AN: My first review!! Thank you!! More chapters soon, I promise. As usual, I don't own anything here.
He sort of looked like that fellow Cloud Strife, I mused, or he must have at one time. Same shock of blond hair, same cloudy blue eyes, although tinged and frayed at the corners with madness. But features that may have been handsome at one time were now shadowed and streaked with dirt and sweat, his hair ratted and mangled. The creature practically dripped with his ugly sin, and I couldn't help but curl my lip at it.
And this one was a fighter, too- oh, how he struggled so against the guards, thrashing amd kicking like an animal and giving them merry hell indeed. Part of me nodded approvingly in spite of myself. He would do well in the Arena. People always liked to see desperation. People's cheers got louder when a man fought out of pure hatred, pure pain. He would bring in a good crowd. I lowered the needle. It wouldn't do to overdose him just yet.
We needed money to rebuild that right wing, after all.
I sipped my coffee, turning to Michele, my assistant. Her dark hair shook into her eyes as she shook her head. The young man's screaming was giving me the most dreadful headache, and I laughed as Michele rolled her eyes, sharing my sentiment.
"Disgusting, isn't it?" she said mildly, over the howl and cry of the patient. "Did you see the new stone they placed over that crack in the Lobby?"
"Let me go! Let me go, you sick bastards!!"
"Oh yes, I did see that. Rather nice touch, you think?"
"Please! Please let me out of here! Agghhhhhh-"
"They ought to fix those pillars by the east entrance. They've been down forever."
Another broken, sobbing cry was ripped from the throat of the patient. I huffed, stamping my foot and whirling on the two guards. "Just stick it with the damn needle already!" I cried. "Put some chains on that thing; we haven't got all day!"
I put down my coffee, my forcibly bright mood utterly ruined. I turned my back as the guards did there work- and after the sound of a few well landed blows, the screaming had calmed enough for me to do my part. The guards- I forget their names- sat it in a chair. It still twitched and twisted convulsively from time to time, like a crooked pin. His eyes were glazed and unfocused, the drugs eating away at his brain.
"He's all yours, Lexi." one guard calls, wiping his hands hurriedly on his pant leg. I sigh, and Michele shoots me one last sympathetic look look as I cross the boundary, and step into his cell. I sit across from the patient. It stinks of fear and drugs and I wish I could hold my nose. I take out a notepad and a pen calmly. I don't think I'll need it. Why should I? They're all the same anyway.
Might as well look professional, after all.
"Good morning, Charlie." I say.
There is no answer.
I clear my throat. "Good morning, Charlie," I try again, impatience and anger creeping into my thraot and twisting around my voice.
There came a muffled reply, a whisper; the barest hint of a sound.
"That is not my name."
I sigh. "Of course it is. It always has been."
"No." came the whisper.
I peered beneath the shaggy mop of blond hair. His eyes stared into nothingness, right through me. They looked blurred, like mirrors that have been splashed with water. I recoiled.
"I can never get out of here," he whimpered brokenly. "I can never get out, out out...they'll keep me here forever..."
"It's for the best, Charlie." I say. "There won't be any more fires, then, will there?"
The change is instantaneous, snakelike, startling. The clouded eyes sharpened to knives, his lips turned back in an animal snarl. His chair scraped as he lunged at me, so close I could feel his breath.
"My name is not Charlie." he choked.
Silence.
I blink and sit back in my chair. I consider calling for the guards. I hated this far too much to stay.
"All tied up and dried up forever...please, I have done nothing wrong..."
"Now, now now Char- er, hmm. That's denial."
"You're not even listening! How could you live- live like this?!" he gestured wildly to his surroundings.
"Be calm!" I shout.
"Be calm!? How can you say that to me! Tell me why I'm here! I'm innocent!"
"You have been proven guilty!"
"But I am not insane!"
"Oh God, enough of this!" I cried out, slamming down my pen. "Backup!"
Two guards rushed in, syringes at the ready. I didn't stay to watch. I practically flew out of that room. "I hate you," came a last, trademark response. Over and over again. I hate you. I hate you.
I realized I didn't care.
"Well?" asked McCoy.
I sighed. "Nothing. How much are you gonna drug him?"
McCoy raised an eyebrow. "Pardon?"
I roll my eyes. I hadn't stuttered. My eyes met and challenged his, flint sparking off steel.
"How much are you going to drug him?" I repeat impatiently. "I want him to be able to fight this Tuesday. He'll bring a good crowd." Crowds brought money.
McCoy nodded and smiled sleazily with sudden understanding. "Yes." He said. 'He can fight."
"Good." I said. I needed a bath in short order. "Keep him alive until then, will you?" I turned and began to walk away.
Behind me, the cell door closed, with all the air and finality as the closing of a tomb.
Now it was silent. Silent and white.
Some man once said, "It is the people who make the law, the law enforced by the people, made justice by the people. Therefore, if a law is unjust, then it is still Justice, even if it is not just."
They grind us down...
I stare down at the empty notepad. I hadn't needed it after all.
AN: Wooo! Sorry so long, folks. Next xhapter is shorter- but very important! Alexiel has a run in with a creepy, mysterious figure that could just change the way she looks at life. Review, please! Stick with me! Thanks again to those that have done so!