Creation began on 10-08-21
Creation ended on 11-04-21
Thir13en Ghosts
There's no Need to feel this Pain: The Jackal's Rehab
Profile Eleven: The Jackal's Rehab
It was bold move on Brother Correction's part, but he felt that in order to save this damaged soul, he would need to do so on the battlefield that was the most challenging that even those with an indomitable will would have difficulty handling: Borinwood Asylum, the current residence of Ryan Kuhn, the man that, unless treated effectively, would become the raving spirit of the wild known in the Black Zodiac as the Jackal. Walking through the halls, being led to the basement cell by a security guard, he could hear the screaming, wailing, inane babel of the other institutionalized men and women.
"What made you want to take a shot at this guy?" The guard asked him.
"I've dealt with worse," he answered, being simple and to the point. "Getting the patient to open up is the first step towards a path to some measure of recovery."
"Don't take it personal, but I think Mr. Kuhn is a lost cause. The guy's an animal. The doctors here couldn't treat him without being harmed by him. What makes you think you can help him?"
"Time."
"Time? Do you really want to waste your time with this guy?"
"I have time to waste."
Leading him down the basement corridor, the guard could only hope this guy knew what he was saying and doing. After the doctors here threw the lunatic down the basement with his head locked in a cage, they simply gave up on him and only came down to make sure he was fed.
"Do you know why he was committed?" He asked Brother Correction.
"Self-committed for treatment for his deranged treatment towards women," the mysterious explained. "He attacked over three dozen women, harming most fatally, resulting in seventeen deaths. His mother was a prostitute, which probably adds to why he only exhibits this behavior towards women, indicating that he targets women that are or may be prostitutes due to his mother being a representation of what underprivileged women must do in order to get by. He may also be trying to attack his mother, resenting her for being a prostitute instead of a teacher or a doctor or farmer."
"Well, for what it's worth, best of luck to you."
"Thank you."
The guard stopped in front of a door and unlocked it for Brother Correction. Once he went inside the dark room, the guard closed the door and awaited the signal that was a scream for getting out.
-x-
Alone in the dimly-lit basement, Brother Correction sighed as he stood under the ceiling light, looking in the large shadows where Ryan Kuhn was lurking, waiting for an opportunity to strike at the man. He could see him on all fours like an animal, his head locked in a cage-like helmet, obscuring much of his face and his perception of the world, his hands ragged in need of medical attention.
"There's another name for you, Mr. Kuhn," he told the disturbed man, "and it's the Jackal. If you're not saved, you will become a sign of the winter of Hell…and contrary to people's beliefs, Hell does freeze over…but only for a time. I'm here to save you so you can escape your fate. Come into the light and face me."
Ryan slowly emerged from the shadows in front of Brother Correction, his straightjacket in tatters and serving as his only clothing, his skin bruised and covered in filth, and his cage helmet rusted and weighing his head down by a considerable degree, probably placing a strain on his neck, as well.
"Grrr," he growled at Brother Correction, slowly approaching him, rising to his full height in front of him, as if to intimidate him.
"I don't easy, Ryan," he told the damaged man. "I have been tormented many times in the past…and make no mistake about it, I will be tormented many more times in the future."
"Rrrraurgh!" Ryan snarled at him, but the man didn't back down in front of him. "Rrrraurgh!"
"I got all the time I need to deal with you."
Ryan then raised his right arm up at him, but gasped when Brother Correction blocked with his left arm. Then, he tried to knock him down to the ground, but fell to the ground alone when the man merely stepped out of his line of action.
"I know that this isn't personal, coming from you as you try to harm me, but I should let you know. It kinda feels personal because of your current insanity."
Ryan got back up and tried to hit him again.
Brother Correction blocked his left arm and held it tight by the wrist.
Flash! Ryan saw things that didn't make sense to his twisted and damaged mind!
He was locked up inside a glass cage, his head cage damaged and his behavior no different from how he was now. And then, he saw himself attacking another woman, clawing at her before being driven away by a strange form of fire.
"I know what you saw, Mr. Kuhn," Brother Correction informed him. "I saw everything, in greater detail than you did. That's what I'm here to save you from. You came here seeking treatment, did you not? That's a clear sign that you still want a life outside of this asylum. You still want a future. You can still have a future outside this place, but only if that's what you truly want for yourself."
Ryan pulled back from him and stayed in the shelter of the shadows, away from this guy.
"I want salvation for your soul, Ryan Kuhn, but you have to want to be saved. Those that can't say what it is that they desire can't hope to be heard by those that want to help them. I have come across them many times before. You must say it."
Ryan backed away further into the shadows, but this man's words were reaching into a place inside him that was distant and old to him. It was like…there had been a time from before he became a man…and he didn't behave the way he did towards women.
"To those that speak come the promise of hope. To those that want to be around others come the promise of companionship."
Ryan then stepped into the light, slowly, predatorily, looking for any sign that this man was a threat. His hands partially obscured by his ruined straightjacket, his head cage obscuring his face with the structure, and his upper body contorted by the past attempts to restrain him.
"P…p…pl…ea…please," Brother Correction heard him say, "h…he…hel…elp… Help me."
He nodded in the positive; those words were all he needed to hear.
"Hold still," he told Ryan as he came over. "I will remove your cage and straightjacket."
Ryan did as requested, despite the temptation he felt to attack this man; the feeling of clawing at flesh, the exhilaration of hearing one scream, it was all intoxicating for someone like him.
Brother carefully removed his straightjacket first, exposing his filthy body to the light, showing that the skin and muscles were bruised and in major need of medical attention. Unfortunately, the medical techniques needed to mend the muscles didn't exist in this time, but Brother Correction could restore damaged muscles, lost limbs and organs without such a requirement. Then, he raised his hands to the cage around his head, removing the small rods that locked it in place, opening it and casting it aside, freeing Ryan's face to the world. He found that Ryan was in desperate need of a dentist and a facial specialist; his teeth were damaged by gingivitis and cavities, resembling jagged fangs like those of a rabid dog, and his cheeks were scarred and bruised, possibly infected, and his eyes were bloodshot-red with his hair unkept by lack of proper hygiene. If any other were to look at him, they would deem Ryan an embarrassment to everyone and should be cast aside without any question.
Cyrus chose you because he needed a violent spirit that would be the farthest from humanity, he thought as he backed away from Ryan, but as a man that walks a path that leads to a place beyond Heaven and Hell, I will deny him and any other person that desire souls for the most deviant of purposes when they need to be saved from their dark fates.
Then, he reached into his pants' left pocket and pulled out something. It was a carved piece of octagonal stone with a horse's head painted on it.
"Try to relax," he told Ryan as the painted horse lit up and a swirl of light emanated from the stone and enveloped the mental patient. "Let yourself be mended of your bodily injuries."
The light faded and revealed Ryan looking better than he did in a long time. His face was clean, his hair groomed, his teeth removed of their gingivitis and cavities, his muscles and hands looking like new, and his overall appearance looking like he had gone to a place with a spa and had one amazing spa day. But this was only physically; his mind was still stained, and needed to be cleansed of its impurities.
"How do you feel?" Brother Correction asked him.
"Good," he answered him, "but I'm not cured…am I?"
"No. Not yet. We still have a long day ahead of us before you're able to walk away from your dark thoughts. Are you up to it?"
Ryan nodded that he was; he wanted to stop his attacks on women, no matter what it took him.
-x-
Epilogue
It wasn't something Brother Correction expected himself doing, but it worked out for Ryan Kuhn in the end, sending him elsewhere where he was unable to hurt women. There was a difference between being sentenced to live in isolation as a form of penance…and being sentenced to live in isolation to as a form of salvation…and in the case of Ryan Kuhn, it worked out in both senses. To keep him from attacking women, he was relocated across time, space and reality, removed from history, and forced to dwell on an isolated hundreds of miles from the nearest stretch of civilization, where there were fewer people…and more animals. But not just any animals like the kind you'd find in a zoo or jungle. The extremely-exotic varieties that you wouldn't find anywhere in the world.
At least not in any world where humans were the dominant species.
"Rrrraaurgh!" A strange, tiger-like creature with deer-like antlers on its head howled as it fell into a large hole in the ground, a trap setup by some poachers looking to traffic exotic breeds for huge profits. "Rrraugh!"
"Looks like we caught ourselves a female, boys!" A man announced as he and three other men came out from behind the trees. "Let's rip off the antlers and rake in the zeni."
Slash! Something came out of the shadows and slit the man's throat, moving faster than his men could see.
"What the Hell was that?!" One of them gasped as their boss fell to the ground.
"Leave this place and live!" A voice shouted from within the shadows of the jungle. "Stay for the animals…and die!"
Then…a man stepped out of the shadows, armed with nothing but a machete, dressed in khaki pants, barefoot, with a spiked collar or choker around his neck, looking like he had regressed to a primitive state but still had enough hold on his behavior to use a machete.
"Who the Hell are you?!" A guy holding a machine gun demanded.
"I am…the Jackal of this island. It's a good thing none of you are women; otherwise, I'd be facing difficulty being in control of myself."
Watching from the shadows, Brother Correction sighed as Ryan Kuhn gave the three men left a chance to leave the animal alone and live to see another day, and saw them raise their guns at him, signifying that they made their choice to persist in going after the exotic, tiger-like animal. But he had to give Ryan credit for offering them a chance to leave; in this world, where humans had to share the planet with other creatures of equal intelligence, he set Ryan up with a job of protecting the exotic animals of an island that was periodically attacked by careless poachers, and he had jurisdictional discretion to act as he did to protect the animals, including murder.
Not what I had in mind, but this also works like rehabilitation, he thought, watching Ryan raise his machete up to strike down the poachers. So long as he's away from women must of the time and medicated and protecting the animals here on this island, he can be like other people without a mental defect. Ascertaining that he was afflicted with a form of bipolar disorder was the greatest challenge and remedying it so that he can't act crazy around women. His mother was only partially responsible due to her working girl status, but she never intended him to be psychopathic. It's still a mystery over how of one's nature is affected by their nurture and vice versa. A man can be born into a family of powerful mages and not be able to wield any magic…and a woman born to a family of peasants can rise up to be a leader and accepted as a member of the nobility, regardless of their background. A man can have a propensity towards violence because his parents were serial killers, a woman born to literature teachers can choose to be a lawyer or cop, and another guy born to another couple of killers can be disgusted by his parents' actions and turn them in to the police and sever their ties with them in order to move on with their own lives. All Ryan Kuhn needs now is a woman that can be his equal in life. But that's not until he completes his rehabilitation, which is two years away from now. Once he gets better control over his violent behavior towards women, he'll meet the woman that will be his equal.
A/N: Anyone that can take a guess on where B.C. took Ryan Kuhn to rehabilitate him will be mentioned in the next chapter of this story. Trying to decide how to finish off this chapter became quite a challenge because of how to best end Ryan's deviation onto a better path. But in the end, I feel good about how he turned out; he did commit himself to an asylum with the aim of getting help for his behavior towards women, and B.C. was the therapist that helped him. The new challenge will be the one that some of you may wonder how he'll undo the dark destiny of the Black Zodiac's most brutal member.