails trimmed too short and watched as they moved in front of her, watched as blood spurted from his arms, his neck, the crux of his scrubs. She laughed as his screams grew louder. It was music to her ears, though she didn't understand why she found it so amusing. She wanted to dance with the excitement, the liberation, she felt. She suddenly had power, and the dynamic was changed.
The Red played with her body as if she were a marionette, but she embraced its presence. It wasn't trying to subdue her; it forced her to reach potential. She adored the feeling as it coursed through her veins, seeming to shake off the last of the evening clonazepam stupor.
More guards were pouring in. She took no notice, just continued to laugh as she watched her hands trace cuts on flesh like crayons in her favourite colouring books. It was just like the playroom, but more fun.
Sam had given her the best advice. He knew the score, taught her to break the rules of the game. She owed him her life and his own chance at escape.
I'll get you out, Sam, she thought as the first of the tranquilizers hit her back, and then I'm coming for you Daddy.
You'll see, Daddy, what your little monster can do. Someday.
FIN.
Author's Notes: A dark piece after rewatching the Hex Factor of Wanda's asylum time. It's an experiment with a more morbid, uncomfortable scenario, and the continued development of her powers, which I believe would have been medically subdued during her stay. Reviews are wonderful, I always like hearing other people's reactions to my work. Thank you.