Chapter Six: When It All Falls Apart
For the next few weeks, Olivia felt more dead than alive.
Furniture was not replaced, in the case she decided to break them all over again. Food slipped in through a small slip on a tray, but Olivia had never eaten anything that she didn't make since she was seven, and she didn't start. All of it went uneaten, excluding pieces of fruit which she cut up for a makeshift salad and the drinks that came along. With nothing to throw around and a throat too sore and scratchy to shout, she had to settle for pacing around fervently and snapping the remainders of her once whole furniture. She organized things, carefully picking up glass and stowing it away so she wouldn't step on it and use it for a knife. Wooden pieces too big to snap were laid out carefully, like firewood. She had matches, but in case the smoke caused her to suffocate she kept them away in the connecting bathroom. She moved her "nest" to the tub, and arranged it until she fit snugly inside. For baths she lifted it out, bathed, dried the tub and set up her bed again.
Very soon she ran out of things to do.
Her last shout that had cracked out of her hoarse voice on her first day seemed to silence everything else. Whenever she tried to say something to herself, it choked and came out as a squawk. The sheer shock of her forced arrival had taken a toll for the worse. If she wasn't mysteriously exhausted, she was shaky and jittery. She would twitch and jerk violently for hours at a time. And what was worse is that she'd actually forgotten what she looked like.
A hand mirror was in the bathroom, stashed away and wrapped up in a towel. While she was dying to remember what she looked like, it was terrifying. With all the dark corners, barely illuminated by the hanging light, she expected something poisonous to creep out and change everything in her sleep. It had been two weeks since she had last seen a real tree or real grass, or smelled fresh air. When she slept, she would remember that beautiful scenery and reach out, only to feel the cold tiles of the bathroom.
She was frantic. She examined the door up down and sideways, but not even an ant could squeeze through. The hair on her head grew long and wild, she had a comb but could barely get it through the mess. She was afraid to use the glass. Her horn and scrapes had healed, but as she put a hand up to the once cracked horn, she still felt the dent, and wondered if that first mark of defeat meant she was truly gone. She pulled her hand away, and let it trail down her face.
But it was not her hand. It couldn't be.
The hand was bony, nails cracked and chipped. The skin was pulled taunt and pale, her toughened knuckles standing out like leather on satin. Her palms were red and peeling. She felt at her face, and nothing felt the same. She felt like a lion wrapped in a monkey's skin. Desperate to assess the damage, she finally gathered up the nerve to pull the mirror from the towel and looked at her face. But it wasn't her face. It wasn't even close.
What was once a strong, sharp face, was dull, defeated. Her hair flopped about her face like a mourning veil, and her teeth looked lopsided, like the had lost their way. Her eyes were baggy and looked like they were falling out of their sockets. Her face was wide in horror and disbelief. Olivia had never seen such a defeated looking person in her life. It was like the room. Everything was falling apart.
The mirror dropped with a crash to the floor as she stumbled backwards out of the bathroom. Her heart beat furious and wild in her chest as she fell backwards onto the floor. She was unconscious before she even hit the floor.
Outside of Olivia's tiny world of madness, anxiousness ran high. Hellboy was angry, even he was treated better at the Bureau and he had been older and much more adapted when it happened to him. But Olivia, understandably she was mad when her parents gave her away, but she was still young. She hadn't had outside contact for three weeks now. What happened inside was a mystery. Abe did routine checks on the door to ensure she was alive and healthy, but it was all barely so. She was in a juncture between the tormentors and those they tortured.
Abe was the worst about it. He had been requested to do daily check-ups to insure Olivia had not gone to extreme measures to rid herself of the torturous chamber, placing his hand periodically on the door. And everyday, beyond laid a creature so defeated, the Hellboy had hardly needed to crack her horn. She was forming cracks all by herself...falling apart like broken glass. And as he laid his hand everyday to feel that wretched, tortured prescence, it was even harder to lift it and confirm that she was alright...because she hardly was that.
That ay, he scarcely was halfway down the corridor leading to her room when he heard the smash. Looking quizzically at Liz and John, whom accompanied him everytime as a security measure, he hurried down the hall. Hurrying to the door, he slapped a hand to the door, before instantly whipping it back.
"Olivia's in critical condition! Nervous breakdown-go, go, go!"
Without needing another moment, they quickly unlocked the door. The room was a strange mix between orderliness and chaos. In the madness laid the culprit, face wide with horror and shock as her heart thudded violently in her chest. Picking her up by her legs and arms, Liz and John rushed her to the infirmary. Abe remained behind to look over the damage Olivia had caused. The wood had been gathered in a corner, the glass in another. The bathroom door remained wide open, the broken remains of a hand mirror shattered on the cold tile. Abe cautiously picked up a large shard, and saw for an instance, the terrified face of Olivia. He set it down and walked hurriedly to his tank.
Although he did nothing, he felt like he had sealed a noose around Olivia's neck.