Title: The Broken Tables have Turned.
Summary: It has been years since Alice left Rutledges now she returns as a head nurse to save a patient from going over the edge-her old physician Dr. Wilson
Rating: Contains use of drugs, harsh language, psychological horror, violence, and descriptions of certain child abuse.
Chapter One-The Man in the Chair
The year was 1914, he couldn't believe how long he had been here, it seemed only yesterday that he had gotten the letter from The Superintendent stating that his services were useful for a traumatic child's case. Who would of thought that it would last so long-the needles, the restraints, the acidy drugs being shoved down your throat making you tense up and vomit them out only to be smacked around just for obeying a simple gag reflex; what other nightmares did he witness becoming a doctor to a mere girl's suffering at the firey death of her family, and a dreamscape where only she was the one to come out kicking and screaming and he had to watch like a stunned audience and do nothing about it?
But that was all in the past now
Alice moved on, she changed, she became sane again and then came back to set what was right.
And now HE was the one that was restrained by the leather and belts.
Heiryonous sat in the chair in the middle of a empty padded room. The sweat from his recent exercise involving breaking tables, pushing other inmates, and yelling profanity at the doctors had wore him out and made him hot and uncomfortable. How could it all come out like this, wasn't he a man of a once brillent mind, how could one...misstep be his undoing? Now he was dragged kicking and screaming into the padded room and strapped to a chair bolted to the floor. He was still screaming at the orderlies and nurses that carried him even after they managed to strap him down and proceeded out of the room shutting the heavy metal door behind them.
"No," he muttered,"I am not crazy...it was my father...and my mother...they did this to me, I will make them pay for it I swear!"
Heiryonous strained against the leather strap around his wrists, it burned against his skin roughly and he let out a hiss whenever the rough edges of the strap rubbed into his fleash leaving behind thick-lined lacerations black and purple with bruising. He didn't look at his straps while he struggled. The buckles and the hook through the holes brought back painful memories.
"Daddy no!" he cried holding his teddy bear,"that hurts!"
"SHUT UP AND TAKE IT LIKE A MAN!"
WHACK! WHACK! WHACK! WHACK!
His mother never coming to his aide as mothers ought to when their young in danger. No, instead she was in The Sunroom, smoking her cigarette and looking into her mirror paying homage to her once beautiful looks that she blamed Heiryonous for ruining when she was pregnant with him. Other times, screaming while he was getting beaten that men wouldn't give her a second glance anymore because she was drawn-out and worn. His arms raised up as a shield feeling every soft patch on him ripping open from the downward thrust of the sharp horse leather underneath his shirt. The wet sensation of blood bleeding right through the cloth as the bruises and blood vessels slit open so fragile and delicate against an all out physical assault by a raving abuser
One night while being beaten his cry of "I love you" was drowned out by the wet smacking of belt against body and the hellish shrieking of his mother.
They were the ones truely insane.
A single tear rolled down his cheek, everytime he saw a belt or a mirror he broke down and sobbed, raving that "Mommy and Daddy don't love me anymore!" wanting to break everything he could get his hands on. The man stopped struggling against the restraints. Just the quick unnoticeable pain that it gave him would remind him of those cuts and bruises that he made up for the headmasters and his friends at school. One story after another whenever they spotted a new one or asked about a certain one. He rolled off tales off the tip of his tongue so wild and enlusive that they either changed the subject or walked away in disbelief-which seemed to be his failsafe to prevent from answering any questions.
Outside, he heard footsteps walking back and forth. Eyes of different shapes and colors looking in at him from the small window on the door, everytime he caught himself looking up at one he avoided his eyes to make sure he didn't look intimidating and sent the orderlies in to beat and torture him as he had been going through in the past seven weeks. They were the ones that spotted his constant phychological fear of mirrors and belts. Mirrors they couldn't carry on their person but belts they had and they seemed to use just to make him compliant. Just one smack against the palm and Heiryonous was on his knees crying like a baby and it made the orderlies laugh that a once powerful and strong doctor of Rutledges was now one of the insane-a adled brained, broken, soul-shattered shadow of a sane person losing grip on the only thing that a man can still hold onto when all the chips are down, his mind.
"Alice," he would whisper whenever they were mean to him, "was this the nightmare you went through as well?"
She was here to... but not as anyone insane anymore...Yes...she was a good girl.
Alice came back to Rutledges after attending nursing school and rose up to the ranks of head nurse. As a woman that made a name for herself in this very building it was quite easy to realize how both respected and feared she was. The inmates like how empathic this once lunatic treated them, and she knew every drug and form of treatment suitable for this patient and that because she was there behind that contraption first-hand. Every one came to her for advice and dared not to question her. Even the most chauventistic of male doctors working there held their tongues when Alice challenged them, afraid of making Alice angry.
No one ever wanted to make her angry, no, not again.
The door creaked and the knob turned counterclockwise opening the door to the padded room. A man in his late twenties stepped in with a mane of shaggy blond hair and a red coat underneath his lab jacket holding a clipboard. He was tall, but not as big as some of the meaty orderlies but had enough muscles on his bones to not look like a scarecrow. His face was youthful and expressive always seeming to smile with sparkly eyes of inquisitiveness whenever he walked through the room. The blond doctor stepped in the middle of the doorway as if blocking Heiryonous's entryway on purpose.
"Good morning, Mr. Wilson," he said, funny how they didn't call him "doctor" as they used to, "I trust you are feeling a bit more calm than yesterday, that was quite a conondrum we had on our hands, tell me how are you feeling?"
"Who are you?" he asked with a dry voice.
"You sound hungry," replied the man,"I see the deprevation seemed to have calmed you a bit, I hate to see that happen to someone that was once a studious doctor such as yourself, but it wouldn't of been wise to feed you while you were still on your rage, oh my apoligizes, my name is Dr. Virgil Tewdwr, I am to be your doctor."
"A doctor hah!" Heironoyous chuckled,"you're just a little boy dressing up to play 'grow up' you don't look like no doctor to me."
Dr. Tewdwr bit down on his lower lip, this wasn't the first time he had been insulted for being too 'professional' for his seemingly age. When he first arrived the supervisor naturally assumed he was a child genius at the age of seventeen, Virgil did have that younger-looking boyish face, and if it wasn't for his University records to clarify his real age of twenty-five he would of been turned away for being too young. But even then he secretly hated it whenever anyone staffpersons or patients chided him for looking like a "little boy". He pressed the chart against his chest and looked over the one he recognized as Heiroyonous Wilson-the once doctor of Rutledges.
"Despite my appearence what you assume my age is," sighed Dr. Tewdwr,"I am still your doctor and know what I am doing-"
Yeah I bet you know what you are doing
"-and maybe together we can get to the root of the problem and help you in any way possible."
Wilson snapped his head up at Dr. Tewdwr,"Help me? 'Help me' what makes you think I need any help from some child playing fucking doctor! I don't need any help, I am a doctor too you know, I used to work here, I treated patients before you were suckling at your mother's teat! Why the hell do you think I need bloody help?!"
"I hate to relay to you the reasons you were brought in here..."
"Just tell me goddammit," Heironyous egged on,"indulge me, tell me what you know, let me be YOUR teacher this time!"
"Mister Wilson," Virgil cleared his throat,"I would refrain from any profanity since there are nurses present-"
"I said INDULGE me you stupid boy!"
Dr. Tewdwr bit his lip more roughly, Head Nurse Liddel would know what to do with this one, he thought wearily, seeing how she knew him. When Alice had first gotten his case file she thought her heart had did triple backflips through her chest. Dr. Wilson. Her Dr. Wilson. The smart young man that was there, hanging on to every sordid detail of her travels in Dark Wonderland, working day in and day out to the bone to get each medicine right to set her brain on its track and pull her back from the brink of insanity. Even after so many times she had gone off and assaulted him on more than one occasion even attacking him while he slept. Most would just pack their bags and leave Alice to her mental doom but no not he, he still stayed, grim and determined to remain until she was declared legally sane.
And now he was in the same boat as she was!
While Dr. Tewdwr was being insulted and talked down to by her old friend, Alice was in his office alone; save for a canary trapped inside a silver cage hanging on a hook and pole next to his bookcase singing a beautiful melody. Her head did a double look when she caught Heirnoynous's old photograph of himself back when he was in his thirties. Now older than that with a silver streak of hair here and there. She sat down in the chair and slowly opened the folder reading into his background and profile.
Name: Heirynonous Quinn Wilson
Age: 43
Birthplace: Sussex, England
Alice skipped down to the boring physical detail and read into his background and diagnosis.
...only child of Mister Ambrose Wilson and his wife Caleigh Norwich-Wilson. Father works for a Insurance Agency high in the firm and his mother tutored French and Latin on the side. Upper milddle-Class. Heirynonyous attended Hawksworth Boys School where the headmaster as well as his teachers and peers began to notice a odd behavior socially and emotionally as well as mysterious cuts and bruises on his face and hands. He also started acting out in class whenever the teacher would appoach him with his rular to answer a question on the board he would scream and run into a corner clawing the wallpaper like a trapped game animal. When contacting his mother about it she made no comment. He also seems reclusive and tends to isolate himself around the boys craving solidarity rather than companionship with those his own age. There seems to be no difference in the sex for even he expresses the same behavior when around the young girls as well.
On March 15, his father had token his son out of school by his own hands and all contact with the family had ceased...
It was the same stories she had heard while being a inmate in Rutledges, parents abusing thier children, children scarred from the torments of abuse and anguish, she never recalled being able to relate in a situation such as that. Topics of the sort where unheard of and not spoken openly in public places. She scrolled down Dr. Wilson's past and reached his diagnosis sheet.
...violent outbursts (fortunely not directed at his wife or loved ones), and fits of anti-socialism seem to be how Hierynonous's wife Nyx described it. During a dinner party at a friend's estate, Heirononyous started getting restless, Nyx chalked it up to "boring dinner talk" but then he started getting out of his seat and walking around the empty rooms. Nyx covered by saying that he must of needed use of the toiletries.
The silence was not uncommon amongst the guests mostly eating and allowing thier stomachs to rest. Hierynonyous had disappeared into the drawing room from what Nyx witnessed and had wandered around in the area for about ten minutes when they heard the sound of breaking glass and a man screaming at the top of his lungs. The host and Nyx as well as a few other men ran into the drawing room to find the carpet littered with broken glass and puddles of blood. On his knees was Hierynonyous Wilson slitting his wrist with a shard of broken glass. As help was called to calm the panic of the other guests. Nyx saw a broken smashed mirror hanging over the wine cabinet and a heavy amount of blood covering the left of Wilson's hand. From what was gathered he had exploded into rage and with his left hand smashed the mirror and proceeded to cut himself with the biggest and sharpest piece of glass he could get ahold of. The crying and screaming was a combination of his mental anguish and the pain caused from his self-inflicting wounds...
Alice slammed the folder shut already memories of her own self-mutilation were beginning to surface. She shut her eyes and tried to block out the moment she buried that sharp spoon into her wrist drawing a fontain of blood over her hands and onto the floor of her cell. Alice shook her head and pushed the file away from her, getting up she straightened out her long gray dress and beige apron and tucked a piece of her bunned up auburn hair up behind her ear away from her eyes.
Her body was a remarkable change that both men and women noticed around the asylum. Comparing Alice's current form now to that of her anoxetic patient self and for good enough reason. The appearence of her body was properly slender and curvier than being a straight out bean pole. Her face was warmer and healthier looking and her eyes sparkled with life and promise. She figured herself to be about seventeen when she entered Rutledges as a patient but now she returned at twenty-three to administer the same help she wished to give those that were under her distress as she went through. Taking over for Nurse "D" (aka Delilah being her full name) when she retired Alice took the responsiblity of being in charge of almost seventy nurses with honor.
But yet certain places and areas brought up lingering painful memories.
"The year 1903 was when he started cutting himself at that dinner party," she whispered to herself as she made her way to the door,"four years after I was released, how, oh god what has happened to you my dear doctor and friend...?"
She opened the door and walked out into the hallway.
"What...what is happening to you..." she muttered under her breath.
Her boots echoed off the walls as she walked through the halls of Rutledges Asylum doing her rounds as Head Nurse of the Institution.
TBC
This my first chapter so I hope you all like it so far. Reviews are appeciated but honest useful ones not ones that can be deleted at a moment's notice.
I also toyed with the ages a bit. I imagined Dr. Wilson from the casebook being in his early thirties when he took Alice and I went by the late 1870 years to be precise, so he would be in his fourties by the time Alice was in her twenties as well (the same age as my orginal character Dr. Tewdwr) This is based on part of the casebook as much as I could.
