Awesome Song of the Day: Madness by Muse

I, I can't get these memories out of my mind,
And some kind of madness has started to evolve.
And I, I tried so hard to let you go,
But some kind of madness is swallowing me whole, yeah

And now I need to know is this real love,
Or is it just madness keeping us afloat?
And when I look back at all the crazy fights we had,
Like some kind of madness was taking control, yeah

And now I have finally seen the light,
And I have finally realized
What you need.

I have finally realized
I need to love

Come to me
Just in a dream.
Come on and rescue me.
Yes I know, I can be wrong,
Maybe I'm too headstrong.
Our love is
Madness

I'll admit that it took me a while to find the police station. I had been to it just once that I could recall, only because I walked by it while wandering around, and its location never really stuck in my memory as a place of importance.

I finally came to the parking lot and spotted Marie right away, standing by her car and smoking a cigarette impatiently. Her eyes got wide when she saw me walking towards her and I was once again painfully reminded of Tom and how similar their eyes were.

"Oh, God, Rei. I was beginning to think that you wouldn't show up," she said with a breath of relief, giving me a short hug. She acted as if she wasn't sure about touching me, like she thought that I was shell-shocked or something.

Not waiting for a reply from me, she gestured towards the station and took a step in its direction. "Let's go. I'm right behind you."

I've never liked that phrase. I mean, the person says that they are there to watch your back, but what if they turn out to be a traitor? Then you end up being shanked in the spine and unable to even kick the traitor as they laugh at you bleeding on the ground.

I might be a little paranoid. But it keeps my guard up for when things do actually happen.

Marie did most of the talking when we were inside, telling them that we needed to file a report and whatnot. A large officer came to take us into a room for the report. The room was an ugly off-white color with a gray metal table in the center. Security cameras were posted in two upper corners, with blinking red lights to indicate that they were on.

The coldness of the chair when I sat down made me go rigid, and I tried to relax under the scrutinous eyes of the officer. He scrawled something on his clipboard and focused on me. "So, you're the girl who was reported missing just recently, Rei. Is that correct?"

I nodded.

"My name is Officer Tim. I'm the one who filed the original report when you went missing. Do you remember the faces of your assailants?"

Revealing everything that happened during the time that I was gone wouldn't do any good. They might want to test me or something because of the drugs that were injected into my system. Even then, they wouldn't find anything, whether I told them about the two locations or not. There was no reason to tell them everything.

But I wasn't about to lie. That would be tedious and very unneccessary. I decided what I was going to do long before I came here. I would tell the truth, but only the things that they needed to know. Whatever would get them to leave me alone and be satisfied.

I met the officer's eyes. "I was blindfolded from the beginning."

Tim wrote something down. "What happened when you were abducted?"

I kept a blank face upon seeing a memory of the doctor, despite the anger flickering like a small flame inside me. "They knocked me out with chloroform and when I woke up, they were talking, but I couldn't hear what they said."

With a pause I skipped ahead a little bit, replaying everything in my head like fast-forwarding a movie. "I was in a car for a while. Then I was let go, and I went back to my house."

Tim was writing down everything that I said in a diligent manner. While he did this, I let my mind wander to Matthew and all he had said to me. I wondered what he was doing now instead of kidnapping children. Maybe he got a job like a normal person in society would do.

Somehow I couldn't picture him working in a retail store and babysitting idiots all day.

"Did they brin any physical harm to you?" the officer asked, jarring me back to reality.

I almost wanted to lie, just because I wanted to stay away from the events that were more gruesome and uncomfortable to think about. But I carefully let out some information without saying too much. "One of them punched me a few times. Enough to give me some bruises, but not more than that."

Officer Tim asked a few more basic questions, to which I gave vague but true answers that felt very much like a generic mechanical recording. Amidst the eventual silence of the room and the scratching of pencil on paper, I remembered something and spoke without really considering it first.

"There was a girl with me for a short period of time. Leah Parker. She was another captive. She'd been there since before I came."

His pencil stopped moving. He looked at me precariously, like he wasn't sure of what I had said. "What?"

Shit. Now I really dug myself under. What the hell do I say? "There was a girl with me who had also been kidnapped, and her name was Leah Parker. She was with me for a little bit…"

"What happened to her?" The officer actually leaned forward a bit.

The prolonged sound of her heart monitor sounded in my mind, and I closed my hand into a small fist so that I wouldn't think too much about her fragile hand feebly holding onto mine. "She died." Tim's face turned ashen. I continued, because I knew that he would ask more questions about it. "She was starved and weak, and the night that I met her, her body gave out."

There was a sharp stab of a painful reminder in my chest. "She told me not to forget her."

And I didn't. I could never forget.

Officer Tim shook his head in apparent sorrow and disappointment. He didn't speak for a moment, staring down at his notes. Then he picked up the pencil that had been forgotten on the table and forced himself to write some more. "How horrible. She was only fifteen...I can't imagine what she went through. Do you know what the did with her body?"

Once again I stepped cautiously around the shards of broken glass that were the puzzle pieces to the entire period of time that I was away. "She was gone in the morning. I don't know what they did with her."

"I see." He seemed frustrated that he didn't have any locations to search for her body at. "Thank you for letting me know about Leah. At least we know now. Is this all you have to tell me?"

"Yes." I stood up slowly, in order for Marie to get the hint and follow me. She'd been completely mute the whole time, but watched the both of us observantly. She thanked the officer and shook his hand before following me out the door of the room that Tim held open for us.

Marie gave me a full-blown hug when we got outside the building. It made me lurch back a little because of the sudden force. Her eyes were watery, she her smile was a bit wobbly. "I'm sorry. I just...I can't even begin to understand what that must have been like for you. You took my daughter's place, and you didn't even know us that well. I can't thank you enough, Rei."

I couldn't get out any words before she locked me in her arms again. Not knowing what else to do, I patted her back gently.

"Rei! Rei!" a voice shouted excitedly from across the parking lot.

Marie released me so that I could turn around. A tiny girl was running towards us, wearing pink leggings and a striped shirt with a strawberry on it, her pigtails bouncing. Marie laughed beside me and waved to her husband who stood by their car shrugging about his child's enthusiasm and holding the hand of his son.

Before I knew it, Anabelle had wrapped her arms around my legs and made me teeter a bit. She looked up at me and smiled to her ears. "Rei! You're back!" She let go and stuck her hands up above her head in a demanding fashion, reaching up towards me.

I hesitated, wanting to give Marie a glance that clearly said 'help me'. But then I concluded that I could at least try. So I put my hands under Anabelle's little armpits and hoisted her up onto my hip, allowing her to fully envelope me in her embrace. She snuggled her head under my chin and made me smell whatever kid shampoo she used. She smelled like blueberries.

While I was having my face squished and rearranged by a laughing child, Marie chuckled and touched my shoulder. "I wanted to take you out to dinner like we originally planned, but my work called and needed me back tomorrow, so we have to leave as soon as we can. Maybe we can plan it when I come back to visit. Is that okay?"

"Yeah, thatsh fine," I replied with my cheeks pressed together by Anabelle's small hands. Her mother eventually took her from me and I rubbed my abused face while they headed back to their car.

Halfway there, Marie turned back to me. "Can I give you a ride home, Rei? It's the least I could do for you."

Anabelle moved herself around so she could give me a cheeky grin. "You can sit by me!"

Honestly I felt tired, inside and out. It would take a lot of time just to get to the park on my own. I gauged the hope in Anabelle's eyes on top of the inviting smile on Marie's face, and decided that a ride couldn't hurt. "Sure."

I followed them back to their car, which was a deep purple minivan, and I was placed in the middle seat between Anabelle and her brother. They both had their own carseats still, and Anabelle took great pride in showing me that she could buckle herself in all on her own because she was a big girl now.

Occasionally Marie would glance at me in the mirror, her eyes crinkling a bit at the corners, something that Tom would do whenever he was amused. The reason for this was Anabelle who needed to show me all her different coloring books and the pretty pictures she had drawn on the way here. The girl would not stop talking, but I didn't mind.

Child babble was actually a bit relaxing to listen to. Their voices were so unfiltered and young, and they could go on for what seemed like hours. Anabelle liked to draw a lot of scenery like trees and playgrounds. She had a whole drawing notebook filled with her doodles, all in crayon or colored pencils. She refused to use the color black, saying that she preferred all the colors of the rainbow, most namely orange.

She was very disappointed when we pulled into the driveway to Tom's house and I had to leave. I got out and talked to Marie a bit, and right before I backed away from the car, Anabelle shouted for me to wait and waved a piece of paper around to get my attention.

I opened the door on her side. She thrust the paper into my chest immediately and waved her hand. "'Bye, Rei! I'll see you very soon!"

Without letting me say anything else, she reached and pressed the button by the door that makes it shut mechanically. I stood there in a bit of a confused daze until Marie started laughing and slowly backed up. I went around the car to step onto my porch, waving goodbye, holding the paper at my side with my other hand.

When they were gone, I opened the door and went inside to fully look at whatever Anabelle had forced me to take.

It was a stick-figure drawing of me and her holding hands, drawn in vibrant colors of course. She was a warm orange with some pink in her hair, which I guessed were the bows on her pigtails, as well as the triangle of a dress she wore.

Instead of coloring me just wearing my normal clothes, she decided that I needed to be wearing a dress as well in the drawing. My dress was a lot different than hers. Mine was a deep blue, matching my eyes, and it was floor-length in contrast to hers that only reached just below her knees.

It looked almost like a ballgown. At the bottom of the page, she scrawled something messily. 'I think you would look pretty in this dress.'

"I have to say that I agree."

My blood jumped under my skin and I turned around visibly cringing at the being who stood behind me looming over my head. Out of frustration at my now hammering heart, I held the drawing to my stomach and made a growling noise. "I think you're secretly trying to kill me by giving me a heart attack. That's been your plan all along."

He stared at me for a moment. "Yes, Rei, it is my most devious and evil intention yet."

I stuck my tongue out at him briefly and made a face to go with it, then went to my room to put the drawing facedown on the desk. What the hell did Slenderman know aout dresses?

My foster mother once tried to take me dress shopping, but I wouldn't even try any of them on. It felt foolish to just hold them and feel their fancy fabric. The night of my school's Prom, I stayed up until three in the morning reading books and listening to quiet music in my room. I was glad that my foster parents didn't try to urge me to go.

Parents...I need to call them. Slightly wondering if the news had said anything about me going missing, I headed back downstairs and picked up the phone. While I did so, I sat on the couch and tried to pull off my boot, holding the phone to my ear with my shoulder. Because I was distracted, I couldn't properly take off my shoes. I made a noise of annoyance.

Jonathan picked up the phone. "Rei? Is that you?"

"Yeah. Did you, um, see a news report about me or anything?" I held back a puff of angry breath. My damn shoe would not cooperate.

A tendril laid across my midsection and pushed me back against the couch, and two more went to pull my boot off with ease. Confused, I glanced behind me at the figure in his black suit, and he tapped the phone with a single finger to remind me that I needed to do something.

Jonathan was talking so quickly and hurriedly that I had to make him stop so I could understand. "Hey, can you repeat that a bit slower? You can calm down. I'm fine, I went a filed a report with the police today."

He took a shuddering breath. "Rei, my body just went cold when I saw it on the news. I didn't want to believe what I saw. Are you okay? What happened?"

My now free feet were tucked under me as I curled up on the corner of the couch. "I'm fine. They blindfolded me and put me in a car for a long time." I paused, hesitant for some reason about giving them the same information that I gave the police. "Then they let me go."

If I told them really what happened, it would only cause them uneeded pain and worry. There would be no point to that.

Jonathan drew in breath like he had been drowning. "Thank God you're okay. I'm so glad they didn't hurt you. I would have gone after them myself."

Charlotte laughed in the background. "Not if I did it first."

She then took the phone from Jonathan. I could hear the underlying concern in her voice, not as prominent as it was in her husband's. "It's good to hear your voice. These few days have been so long." She sighed deeply. "I knew you would be okay, Rei."

Hearing her say that caused a mix of emotions to rise in me like a whirlpool. I was puzzled as to why she assumed such a thing. She said it in a way that made me think that she meant I wasn't the kind of person who would give up in that kind of situation. Almost like she knew I could handle it.

I snapped myself out of it and tried to form a response. "I filed a report with the police today, so you might see that on the news soon. It's not that eventful."

"Okay, that's good. How is that little girl doing? Does she seem like she was mentally scarred or anything? It must have been terrifying for her to see that."

I thought back to the drawing she gave me and felt the corner of my mouth twitch a bit. "She's just like she was before, completely normal. I saw her today."

Charlotte chuckled. "Of course. Well, at least she wasn't traumatized. I'm sure she considers you her hero now."

Her hero who wears a fancy floor-length ballgown in her imagination.

"Something like that."

"Kids are so adorable sometimes. Anyway, I'm glad you called us. It put Jonathan's faint old lady heart at ease."

Jonathan made a slightly outraged sound. "You were worried too, miss Heart of Stone."

The both of them laughed, and I found myself pleased as well about the decision to call them.

Jonathan took the phone back from a protesting Charlotte. "So, how did your man cope with all of this?"

"Jonathan, don't pester her about her love life. She'll never tell us about him that way," Charlotte scolded him in a hiss.

"It can't hurt to try!"

While they were whisper-arguing, I looked over on the other side of the couch where Slenderman sat, watching me patiently. I didn't take my eyes off of him as I replied to my parents. "He was very angry. And concerned for my well-being."

The being in the suit and tie scoffed softly, and one of his tendrils came out and tried to poke at my leg. I swatted at it with a lazy hand, resulting in it curling around my palm. That kind of backfired a bit on my part.

"Well, he had every right to be! I'm sure he was worried sick about you," Jonathan said at normal volume, though Charlotte could be heard still arguing her point in the background.

"So, I'll talk to you guys later?"

"Yes, of course. Whenever you want. You could even drop by sometime if you're not busy, we'd love to have you over."

I watched the black tendril moving slowly around my hand and fingers. "I'll plan for it soon."

Charlotte's voice came through, like she was standing very close to Jonathan so she could speak clearly into the phone as well as him. "We love you, Rei. More than anything."

For a moment, I couldn't feel the couch underneath me or the tendril on my hand. My voice seemed to be the only sound in the world. "I love you too."

I hung up the phone almost subconsciously. What I said...I actually meant it. When I had been laying on that hospital bed expecting the doctor to come and end my life, I had compiled a group of the things that I possibly could have done before I died, without really meaning to think about those things.

The picture of my parents made me think about whether I would have told them that I loved them if I had the option to do so. And while I was doing this, a sort of aching blossomed in my chest that was undeniable. I did, whether it was unintentional or not, love them. I didn't understand why, but I knew that I did.

Even so, it felt strange and unfamiliar to say those words outloud. They were such opposite meanings of what I usually felt. It seemed like I was always indifferent to everyone, but normally it was a reflected reaction, because they felt the same. Or they felt opposed towards me because they couldn't understand me.

I wouldn't ask of them to understand me anyway. It wasn't an easy task, by any means. No one seemed to want to do it. Maybe they were afraid of what they would find. I couldn't smile for pictures, couldn't be in a social situation, couldn't be like any of them.

They thought that I didn't like them because I always isolated myself. I knew the truth. I would make them uncomfortable, reverse the atmosphere, do something to otherwise ruin their social group. I didn't want to face it over and over again just because I was always so lonely. It wasn't worth it.

Besides, it was easier to be alone. It was something I was familiar with.

Sometimes I wish that it wasn't like that. But no matter what I did, I couldn't change it. Because of my inability to improve myself, I grew to dislike that quality about me, along with everything else. I was a defective toy in a line of perfectly functioning ones. My paint was peeling, faded, my mechanisms were far beyond repair.

But they wouldn't stop working. They were endlessly running and running, unable to quit, unable to relent.

I realized that I wouldn't change this if I could, though. If I did, I would be afraid, consumed by the world. This way, I can survive. I won't live in lies and fabricated happiness. I wasn't made to do that. However this brings a whole new problem.

I can't figure out what I was made to do.

~Dreaming~

Light was fading in and out of the room at a steady pace, but it seemed like the light would be gone at any second and the dark would take over. I looked around my surroundings and knew where I was with a deep dread settling into me.

The cuffs of the hospital bed were so tight around my wrists that they felt like crushing cement. I saw the doctor's table of equipment right next to me, and he was suddenly right there with it, grinning down at me.

"You seemed to like the drugs that I gave you last time, so I thought we could try some stronger ones this round." He picked up a syringe filled with a dark liquid. Without waiting a second more, he shoved it into my arm uncaringly. My veins seemed to alight with an intense fire.

The doctor started to laugh maniacally and picked up more needles, injecting one after another all in what seemed like five seconds. It felt like I was being electrocuted, and I convulsed violently on the bed, nearly popping my arms out of place.

He then bent down to get in my face and speak with such venom, you'd think it would drip off of his tongue. "Matthew can't save you now, little girl. No one can. It's not like they care, anyway."

An earsplitting scream of agony ripped through the room. I didn't realize that it was mine until my throat closed up, courtesy of the drugs that were rushing through my system at an unnatural rate. I couldn't breathe anymore.

I laid there suffocating, my body twitching of its own accord, with the doctor's laughter echoing into my soul like poison. My muscles steadily grew weaker, depleted of oxygen. It felt like I was going to vomit, or my skin was going to rupture and let all my blood and flesh spill out.

Blood dribbled out of my mouth, warm and metallic.

Harshly I jerked myself awake, shaking my head as hard as I could. It was the only way I could wake myself up from a dream. Or, in this case, a nightmare.

"Fuck!" I said into my pillow, rubbing my face with it to make myself more awake.

"Another dream?"

With an ungraceful yelp my body lurched backwards away from the voice and landed on the floor. Peeling my face from the carpet and groaning, I sat up to see Slenderman sitting on the edge of the bed looking at me with his blank face.

"What the hell?" I asked rather irritably.

He either didn't know what exactly I was asking or chose not to answer it, but said something that may have been part of another question that I would later ask. "You've been having less than pleasant dreams for the past three nights."

I got up and stretched my back that had been painfully tensed because of the stress involved in my sleeping. It hurt to move. "Why have you been watching me while I'm sleeping?"

His head tilted, like he was amused that I had asked such a thing. "There are many reasons. But the one that I will tell you is that I simply felt like it."

After staring at him with narrowed eyes, I gave up and went to the bathroom to sting my face with cold water. I dried my face with a towel and made the mistake of glancing into the mirror. Besides my usual look of death and zombie-esque features, I now had darkened bags under my eyes as well. They were so puffy that they were making me squint slightly.

I sighed and buried my face in my folded arms on the counter. I didn't know how much sleep I had lost in the past few days, but obviously it was a lot, and it was beating the hell out of me. The dreams were all horrible in their own ways.

One of them was about Leah. She had come back to life, but with hollow eye sockets and blood dripping everywhere on her body. She kept trying to touch me, moaning about how her parents would miss her and how she wanted to see her friends one more time.

Every time I woke myself up, I fell back asleep only to be swept into another hellish fantasy that my subconscious created. I couldn't get away from them.

I didn't even know why they were happening. I wasn't afraid of the doctor, or what happened there, but I was filled with a burning resentment towards him. That was it. And Leah...I wished that I could have saved her. Anyone would. I hated the fact that I was completely helpless there, unable to even lift my hand.

Everything had been resolved. Matthew helped me escape, burning the place down with explosives, making sure that everyone involved with it was dead. It was over.

So why did my mind keep throwing it back in my face? Was I missing something?

"Rei."

"Mmm?" I dragged myself up off of the counter to turn around.

As soon as I did, his hands found my face, feeling very cold on my skin because my face was warmer than it usually was. But the temperature of my skin got cooler when his power started to reduce the puffiness under my tired eyes.

His voice was soft honey when he spoke. "If you wanted, I could alter your memories. I can make you forget the moments that continue to torture you. You would only remember the beginning and the end of what happened."

My head shook back and forth, managing to make him remove his hands. "No. I don't want to forget anything." I remembered Leah's weary eyes and the resolve in Matthew's. "I can't."

"Do you want to continue to suffer, Rei? Is that really what you prefer?"

"No, I…" I put a hand to my face. "It will go away eventually. This is nothing compared to how long I've stayed awake in the past. I can handle it."

Trying not to leave room for argument, I went around him to go downstairs and get a glass of water. Sipping it carefully, I went back up to my room, finding him sitting on the edge of the bed facing me. I wasn't about to go to sleep again, so I put my glass on the table by my pillow and just stood there.

Slowly, as if expecting me to run away, he got up. I wasn't sure what he was doing when he stepped towards me silently, so I watched him, craning my neck up a bit. The movement of his arms going around me was so sudden that I didn't have time to process what was happening until my face was against his chest and I was overwhelmed by his crisp scent.

His arms pressed me to him, effectively pushing the air out of my lungs and reminding me to breathe. But it seemed counter-productive to do so, because he was making me even more tired somehow.

My heart was beating loudly as if I was a trapped animal. It took me a few moments to realize what he was doing, and I cursed, muffled by his suit. "You really did see everything that happened. That was private, you ass."

His chest vibrated along with his chuckling. "Since imagining this apparently made your slumber easier in that place, I figured that it would do especially well in this situation. If your nightmares continue, I might have to be with you every night to prevent them from bothering you."

I grumbled into the fabric on my face. "You need to stop helping me. It must not be healthy for a creature like you. You'll spontaneously combust or something because you're not being evil anymore."

"I'm doing something against your will. Isn't that considered less than good?"

"Yes, but-"

"Your argument is now invalid. Hush."

"Don't tell me to-"

With the aid of his abilities, my consciousness slipped out of my grip. And when I slept, it was blissfully dreamless, the only thing I was aware of were his arms still curled tightly around me.

Within my unconscious thoughts I decided that I would get my revenge against him. This crime won't go unpunished. That I'm sure of.

Muahaha surprise chapter muahaha

I wasn't expecting this either, the only reason it happened is because I'm sick and got to stay home a couple of days from school XD

But here you go! Murhurhur

I would like to thank Shadowmarker for their honest constructive criticism, it really helps me a lot on realizing my mistakes and such.

And every other reviewer. You all make me happy when I see my Email inbox piled up with your reviews. It means a lot, really.

Oh, and INSANITY-IS-HANNAH, all i have to say is HELL YES to your song selections. Originally when I started writing this, all I listened to was I Will Not Bow, because it sounded so much like my character in my opinion.

Everyone else's selections were awesome as well! I loved every one of them when I looked them up. You people have quite excellent taste.

I have another question for all of you. I'm thinking of making some alternate scenes and funny stuff that I wouldn't put in this story, but still have some quality to them, and putting them up here in another 'story' for you to see. What do you think? I have tons of ideas for it, but I didn't know if I should do it or not. It would be like comics or alternate scenes and such. What do you think?