He felt…
Heavy.
As though he were swimming in a thick brew, kicking and clawing at the surface to stay afloat.
His mind like his body sank under the weight of an unknown substance that swirled and threatened to drown him. Pulling apart his limbs further in an endless whirlpool.
Grains of light shining through refracted in gray beams under the bandages. The warmth it emitted bled through his eyelids.
In spite of his efforts, he couldn't open them.
The drone of a machine beside him ticked away, conducting the steady rhythm of his heartbeat. There wasn't much noise outside of that.
Except.
A door opened. Pairs of heels clicked on the linoleum floor, clearing the black haze shrouding his mind, fishing him out of the undertow.
"Dr. Loomis, you really shouldn't be here." A woman's voice pleaded. "I understand he was your former patient but—"
"If you have any sympathy for the innocent lives mercilessly ended by his hand, you'll allow me this chance," was the sage whisper
"I...Please be quick," she conceded reluctantly.
The door hissed open then clicked shut. Though, Michael wasn't assured of his privacy. The heavy breaths he heard funneling through someone's nostrils hadn't quite fooled him into thinking he was alone.
He was there. And he was still alive. When all this time, Michael was certain the old man had burned with him in the flames.
It was somewhat distasteful that the doctor would take advantage of his state of incapacitation, where he had no choice but to listen.
"I know you can hear me Michael…"
He hadn't uttered a word since he killed his sister. He hadn't uttered a word at Smith's Grove. At some point during his detainment, the doctors professed him a mute. Professed him equally incapable of word as he was, they concluded, incapable of thought. If only they had foreseen how fatal underestimating him could be.
Michael couldn't even lift his own finger. Muscles stiff from disuse. And without any outward indication from his patient, the doctor could never confirm his own accusation. Yet, the man continued.
"Like you, I also bear wounds similar to yours. However, it seems a year has passed and you have greatly recovered from what many others have difficulty of accomplishing. Don't you see what you've done?"
Of course he saw. If Michael was blind, he wouldn't have been able to murder all those people. Ruin all those lives.
"And for what? To finish the job of killing your own flesh and blood? If you had succeeded, would you have ended your own life too, Michael?"
It was an inane question. What compelled him to want to kill his siblings, Michael couldn't explain. Though, he knew ending his life wasn't a part of that impulse.
Without much response from him, the doctor droned on in the same way the machine hooked up to him had, and like the machine Michael Myers could dismiss the undercurrent of sadness in the doctor's voice as white noise.
The pity.
The man's useless efforts to instill in him a sense of guilt fell on deaf ears. For a long while, he thought the doctor was more interested in hearing himself talk than actually doing his job. The old man was convinced he could still drag out a six year old boy from bottom of the hole. But Michael wasn't in a hole. He was dropped into an ocean and Dr. Loomis would have to fetch a fucking submarine if he ever thought he could rescue his patient from its plummeting depths.
The doctor must've known he was wasting his breath, because at some point he'd left.
Michael knew he'd make an appearance again at some point. That was fine though. At least he was gone. In Smith's Grove, it was a rare mercy for the doctor to ever leave him in peace.
Peace was a lie.
A nurse had come in a few hours after the doctor had departed. Her timid, reverent steps sparked the urge for Michael to grab her by the ankles and fling her body against the wall.
Yet he felt so…
… Heavy
...as something pricked his arm.
A needle.
It wasn't a surprise.
Just a little bit more his hearing dulled, his thoughts cut. He was sinking. Again.
Several items clattered to the floor before he succumbed to the seductive embrace of slumber. There was a cling of metal and the nurse's head fell into his lap. Her feather—light hair tickled his legs where the hospital gown didn't cover. He imagined tangling his fingers in them, enjoying the texture of her pillowy mane under his palm, before ripping off her scalp.
Suddenly, she clutched at him, nails biting into his skin, raking across the width of his body. The rip of his gown caused him to decide that she had a terrible bedside manner.
There was a short shriek that followed.
A metal dink.
Her groans were muffled as though cotton were clogging his ears and she loosened her desperate hold on him before she fell to the floor with a muted thud.
He hadn't seen what happened but Michael knew he could do better.
Someone unwrapped the bandages across his face. Layer by layer until the outline of a silhouette against white became more defined.
When the last strip of gauze lifted, Michael registered the gaunt front of a man with sunken forest eyes before the light pierced his vision.
"It's been a long time, Michael."