We'll always find each other...I just need to believe it...I just wish that you were here with me right now. Its...it's just all falling apart here...and I don't know what to say...what to tell them. They...just want whats best for me but I don't think I can do this anymore...why...why did this all have to happen?
Don't listen to them...this is not who you are!
So...you still think that you can save them?
Brian, you've been spacing out...lately...
I'd like to talk about you some more today...about your friends? You were saying before...that you often find it easier to be alone with your thoughts?
You don't understand what it's like...to be responsible for every single thing that comes out of your mouth...and yet you still can hear it. Every single damn second, I cant always keep them quiet...I already said that I was sorry.
Who did you tell that you were sorry, Brian? A nurse, or maybe an orderly or one of the other doctors?
No...the voices, they're screaming at me, they don't always make sense. Some of them want to help me, and then some of them don't.
What...do they ask you to do?
They...they ask me to remember, but I don't want to, I don't want to remember any of it, god dammitt! For fuck's sake, I just want it all t go away.
Listen, Brian...it might not seem like the easiest option, but unless you can come to terms with this you'll never be able to fully heal. Brian? Are you listening to me?
Why...why...why do you keep calling me that? Stop calling me that! Who are you!
Guards! We need to sedate him!
Penelope had a somewhat slim figure, a bottom lip that always managed to poke its way out and attempt its own distancing from its counterpart, and perhaps that had been one of the first things I had taken into consideration in regards to her appearance. You see, I haven't the faintest idea of how it was scientifically possible, but somehow she had taken it upon herself to learn the English language in a way that was unlike most people. Mistakenly pronouncing certain words with additional letters and consonants which were entirely irrelevant, but at the same time a far bit amusing if you were of such good fortune to be seated next to her. Or rather, within the general vicinity of her aura of being an overall pleasant person, or in the very least she had wished for others to think that much: she used to be called into the counselors office every other day, and she would beg to be let go from lectures on any day she wasn't. She was a very heavy person to be around, but yet it was a string of good luck that had left most of her personal business out of the news and out of the mouths of less than gentle souls...that is at least it was like that for awhile. Until one morning when her parents had been fighting the night before, and one thing must have led to another and her father put his hand on her, the story came up when she wore a very flowery dress to school and her shoulders had revealed the bruises for the whole school to take in. They gawked at her and said that abusers like her father would go straight to the emblazoned embrace of hell itself, but still she knew better then to react to their cajoling and remained locked into her fictional studies. I remember her, but yet, why after all of this time had she remembered me of all people?
Hey...do you hear me? What are you fucking death or something'?
No, she isn't...but if you don't shut the fuck up I might just be. I wouldn't have to say something if the educational system would pay our teacher enough to stay awake until the lunch bell, but there's about as much hope for that as there is you shaving that half-realized scrotum off your head and passing more then just a drug test.
Listen...man, i'm just telling her the truth, alright?
Maybe she doesn't want to hear the truth? Huh? Ever thought of that? I mean, im not an expert on religion or anything, but I'll be damned if I'd imagine the word of an almighty entity being regulated by the crack baby of Carrot Top and Bob Marely.
Yeah...well, no one asked you, anyways.
Thanks...you didn't have to do that, you know?
I know...I've been diagnosed with oppositional disorder, so just thank the chemical imbalances in my brain.
You're not going to ask my name, or anything?
Nope, I shouldn't have to.
If you were going to be tasked with finding the most secluded place in all of Gotham at this time of day, then there wouldn't have been much better a place to go then the old shipping yard just ten miles or so east of the narrows, ever so affectionately referred to now as the "devil's playground." Some locations were best used for drop-off points, or maybe shady business deals, or maybe just a quick get together with some of the lower level pushers or enforcers to cover their bases without any police presence, but this wasn't even close to being the case. Some in the scientific community that seagulls fly out to the sea when it comes time to shuttle off the mortal coil, well then this minefield of stray ammunition and graffiti laden locomotives was the sea of forsaken souls, and now my only guess of Penelope's current location would run the risk of being wasted on such a desolate and turbulent locale. At a point nearly two meters in four or five downed train cars all converged together, each facing opposite directions and effectively giving me adequate room to lean my chest forward and turn the corner to survey the scene. It hadn't steadied my heart rate in the slightest but my instincts had been right, and she sat in the middle of the largely impassable open area, kneeling down gagged and blindfolded with five men standing guard on all sides of her. Their faces had been obscured by tinted frames, blue bandanas, and baseball caps which had either been turned all the way around or were facing right side out to further hide any physical detail...but for the simple task of keeping a woman detained who had just the day before been crawling towards the ladder stages of a first trimester pregnancy...they were armed to the teeth. Two of the lot were carrying fairly simple firearms, each of them side arms that appeared to be glock pistols half hazardly stashed into their pants as if it were a holster, where as the other three hadn't displayed any visible weaponry so I had hoped they merely brought a blade or two into the mix.
"Easy...just...take it easy, I don't have any weapons on me, alright? Nobody needs to get hurt. I'm just going to take a shot in the dark and guess...that one of you is the father? Huh? El Padre?" My voice failing to sound calm as I spoke aloud.
"We speak English, asswipe." One of the men squawked crudely in reply, the motion of his lips being mimicked through the black skull printed onto the fabric over his mouth.
"Well, okay, I'll just assume that it's you then." This prompted a cold stare which seemed to last an eternity and he began to softly and slowing reach for something in his pockets, thirty seconds time would prove that answer to be an eight to nine inch switchblade that would find its home resting against Penelope's face, her initial response to this clearly showing that she was fearing for her life and trying with all of her might to scream through the gag. "What do you want?"
"You don't get it, do you holmes? This bitch was warned...if she ever left me...well, let's say she was warned, alright?" He was wavering on whether or not he wanted to keep the blade trained on her or whether it was best to advance forward after me with it, the blindfold came down from her face and soon she began to understand just how dire things had become for the both of us. The only true difference was on which side of the blade we were facing, as I took a single step towards him and now had both of his armed comrades looking at me with enough of an eager trigger finger that I wouldn't need to coax them into shooting me then and there.
"If you do this, you aren't just killing her! You would honestly kill you're unborn daughter! Or maybe you never really cared about her, at all? What? Was it just a way to control her?" My anger was present, but at the same time I couldn't exactly verbally go to town on someone who was clearly not playing around with our lives in the balance, and the bluff was the only bargaining chip I had. Two more steps, I was placing my faith in the idea that I could make them follow my voice and not my subtle movements, there was a small piece of garbage to the side of me that I could roll behind but that wasn't going to save her.
"I never wanted to be a father, anyway, she'd probably just turn out just like her mother. Never knowing when to keep her fucking mouth shut!" He finished as he sent one of his knuckles full speed into her left eye, taken off of her balance she was then softly sobbing on her side, spared from any more of his torment as he called one of the gunmen over to his side.
"Please! Don't do this! She hasn't done anything!" My voice couldn't have been any louder, but still the more my voice carried he could only draw nearer to her frazzled form, in what felt like slow motion I could see the masked man withdrawing his gun and centering it with her temple." Please! I need her...!"
Hey...
Hey...
It's alright to let go...
We...don't have to end here, there's something more to life then thinking about how it all ends...how the sun sets and when the day will break...
Just Breathe...
Just Breathe...
It wasn't your fault...
It wasn't your fault...
It wasn't your fault.
