Chapter 14

2014 – Five Years Later

Dr. Garett Snow sighed, allowing himself one more minute before letting Eddie Gluskin in. Among all the patients he had met in his five years of working in Mount Massive Asylum, none of the patients were as bad as him—except for Billy Hope, but he had been placed under the exclusive careful watch of Dr. Wernicke. Ever since the hive underground had been successful and Hope and Gluskin had begun to progress in their lucid dreaming, they had been working Gluskin to the bone after keeping him in the dark for the first three years he was here.

"All right, send him in." Dr. Snow spoke through the intercom. After a few seconds, two guards dragged him in. It had been two years ever since they started sending Gluskin through the engine, and it was Dr. Snow's job to keep track of how Eddie was doing. In the process, Eddie had lost so many scalps that his black hair only grew on top of his head, his eyes were hollowed, and traces of bad rashes lingered along his face. They pushed him down on a chair, chaining him to it.

"I see your rashes have began to recede since the last time we spoke." Dr. Snow began.

"Oh—oh yes—yes." Gluskin smiled weakly, but forced himself to grin. "They've stopped using latex tubing just as I've asked. I've also been learning how to control my dreams. I-I remember now—that doctor is dead…those nurses too!"

Dr. Snow sighed. The fact that Gluskin could smile while saying that was a big sign he was lying. A part of him felt sorry, thinking that Gluskin believed successfully advancing to the Morphogenic Engine would release him or something. After everything he's seen, he'll never leave. Dr. Snow considered himself lucky to have a lawyer for a wife who taught him about loopholes that were technically truths—Gluskin had admitted that he remembered the dead bodies of the staff he murdered in the hospital, but he never claimed a hand at it."We'll get back to that in a while."

Gluskin nodded excitedly, and Dr. Snow continued. "Now, after almost two years of the engine, can you finally recall everything—or at least, most of the images you see?"

Gluskin's smile faded. "It always starts with something different, but the fact that it makes me feel happy stays the same. First, I just see moving images, like blobs moving around a screen that sting my eyes. And then I see a good dream…"

"What are the good dreams you remember?" Dr. Snow pushed on.

"Well…there's this girl you see," Gluskin blushed. "I'd be different things with her—happy things. I can tell she loves me, and the feeling I get give me reason to believe that…that I love this girl."

"What's her name? What does she look like? What do you do with her?"

"Well, she never really speaks so I don't think I know her name, but I can hear her calling me sometimes in the dream. She's beautiful, doc—her hair and eyes are brown, taller than normal girls, but a few inches shorter than me…"

"And the things you do?"

"I remember…beautiful weddings." Gluskin sighed, smiling at the memory of his dreams. "Lying in bed with her, making sweet love, or sometimes just sitting next to her, holding her hand—sometimes, we're posting photos of each other on a white wall in a room I can't recall. That's the good part."

"Good." Said Dr. Snow. Dr. Snow knew the woman was Marianna Gluskin, Gluskin's late wife who died giving birth to their twin sons. He had read the police report on Gluskin, and knew that the room was probably the apartment he used to own. He took note that Gluskin finally lingered long enough in that good state to remember what he didn't know was his past life, and wrote that they have that initial good dream phase removed. "Next?"

Gluskin's face darkened. "And then I dreamt of…my father came into my room. My father—and Uncle Willard carrying a camera. He put a handkerchief on my face, and I smelled something funny. The next thing I know, father was thrusting his manhood into my behind and Uncle Willard's in my mouth and…"

Dr. Snow noticed Gluskin becoming more agitated, and looked at the guards to make sure they were alert. "How would you describe it?"

"Vulgar." Gluskin spat. "And then these four sluts were murdering that poor girl and her babies—those babies were mine, aren't they?"

"Your guess is as good as mine." Dr. Snow lied. "What else?"

"They just kept killing her," Gluskin said gravely. "And then the next thing I know—they were all on the floor—dead."

"You killed them?"

"I didn't kill them," He growled. "They're not really dead, you see. To be dead, they need to lose their souls…whores of Satan don't have souls, you see."

Dr. Snow wrote on as Eddie babbled. …refuses to discuss his victims…he would not admit that they were dead or mutilated…

"And then it started mixing up." Eddie continued. "Suddenly that brown-haired girl was the one father and Uncle Willard were forcing themselves on—it was kind of like a fast-paced mixtures, you see. And then I was the one those girls were murdering. And then…"

Dr. Snow was quick to write every gruesome dream Eddie had—he would just re-write the case later. The dreams got more gruesome as Eddie went on—ending with his wife's corpse raped by everyone.

"It's like—it hurts me to see that girl get hurt," Gluskin sniffed. "And then after that, it ended with the same dream—I keep forgetting it because…well, it's in here, in the asylum, and I keep forgetting what that dream was because…well, it was so simple."

It was a breakthrough Dr. Snow needed. When he didn't say anything, Gluskin continued. "I was on my bed in my room…and then the girl opened it. Doc, just curious—am I married to this girl or something?"

"Uhh…I don't know Eddie, I'm just here to examine your dreams and progress," Dr. Snow said innocently.

"Well, I knew I had to run after her, so we ran around the asylum. Every time I get closer, I hear a song playing…"

"Do you know the song name?"

"No, but I can remember a few lines…When I was a boy my mother often said to me…Get married boy and see how happy you will be… I have looked all over, but no girlie can I find…Who seems to be just like the little girl I have in mind…"

Dr. Snow took note of that. He had heard the song many times—they loved playing that song in one of the radio stations here in Colorado. He wondered how Gluskin had heard that song—the asylum had disrupted all radio signals and the music tapes in the abandoned storage room were locked in the dilapidated building next to the men's ward.

"But every time I try to keep looking, she disappears." He said sadly. "And when I fall and stop running, she stops…turns around…and then…she smiles at me. She smiles doc—as though to taunt me—and then she hides inside a room. I-I think she's somewhere in the building, doc—this girl."

Dr. Snow sighed—it was enough progress for now. He tucked the rape photos and the St. Mary's staff photos back in the folder. "Well—that's enough for today. I'll see you again after your next visit to the engine."

"What?" Gluskin's smile faltered as he heard the last words. "I've progressed. I-I can hear the Walrider just by closing my eyes—I told you that before. I don't need projects anymore, Dr. Snow. Please! PLEASE!"

A guard injected the frantically wiggling Gluskin, and after a few seconds, he slumped to the floor.

Eddie sobbed the moment they threw him into his room. They didn't believe him, did they? If only he could prove to them what his dreams were. He punched the wall, ignoring the pain after. It had been two years since he truly felt pain…it was mixed with the anger of knowing what got him there in the first place.

Women were evil. He had thought right after the engine turned off. His mother had abandoned him—falling down the stairs of their house to become catatonic so she couldn't protect him or comfort him or do anything about his father. That doctor and those nurses killed that girl and her babies. My father's whore couldn't care. And that girl—she was beautiful, and she knew it. That bitch knows she's got me wrapped around her finger, and taunts me—hiding in places I will never find her. Women would abandon, not care about anything at all but themselves. They were all just dirty sluts who could use what was between their legs to lure innocent men like me. A man could be vulgar, but they had done everything to win women. Women weren't perfect—women needed to be tamed before they could be anything close to perfection.

And I'm obsessively in love with one of them.

And she's hiding somewhere here—somewhere in the asylum—just to spite me.

But she is the only one I know who is even worthy to have my seed.

Author's Note: The next chapter will be the ending chapter. I'm really sorry, but my college starts in two days, and I'm scared that, like all the other stories I've written and kept in my laptop, I'll become unmotivated to continue and might leave it hanging and abandoned. I'd like to stretch on—and actually, the story was supposed to include Eddie's first approach with the engine so that that last paragraph can be understandable— but I need to wrap this up by May 21 so I cut right away to this part.