AN: I finished this story (and will upload the rest of the chapters soon) but I couldn't decide on which ending would fit or was more logical, and I felt like I didn't write this chapter well enough and instead babied Sonic for what he did, so there are two alternate chapters for chapter 10. This one is the happier outcome, while the other is the more depressing, dark outcome, and I guess you yourself can decide which ending is better, as some people reading this story may prefer a happier ending or they may feel like the sad ending fits better.
Of course, this is probably against the rules as it seems like it's an interactive story of some sort, but maybe one day I may decide to just shorten it to one ending while I'm looking over this story again, even though it was not really an ambitious project but more of a small, side story to Schiza, and you can either believe in the story's moral of forgiveness, or you can believe in Sonic's decline after the trauma of what happened to Schiza.
"Are you happy now? Is this what you wanted, my little princess?"
She sat at her pink throne, with a crown made of silver and rubies and diamonds and sapphires, the finest in the world, and she sat staring at the elaborate castle he made for her at her command, and all she could think of was that she just wanted her father, her real father back to live in this castle with her, her mother being the queen, her father the king. But she sat looking sad, melancholic, and wondered if Sonic was truly doing the right things in the end. He was an angel, but she began to think of him as a vengeful angel, who wanted revenge for some past misdeeds committed by someone evil, but she knew it couldn't have been her father. Her father was a nice man, a working man, who simply tried to pay for his daughter's intuition, her bills and her school supplies, even if she hated school the one year she went into it before she was locked away in the quietest place in the world.
She could tell Sonic was reading her mind about school, and he wondered if she didn't want the oppressing school system in her world anymore. Children no longer listening to adults who truly didn't understand their issues, who continued to put them in this jail house, where they were forced to no longer be individuals but people who were nothing, nobodies who didn't have anything to stand out, a gray matching the rest of the schoolwork they had to do, blending in the white concrete walls, no longer children with the imagination, but dead in the mind, dead in the heart.
"I know Sonic, but…" She looked up in his eyes, the serrated edges seeming to separate her own eyes, and she hoped Sonic didn't think of harming her, but she knew he wouldn't. He was just carried away. Thinking that she was his, his daughter, even if she believed she belonged to the father she had known for so long.
"But school is there for a reason, Sonic. People like me need to learn. My mom and dad told me the school…system wasn't the best, but these things are going to change, Sonic. They'll become better. And if I make them gone, they won't be good anymore. They'll be gone, and no one can learn. And I…really don't want that. I don't want to take away what is happy for some children. Some like to learn. And I can't be mean and take that away."
He nodded his head and closed his eyes, tightly.
A tinge of regret began to fill in his head.
I don't want to take away what is happy for some children…
Her kindness. How she cared for everyone else. He never met such a child with such generosity. And he glanced back at the blade he held at his torso, the blade that was still stained with the blood of the sinful, the blood of those that possibly didn't need to be killed, simply for revenge.
Schiza's father. He was a disgusting man who defiled his daughter who he considered was beautiful and smart and brave. He hurt her. And he was his fury over what he did to her, as the blankets became full of not pink fluff and a safe place for her rest, but seeping of blood and semen, and he watched her as she cried, and he could do nothing. Nothing at all that he could to her father to make him pay. He wished his stitched self could suddenly rise and grip his neck and throw him across the room with his godlike strength, stabbing him in his wretched, cold, black heart. He had not even a small margin of pity for his father, even when he made him regret everything he did with the candies that the other angels gave him, and when he claimed the only way he could atone for his crimes was for him to die, as he attempted suicide by hanging himself before he was sent to solitary confinement, and Sonic thought he could grant him his wish, by stabbing him in the neck.
But Schiza told him that she would've rather had her father live with the regret than to be granted to die. And it was so unlike him to commit an assisted suicide, but he told him that he wanted to take away all those evil things from her, and even tried to kill another father who had drained this little girl of her life, but he could only do so little when he took care of her. He was ordered to only care for her as an infant, as her own parents were often away, at work and in the bars, getting drunk.
He still remembered her smiling, toothless face as he played with her. As he fed her. He wished he could be with her again, but she also grew up and had children, no longer allowed to have a guardian. It was such a short moment he was with her, and he missed it dearly. He wanted to touch those small, fragile fingers again and let her know that everything was alright. She could tell she loved him when she was a baby and even wanted her to replace her evil father and her neglectful mother, but God told her she was going to be a strong lady, and she wouldn't need his help going through her father's torturous abuse.
He couldn't forgive Him after that.
But this wonderful girl loved her parents. And she felt she was abandoning her of the ones who were truly meant to take care of her. He felt when he was with the other girls; they took care of him with their happiness and joy. But Annabelle wasn't happy. She wished to return home. And he couldn't bear to see a sad child, especially one that looked as if she was going to cry, even when she viewed the beautiful landscape of the beach, the ocean breeze keeping her eyes alive with the flow of salty tears.
She wanted to see her mother and father, her father now dead because of him.
He deprived her of what could've been a good father. He was depriving her of her mother, who was possibly mourning the loss of her husband. He tore away the world from her, a world that he claimed was so privileged, but she wasn't happy here. He could tell. She was sad, tired, and it wasn't a good place for her aching mind to rest, unlike a home she had known for so long, with parents who kissed her goodnight every night, told her stories, and told to keep a smile on her face because the next day would be so much better.
He took that away from her. He began to believe that he wasn't much better than the nurses at the hospital, telling her she couldn't use her creativity, else her mental illness would seep through her fragile skull and into the world.
He sighed. He knew that this delusion of his couldn't work anymore. His mind was so set to creating a new world for both of them to enjoy, but if Annabelle truly wasn't happy, he wasn't happy either.
And the acts he committed. He knew the man upstairs wouldn't be so happy about it. He thought he would've turned a blind eye towards the death of Schiza's father after he allowed the other girl's father to live, but he continued to believe that these fathers, all of them were awful pigs who only cared about their own orgasms, their own hunger for fresh flesh, but he knew Annabelle would've told him that she was never abused by her father. He could read it in her mind.
"Annabelle…" He got closer to her face, inside her cold cut diamond eyes, and she could feel the warmth emanating again, the golden ring of his heart echoing out to hers, and he leaned over and gave her a tight hug, a hug that she could feel herself enveloping into Sonic's body, his warm fur, his ever loud heart, and she wished she could stay in this hug forever, with her parents back home, with her pale speckled yellow home back, the mansion her father paid for with good, honest work.
"What do you wish for, anything in the world, anything at all that you desire? Obviously you don't want this. You don't want this castle by the sea, with your sadness so blue like the ocean we're next to. Tell me anything you want, anything at all, and I will grant it to you. I promise. I won't make you go through this anymore. You obviously want to be back with your real mother and father, and I can't deprive them from you, like you said you don't want to get rid of what is a source of happiness for these children. I can take away all the pain in the world that continues to stab you…"
She kicked open the door of the royal castle, her ponytail becoming grayer as she entered the rooms ornate with elaborate designs and white pearly walls and silver opal floors, and she could feel her skin becoming more dried like a prune with all the moisture sucked out, her saran-wrap becoming more loose. She feared that her organs would spill out, and the beast would know how dead, how decayed she was, how she was a corpse that was still alive, and her fingers were shaking, the gun was rattling throughout the halls, and she feared that any time now the gun who loosen from her grasp and she would fire at the rubber-encased walls and into her dead body.
Why, of course she could aim this gun at herself. She was dead enough already. Might as well complete the funeral, complete the dress she was wearing and make it black, that showed the midriffs of her knees, how chapped and dried they were because of the winter that seemed to have gone away like a flickering light.
She needed another cigarette. But her fingers rattled like the gun, the cigs constantly dropping on the ground that suddenly reminded her of bird shit. She kept dropping her lighter too, the silver encased top splitting open. She didn't feel this nervous about killing the bastard who killed her husband and stole her daughter. Why was she shaking, why would her fingers not work, why was her skin wrinkled and old, why were her eyes no longer as vibrant as they were, the colors beginning to droop away from her vision like a bleeding painting?
Her legs were weaker. She could barely run without her believing her bones would break. But she had a destination in mind, and no matter if she needed a cane now, she kept running, oh how out of breath she was becoming! There was not enough oxygen in the world for her lungs!
She could hear talking in the next room. The beast speaking to her little girl. It was quiet otherwise, as their voices were barely above a whisper. She held the gun in her wispy hands and eavesdropped on them, as she wished suddenly she didn't stomp out her cigarettes in frustration and decided to get rid of her pot collection that was in her room, because of her little girl that was in such danger, the little girl who she knew could have everything in the world now.
The voices were small whips of wind reaching her ears. She thought she needed a hearing aid now as she tried to listen to their peeping whispers, the beast doing something to her daughter that she knew she couldn't approve of.
"Sonic, I only made this castle because I thought…that was what you wanted. To make me live by the sea, by the seashore, and you would make me princess of the world. But I didn't want that. I just…wanted to go home."
"I know. I forced all those things on you, and I shouldn't. I was like your father, forcing everything on you when you didn't want to go. But if you tell me your father wasn't such a bad guy, I believe you. I can't believe in lies from you. But I've committed many horrible acts Annabelle, acts that I can't tell you why I did them, as you are too young to figure these things out. But Annabelle, I know what deep inside your heart what you wish for, and I will bring it to you, and you have to promise me that you will make sure that your mom and dad are protecting you and giving everything you need, otherwise you can ask the big man upstairs to take them away from you, and we will."
"Or CPS? I heard CPS takes you away from bad mommies and daddies too."
"Yes, them too. And your father…I will wish for you to make everything okay for him, and that he no longer has this dark secret that he's been hiding from you for so long, but you can still remain in your house. Your mother, she is okay, but she is sick in the mind, like you are, and I will wish for her to no longer keep this dark secret from you too. I can't grant that sickness away from her, but I can at least give her a somewhat better shot at life, and I can do the same for you."
"You mean I will have to go back to the hospital? Please don't say that Sonic! I don't want to go back to the hospital! They're mean to me! They give me these pills that make me not me! I have to sleep with belts covering me! Please don't take me there!"
He shook his head slowly, as if in disapproval of the hospital's methods of keeping her mentally healthy. He truly wished he could take her away from the grips of her schizophrenia, but he could at least wish she was in a much better hospital, a hospital that could understand children like her.
"I'll put you in a better hospital than that asylum they kept you in. Basically I'm going to make everything go back to normal, but you will have a better chance at life too. I don't want you in that cruddy hospital anymore either, Anna. They might have to travel a little bit to visit you, but it's a much better place. You don't need a hospital like that, my princess. You deserve better."
Her mother, although her hearing was failing, she could hear enough of what he managed to crackle above his whispers. That he took away, also, her daughter's sun and moon and stars, and that he was willing to bring all of them back, even her father back to life, and back to an ordinary life, except in a better hospital, a better way for all of them to live.
Regret. It changed people. She wondered what suddenly made him believe that he was after all the villain, the one who took away the hungry and lonely baby bird from the nest, away from its mother.
She still had an urge to shoot this monster, even if it was beginning to realize his errors. He was still a murderer, through and through, red blood through red blood that cascaded from her husband. As she lied against the door, she was losing her teeth, as each white shard fragment began to fall from her lips and into her veiny hands. Her hair was becoming unkempt, as the pony tail no longer made her seem young and attractive, but a hag, just like what she imagined Edward's mother to be, the schizophrenic loony that wore nothing but pastel blue cotton robes and slippers and her teeth were deteriorating and her hair was matted and her skin full of scars and insects that she claimed were planted by the FBI.
Her only son never came to visit her. But she immediately could come to mind what her mother looked like. Because Annabelle looked nearly like that before, listening to her voices, hurting her mommy and daddy because an evil voice told her to.
And that was why she was in the asylum. Because they feared the worst for her.
It was a terrible hospital, but it was all they could find in Terre Haute. She once was in a nice hospital, until the voices ordered her to try to attempt suicide and hurt the other children patients and she claimed the nurses were speaking with twisted, Satanic tongues, and she was admitted to the Terre Haute Asylum.
She wished that Sonic, this beast, could take away her insanity, but he said he couldn't, and he said the same to her daughter again. That God couldn't take away people's illnesses, and neither could he, because God wanted people to be strong, to conquer through them, because truly, God couldn't solve everything, and he wanted his creations to get through them, because he truly believed in them.
The gun was still lodged in her hands. But it was beginning to shake. Her wrinkled eyes were full of tears.
"Will God be mad at you for doing this stuff, Sonic? I…really hope you won't be punished…"
He sighed, closed his lids again, listening to the sound of breathing from the other door. "Unfortunately, I will have to admit that I've done terrible things. And I regret them. I will be punished, maybe not as severely, but I must pay my dues. Humans error sometimes because other humans error and do bad things to them, and this…was the case with my fear of you being abused. But you clearly aren't. But I think the important thing is that you're okay, and you're loved, and you're lucky, and that's all I want. Annabelle, I can tell your mother is suffering the effects of the curse of the castle to the adults, and I will let you talk to her before I go. I'm sorry, and I will try my best to make everything better again. But I can only do so much. Gods may have such great powers, but even they, can only do so much."
The door opened, as if the wind grew a hand and realized that Annabelle's mother was there, greeting her like a guest with a bow.
Her knees were tired. Her hands were tired, inflamed with arthritis. Her witch hands reached towards her, and she cried as she clasped Annabelle in her arms, dropping the gun by her feet. It didn't fire, as if by some miracle. The gun continued to lie, with still only one bullet inside of it, free of blood and anger. God was at work, she thought.
"Annabelle, I…" She brushed her silver hair with the stroke of her hand, and Anna could catch the hints of a few tears in her long stringy eyelashes.
"I hoped he didn't…hurt you. He hurt your father and I just…can't forgive him for that, even if he is bringing him to life. Just like I could never forgive my…"
She stopped. She couldn't forgive her father either, for the evil he committed. His evil fingers had damaged so much of her. Even if he was planning to have a better life, she would refuse to speak to him. And even if this Sonic claimed he would pay for his sins, she couldn't forgive him either, for his evil bladed fingers had killed her husband. She couldn't forgive them for the damage they both caused to her, her mind wrecking even more with filth with the worms.
"It's…" She thought of what he could've done to her father. Did he murder him? And why? Because he was afraid she was being abused? If he was going to be okay in the end, that was all that mattered, but she kept reassuring her mother that he hadn't hurt her.
"He was a guardian. A guardian who cared too much. I think something happened to him that made him that way. Like he told me stuff happened to you that made you ill. I think he didn't really mean to be this way, he's just scared. Like you tell me mommy, he got carried away. Too carried away."
Fear was still contained in his heart. He wanted to protect more children like he used to, along with Schiza, along with the other girls, but now he knew that was over. God wasn't going to allow him to be a guardian angel. He hurt too much to be an effective one.
"I'm sorry, Cassandra." She was surprised that he already knew her name, but she forgot that he was a god, a god that defended the unfortunate, but while Annabelle had an unfortunate life with her mental illness, she had good parents. And this god never realized that bad parents aren't always the case with the unfortunate children.
"I'm sorry, and I will make everything like the way it was supposed to be. You back with Edward, your husband. Both of you back with your daughter, who rightly belongs to you. And I cannot make everything bad go away, but I can at least make it a little better to deal with. I will take your daughter to a state of the art psychiatric hospital, and you can visit her once in a while, even if the travel is long. And I will make everything better for you too. You should also get some help, and maybe someday, you will convince your father can't damage everything in your body. I know you will never forgive me for what I did. But that's fine. You don't have to. Just promise to take care of Annabelle, and make her a happy and healthy girl. She really is wonderful, and I realized that when I was with her. I didn't hurt her, but I knew that I couldn't continue doing this. Just do that favor for me, and I will watch out for her, as much as I can."
Annabelle's hair began to regain her color, the chestnut brown returning, and Cassandra was no longer a wrinkled, stocky monster that had wiry hair and missing teeth, but she was herself again, her long pink arms pulling Annabelle closer, and they both laughed cheerily, as Sonic smiled gently, and with one click of his fingers, the whole room became white, empty, a vast void that devoured all the past events, the kidnapping of Annabelle, the death of Edward, the policemen finding out there was a tall blue mountain in the middle of the wilderness in Indiana, all those events vanished and dissolved away like acid, like a sketch in water, and soon, a new sketch appeared that God began to draw with his pen, a sketch that involved a much better life with Annabelle, Edward, and Cassandra, and a better life for Sonic too, as he promised to repent for his misdeeds.
—-
Annabelle woke up, the sunlight greeting her face. She was in a completely white bed with a pastel yellow wall, and her blanket wasn't too small, but just right, even larger than her body, and it wasn't thin, but warm, just like the blanket of stars that suddenly popped into her mind, but couldn't at all remember where the memory was from.
"Annabelle, it's time for breakfast! You don't want to miss having pancakes, do you?"
She rubbed her eyes, wiping them away of the old memories and the sleepiness of such a long slumber. As she stumbled out of her room, she asked one of the nurses what kind of hospital this was.
"This is McLean hospital. Don't you remember being admitted here, sweetie? I think the last hospital ordered too much medicine that made you tired, but we'll see if we can find a good combination for you. You must be tired after that long trip from that Terre Haute place to here."
She smiled. "Yeah, I had a long day. A very long day. But wow, Terre Haute never served pancakes! They always gave us something that always was cold and soggy."
"Well, get dressed then, sweetie. I promise you you're in good hands now. Terre Haute is pretty much for people who really do have issues but…you always seemed like such a friendly girl to me."
"Can I bring Sonic with me? He was given to me by some girl who I've never known but…I really like him, and I think we're going to be very good friends."
"Of course you can! Just make sure you don't get syrup all over him!"
She went in her room as she went inside the blue cupboards, her fragile little hands picking up a smiling, and soft Sonic plush that seemed to have luminescent eyes that were no longer blades, but a light that would shine for her, and make sure any darkness would never reach her, like the darkness that happened in times long past, times that were swallowed away by the sun and the moon.
And she brought him to the lunch room, clasped in her hands, as she watched the ravens fly away in the cold snow topped playgrounds, their caws unheard in her soft, fragile ears.