~Trapped on the inside, cell 413.~
Midnight.
Half the night is already over.
It's strange that on the other side of the world, the time is noon, and happy people are eating their
happy lunches in happiness. I wonder if they would be so happy if they knew what was happening on
the other side of the world, if they knew what was happening to me. Would they even care?
Would they still be happy, if they did care? Or would they become another part of me, become sad,
lonely, not happy?
Even if they did care, no one would do anything to help me. They would only feel a hint of sympathy
for me and go on with their happy lives, while I am sitting on the other side of the world in the dark,
the cold, waiting for the end of the world.
The end of the world is coming, and it is coming sooner than anyone thinks. I know it; I can feel it
coming. I can hear the wind whispering behind the clouds. I can see the shadows relaying messages
sent from the underworld. I can taste the blood of the wounded angels as it falls to earth in the rain. I
can feel the despair undulating from the millions of unsuspecting citizens as the sprites scavenge their
lives and digest their happy memories.
Nasty little bastards, those sprites. They don't give a damn for who you are, where you are, or what
you think. They pillage your secret thoughts, exploit your deepest, sweetest memories, steal your
beliefs, all while you watch helplessly. You scream, but they only eat your hopes, and soon you forget
to scream anymore. You don't even remember to feel. They slowly take over your body, draining
your body of its very essence. You die a little more every day, and what makes it worse is that you can
feel it every time one of those little bastards takes a bite of your aspirations, your validity, your life.
Parasitic evils are all around the human race, and once the sprites select a victim, they ravage and filch
until there is not a trace left of humanity. They precede the end of the world, acting as heralds of the
underworld, those bastard harbingers of the death and destruction that awaits earth.
What can I expect, though? Definitely not pity. I don't want pity from anyone…or anything…except
the sprites…and they will never pity me, or my mind. So I am doomed to be an unwilling part in their
games, trapped forever in a spiraling circle of hurt.
I am here.
You are there.
They are everywhere.
They all are my tiny minions, a creative invention of the greatest evil of them all: my mind.
My mind will steal the life away from everyone and everything on this planet, the innocent, the guilty,
the plagiarized. My mind is going to destroy this pathetic earth very soon. My mind is evil, and these
doctors could care less.
I sit in this cold cell, watching the sprites as they eat the doctors and nurses; the doctors and nurses
stare at me in apprehension when I try to tell them of the sprites. I tell them that they should say their
goodbyes to their families and friends, before it is too late. Before they can no longer breathe the
words to do so, before they die and leave important words unspoken. But they all either ignore me, or
pretend to listen to me to be polite. They don't understand that they are dying as I cry out to them.
Since I cannot stop the sprites from killing, I only want to warn those who are dying. But if they will
not listen to me, there is not much else I can do for them. I tried, world. You guys are the ones who
didn't take me seriously.
Listen to me for once, please. They are out there.
They are killing.
Even if you are happy, they will kill you just like they would if you were sad.
There is no exception to this insanity.
None.
~Trapped on the outside.~
"No, Mr. Maxwell. There is no need for such extreme measures. The staff here will treat Mr. Winner
with the utmost care, let me assure you. Our excellent line of doctors and nurses work diligently to
provide the only the best care for our patients, and all of our patients love staying here with us."
About that time, the patient in room 413 suddenly threw himself into the metal door, screaming and
clawing at the window, screaming for…
(help,someone.help.me.please.someone..want..home.)
…the sprites to come back. Duo received a fresh wave of chills crawling up his spine, and shuddered
involuntarily at the sensation. The doctor, Dr. Samuel Oliver Bastien (as he had so clearly pronounced
when a steaming Duo arrived at his office a few moments ago), smiled ostentatiously. "Such love…"
he remarked in a sickenly admiring voice. "Let us move on, shall we?" The porcine doctor abruptly
took the youth's arm and waddled down the whitewashed hall, away from the screaming patient in
room 413.
Duo seriously considered breaking the man's arm, hesitating only for the realization that the eggy
jackass would probably press charges against him, thus impeding any future success of getting Quatre
out of this place. Suppressing the urge to knock the doctor on his ample ass, Duo let himself be led by
Doctor S. O. B. into another hallway with what seemed like even brighter florescent lights. These
rooms
(cells)
were all closed and dark, devoid of any sign of life except for the names on the charts hung on the wall
to the left of the door. Duo caught glimpses of several names outside the rooms, none making very
much sense, one achingly familiar name flashing in bright neon in his mind.
(WINNER, Q. R.)
He opened his mouth to raise hell with the doctor, but his breath caught in his throat. An unmarked
door had opened just as the doctor was blundering past; the blonde hair was unmistakable. Rough
voices were demanding the subordinance of the protesting patient; a thud of foot striking stomach,
followed by a soft cry of pain; then silence.
Duo couldn't think clearly, and his weak protesting was overruled by the monster leading him away
from his best friend. The doctor stopped when Duo pulled away from him, turning around completely
to ascertain the reason for debarment. His roachy eyes widened as he realized just what had caught the
boy's attention.
Grabbing the teen around the waist, the doctor slung Duo around and started to juggle across the
linoleum, partially grating Duo's face across the brick walls of the hallway. A stream of blood dripped
from the scrape on his cheek and fell onto the linseed oil and powdered cork floor. The pain was dull
after a moment, but the wound would surely sting again if cleaned and bandaged.
(…no problem for a Gundam pilot, man.)
A loud scream like feedback from a microphone echoed upon itself in the claustrophobic hallway, and
Duo was almost pitched immediately from the doctor's hold as the man froze in place. Duo lost his
balance on the impotent linoleum flooring and stumbled, landing hard and loosing his breath. The lack
of oxygen seemed to clear the fuzzy thoughts in his head,
(my mind is evil)
and after a moment, Duo regained his orientation.
He ran to the room where he had seen Quatre, beat up the bad guys, rescued Quatre, and both lived
happily together for the rest of their happy lives, after decimating this horrible place with the
Gundams.
…Only in Duo's mind. In reality, he limped to the room just in time to see two men dressed in white
laboratory outfits, one drawing a syringe of some pale orange liquid while the other restrained the
blonde. Broken and bleeding, Quatre remained downcast in a physical symbol of complete submission
between the two doctors.
Duo breathed his name softly, and with a great deal of pain, Quatre looked up to meet Duo's eyes, his
expression one of recognition and gratitude. Doctor Number One grabbed a handful of blonde hair and
shoved Quatre's head down, making completely sure to collide it with the examining table on the way.
The resounding crack was followed by a fresh trickle of blood from just above Quatre's hairline and a
pitiful moan. Doctor Syringe finished drawing the liquid from a glass bottle, and threw the glass bottle
absently over his shoulder into the far wall.
The glass shattered, drawing Duo out of his shock. He lunged for Quatre as Doctor Syringe moved
closer to roll up Quatre's tattered and torn sleeve. He managed to grab the blonde's arm, then
squeaked in pain as the needle was rammed into the back of his hand and emptied. Fire burned every
nerve ending in Duo's hand, spreading up into his arm and shoulder at an alarmingly quick rate.
Something like a seizure overtook him, and he convulsed violently until he passed out.
~Trapped on the inside.~
Duo awoke on an uncomfortable floor, feeling with every move when each cell in his body was
chewed, stabbed, and grinded simultaneously. He almost passed out again, fighting the feeling long
enough to realize he was not alone.
Next to him was the very person he had come to rescue from this horrible place.
His face was streaked with blood and dirty, his clothes mere rags. The eyes so wonderfully bright
before were now dull and lifeless, the eyes of a prisoner-slave. But Quatre was still there. No matter
how much torture and abuse Duo's Quatre would be subject to, the real Quatre would always be there,
would always belong to Duo.
He sat beside Duo, watching over him as if he were a dream that he would soon wake up from, a vision
that would immediately fade upon rejoining the real world.
The tiniest hint of a smile graced the blonde's lips, causing Duo to forget all about the pain he had
suffered just to see his angel again. Only wincing for a moment, he sat up enough to fall into Quatre's
arms, the arms he had missed for too long.
Quatre accepted the weeping boy into his protective embrace, burying his face into the strands of sweet
smelling cinnamon hair, realizing just how much he had missed the crazy pilot.
"Duo…you shouldn't have come here."
An invisible sigh, then an unstable voice.
"I missed you, Quatre…"
"But now you will have hell to pay, Duo."
Duo would have laughed, if not for the ache that never seemed to alleviate. "That's no problem for a
Gundam pilot, man."
"You forget that I was also a Gundam pilot." The statement hung in the cold air, almost echoing regret
and hopelessness.
(Yeah, you WERE a Gundam pilot, just until you decided to lose your cookies, your marbles, your
SANITY and leave me for this bitch of a place.)
Duo was silent.
Softly, as if surreal, Quatre said, "I'm not crazy, Duo."
(I don't belong here, never did, just wanna go HOME.)
"Quatre, what did they do to you?" Duo whispered worriedly, his careful hand reaching out to caress
the blonde's rapidly bruising cheek. Quatre closed his eyes, leaning into the first gentle touch he had
received in weeks. Only then did Duo realize the extensiveness of the blonde lab rat's pain, when the
purplish skin of the bruise on his face fell off with a nauseating slurp against the palm of his hand.
Duo stared in shock at the squishy, warm flesh in his hand, listening as bluish blood piked on the
contradicted floor. (that DAMN linoleum.)
Smiling ruefully, Duo slapped the bloody cheek back in place. He stared at it when the skin slid off
Quatre's face and slushed onto the floor with a GLOP, then giggled madly. He scooped as much as the
blood as he could and chucked the mass at Quatre's oozing face.
The blood slung across the blonde's face and carved deep gashes across his forehead and throat, which
in turn began to percolate blood, dripping to the
(damn)
linoleum.
Then silence.
"Hello? Quatre?"
Looking around, Duo saw only the emptiness of the inside of a cell. No Quatre, no blood, no linoleum.
Duo looked around again, this time realizing that his
(mind is evil)
friend was gone again.
Realization hit him like a freedom-shaped ton of bricks. He wasn't going to go home, not today, not
ever.
But I just want to go home….
He sat against the metal door, embracing his knees and waiting…waiting for the end of the world.
Hearing the dreaded, familiar sound, he drew in a sharp breath and pushed himself closer to the cold
door. The sprites were coming again, slowly creeping out of the darkness to torture him until they
found another soul to eat. But they would never kill him, no. They could never kill their creator.
Death cannot be killed, they had explained to Duo. Death must be the killer.
Duo choked back a cry as the sprites began to close in on him again, their innocent victims voices
echoing in their memories.
A constant thought of home usually took his mind off their cruel torture. If he could go home, this
horrible place would cease to exist and the sprites would go away. They would go away and not
torture him anymore. Wouldn't they? He was their creator…couldn't he tell them to go away?
The sprites always went when they found another soul to eat. They would give him the current death
toll, tell him who they had killed and when. A mother here, a child there…Duo knew when and how
everyone of them died. He knew the gore and blood of the ruthless murders, the car accidents, the
plane crashes. After all, as Death, it was his job to claim the lives.
A sudden tremor passed over the sprites around Duo; they had chosen their next victim. With a slow,
painstaking action, they began to move just to the outside of the door.
Duo sighed and rested his head back against the door. Then he heard that familiar voice…
"But he is surely making progress, and I will keep you updated on his condition. I hope to be able to
release him soon, Mr. Winner."
"Thank you, Dr. Bastien."
(HOME)
Duo realized with a sinking feeling who the sprite's next victim was.
He jumped up, clawing at the window in the door of room 413, screaming as loudly as he could.
"NO! COME BACK! COME BAAAAACK!"
Midnight.
Half the night is already over.
It's strange that on the other side of the world, the time is noon, and happy people are eating their
happy lunches in happiness. I wonder if they would be so happy if they knew what was happening on
the other side of the world, if they knew what was happening to me. Would they even care?
Would they still be happy, if they did care? Or would they become another part of me, become sad,
lonely, not happy?
Even if they did care, no one would do anything to help me. They would only feel a hint of sympathy
for me and go on with their happy lives, while I am sitting on the other side of the world in the dark,
the cold, waiting for the end of the world.
The end of the world is coming, and it is coming sooner than anyone thinks. I know it; I can feel it
coming. I can hear the wind whispering behind the clouds. I can see the shadows relaying messages
sent from the underworld. I can taste the blood of the wounded angels as it falls to earth in the rain. I
can feel the despair undulating from the millions of unsuspecting citizens as the sprites scavenge their
lives and digest their happy memories.
Nasty little bastards, those sprites. They don't give a damn for who you are, where you are, or what
you think. They pillage your secret thoughts, exploit your deepest, sweetest memories, steal your
beliefs, all while you watch helplessly. You scream, but they only eat your hopes, and soon you forget
to scream anymore. You don't even remember to feel. They slowly take over your body, draining
your body of its very essence. You die a little more every day, and what makes it worse is that you can
feel it every time one of those little bastards takes a bite of your aspirations, your validity, your life.
Parasitic evils are all around the human race, and once the sprites select a victim, they ravage and filch
until there is not a trace left of humanity. They precede the end of the world, acting as heralds of the
underworld, those bastard harbingers of the death and destruction that awaits earth.
What can I expect, though? Definitely not pity. I don't want pity from anyone…or anything…except
the sprites…and they will never pity me, or my mind. So I am doomed to be an unwilling part in their
games, trapped forever in a spiraling circle of hurt.
I am here.
You are there.
They are everywhere.
They all are my tiny minions, a creative invention of the greatest evil of them all: my mind.
My mind will steal the life away from everyone and everything on this planet, the innocent, the guilty,
the plagiarized. My mind is going to destroy this pathetic earth very soon. My mind is evil, and these
doctors could care less.
I sit in this cold cell, watching the sprites as they eat the doctors and nurses; the doctors and nurses
stare at me in apprehension when I try to tell them of the sprites. I tell them that they should say their
goodbyes to their families and friends, before it is too late. Before they can no longer breathe the
words to do so, before they die and leave important words unspoken. But they all either ignore me, or
pretend to listen to me to be polite. They don't understand that they are dying as I cry out to them.
Since I cannot stop the sprites from killing, I only want to warn those who are dying. But if they will
not listen to me, there is not much else I can do for them. I tried, world. You guys are the ones who
didn't take me seriously.
Listen to me for once, please. They are out there.
They are killing.
Even if you are happy, they will kill you just like they would if you were sad.
There is no exception to this insanity.
None.
~Trapped on the outside.~
"No, Mr. Maxwell. There is no need for such extreme measures. The staff here will treat Mr. Winner
with the utmost care, let me assure you. Our excellent line of doctors and nurses work diligently to
provide the only the best care for our patients, and all of our patients love staying here with us."
About that time, the patient in room 413 suddenly threw himself into the metal door, screaming and
clawing at the window, screaming for…
(help,someone.help.me.please.someone..want..home.)
…the sprites to come back. Duo received a fresh wave of chills crawling up his spine, and shuddered
involuntarily at the sensation. The doctor, Dr. Samuel Oliver Bastien (as he had so clearly pronounced
when a steaming Duo arrived at his office a few moments ago), smiled ostentatiously. "Such love…"
he remarked in a sickenly admiring voice. "Let us move on, shall we?" The porcine doctor abruptly
took the youth's arm and waddled down the whitewashed hall, away from the screaming patient in
room 413.
Duo seriously considered breaking the man's arm, hesitating only for the realization that the eggy
jackass would probably press charges against him, thus impeding any future success of getting Quatre
out of this place. Suppressing the urge to knock the doctor on his ample ass, Duo let himself be led by
Doctor S. O. B. into another hallway with what seemed like even brighter florescent lights. These
rooms
(cells)
were all closed and dark, devoid of any sign of life except for the names on the charts hung on the wall
to the left of the door. Duo caught glimpses of several names outside the rooms, none making very
much sense, one achingly familiar name flashing in bright neon in his mind.
(WINNER, Q. R.)
He opened his mouth to raise hell with the doctor, but his breath caught in his throat. An unmarked
door had opened just as the doctor was blundering past; the blonde hair was unmistakable. Rough
voices were demanding the subordinance of the protesting patient; a thud of foot striking stomach,
followed by a soft cry of pain; then silence.
Duo couldn't think clearly, and his weak protesting was overruled by the monster leading him away
from his best friend. The doctor stopped when Duo pulled away from him, turning around completely
to ascertain the reason for debarment. His roachy eyes widened as he realized just what had caught the
boy's attention.
Grabbing the teen around the waist, the doctor slung Duo around and started to juggle across the
linoleum, partially grating Duo's face across the brick walls of the hallway. A stream of blood dripped
from the scrape on his cheek and fell onto the linseed oil and powdered cork floor. The pain was dull
after a moment, but the wound would surely sting again if cleaned and bandaged.
(…no problem for a Gundam pilot, man.)
A loud scream like feedback from a microphone echoed upon itself in the claustrophobic hallway, and
Duo was almost pitched immediately from the doctor's hold as the man froze in place. Duo lost his
balance on the impotent linoleum flooring and stumbled, landing hard and loosing his breath. The lack
of oxygen seemed to clear the fuzzy thoughts in his head,
(my mind is evil)
and after a moment, Duo regained his orientation.
He ran to the room where he had seen Quatre, beat up the bad guys, rescued Quatre, and both lived
happily together for the rest of their happy lives, after decimating this horrible place with the
Gundams.
…Only in Duo's mind. In reality, he limped to the room just in time to see two men dressed in white
laboratory outfits, one drawing a syringe of some pale orange liquid while the other restrained the
blonde. Broken and bleeding, Quatre remained downcast in a physical symbol of complete submission
between the two doctors.
Duo breathed his name softly, and with a great deal of pain, Quatre looked up to meet Duo's eyes, his
expression one of recognition and gratitude. Doctor Number One grabbed a handful of blonde hair and
shoved Quatre's head down, making completely sure to collide it with the examining table on the way.
The resounding crack was followed by a fresh trickle of blood from just above Quatre's hairline and a
pitiful moan. Doctor Syringe finished drawing the liquid from a glass bottle, and threw the glass bottle
absently over his shoulder into the far wall.
The glass shattered, drawing Duo out of his shock. He lunged for Quatre as Doctor Syringe moved
closer to roll up Quatre's tattered and torn sleeve. He managed to grab the blonde's arm, then
squeaked in pain as the needle was rammed into the back of his hand and emptied. Fire burned every
nerve ending in Duo's hand, spreading up into his arm and shoulder at an alarmingly quick rate.
Something like a seizure overtook him, and he convulsed violently until he passed out.
~Trapped on the inside.~
Duo awoke on an uncomfortable floor, feeling with every move when each cell in his body was
chewed, stabbed, and grinded simultaneously. He almost passed out again, fighting the feeling long
enough to realize he was not alone.
Next to him was the very person he had come to rescue from this horrible place.
His face was streaked with blood and dirty, his clothes mere rags. The eyes so wonderfully bright
before were now dull and lifeless, the eyes of a prisoner-slave. But Quatre was still there. No matter
how much torture and abuse Duo's Quatre would be subject to, the real Quatre would always be there,
would always belong to Duo.
He sat beside Duo, watching over him as if he were a dream that he would soon wake up from, a vision
that would immediately fade upon rejoining the real world.
The tiniest hint of a smile graced the blonde's lips, causing Duo to forget all about the pain he had
suffered just to see his angel again. Only wincing for a moment, he sat up enough to fall into Quatre's
arms, the arms he had missed for too long.
Quatre accepted the weeping boy into his protective embrace, burying his face into the strands of sweet
smelling cinnamon hair, realizing just how much he had missed the crazy pilot.
"Duo…you shouldn't have come here."
An invisible sigh, then an unstable voice.
"I missed you, Quatre…"
"But now you will have hell to pay, Duo."
Duo would have laughed, if not for the ache that never seemed to alleviate. "That's no problem for a
Gundam pilot, man."
"You forget that I was also a Gundam pilot." The statement hung in the cold air, almost echoing regret
and hopelessness.
(Yeah, you WERE a Gundam pilot, just until you decided to lose your cookies, your marbles, your
SANITY and leave me for this bitch of a place.)
Duo was silent.
Softly, as if surreal, Quatre said, "I'm not crazy, Duo."
(I don't belong here, never did, just wanna go HOME.)
"Quatre, what did they do to you?" Duo whispered worriedly, his careful hand reaching out to caress
the blonde's rapidly bruising cheek. Quatre closed his eyes, leaning into the first gentle touch he had
received in weeks. Only then did Duo realize the extensiveness of the blonde lab rat's pain, when the
purplish skin of the bruise on his face fell off with a nauseating slurp against the palm of his hand.
Duo stared in shock at the squishy, warm flesh in his hand, listening as bluish blood piked on the
contradicted floor. (that DAMN linoleum.)
Smiling ruefully, Duo slapped the bloody cheek back in place. He stared at it when the skin slid off
Quatre's face and slushed onto the floor with a GLOP, then giggled madly. He scooped as much as the
blood as he could and chucked the mass at Quatre's oozing face.
The blood slung across the blonde's face and carved deep gashes across his forehead and throat, which
in turn began to percolate blood, dripping to the
(damn)
linoleum.
Then silence.
"Hello? Quatre?"
Looking around, Duo saw only the emptiness of the inside of a cell. No Quatre, no blood, no linoleum.
Duo looked around again, this time realizing that his
(mind is evil)
friend was gone again.
Realization hit him like a freedom-shaped ton of bricks. He wasn't going to go home, not today, not
ever.
But I just want to go home….
He sat against the metal door, embracing his knees and waiting…waiting for the end of the world.
Hearing the dreaded, familiar sound, he drew in a sharp breath and pushed himself closer to the cold
door. The sprites were coming again, slowly creeping out of the darkness to torture him until they
found another soul to eat. But they would never kill him, no. They could never kill their creator.
Death cannot be killed, they had explained to Duo. Death must be the killer.
Duo choked back a cry as the sprites began to close in on him again, their innocent victims voices
echoing in their memories.
A constant thought of home usually took his mind off their cruel torture. If he could go home, this
horrible place would cease to exist and the sprites would go away. They would go away and not
torture him anymore. Wouldn't they? He was their creator…couldn't he tell them to go away?
The sprites always went when they found another soul to eat. They would give him the current death
toll, tell him who they had killed and when. A mother here, a child there…Duo knew when and how
everyone of them died. He knew the gore and blood of the ruthless murders, the car accidents, the
plane crashes. After all, as Death, it was his job to claim the lives.
A sudden tremor passed over the sprites around Duo; they had chosen their next victim. With a slow,
painstaking action, they began to move just to the outside of the door.
Duo sighed and rested his head back against the door. Then he heard that familiar voice…
"But he is surely making progress, and I will keep you updated on his condition. I hope to be able to
release him soon, Mr. Winner."
"Thank you, Dr. Bastien."
(HOME)
Duo realized with a sinking feeling who the sprite's next victim was.
He jumped up, clawing at the window in the door of room 413, screaming as loudly as he could.
"NO! COME BACK! COME BAAAAACK!"