Okaaay, here I am again, with another update. Um, sorry to all you people who were expecting a switch back to Zim and Dib, that was what was in the works, but I've been computer-hopping lately, and…er…that chapter is, well, on a completely different computer. *suddenly jumps out of chair and hides under desk* don't kill me painfully with a spork!! I'm working on It! Working veeeery hard on it! I'm sorry I'm sorry!!
Aaanyways, this has some vaguely important stuff in it. It's a flashback, to the kid of the family who used to live in the Mansion. Mmyep… again, please don't kill me!!
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A small form, that of a little girl, glossy brown hair in corkscrews that hung around her face, sat in front of a crypt. Thinking. The mausoleum was granite, gray in color, with an angel's form standing protectively over the door, which was padlocked. Ivy grew up the sides of the crypt, spinning, climbing, interweaving. Somehow the ivy had grown up the statue of the angel, wrapping around the wings. Nobody had cleaned the ivy off, and it created an interesting look, like the angel was one with nature.
The sky was overcast, and the trees rustled lightly in the breeze, sending more turning leaves falling in wisps of different colors. The ground was already scattered with such leaves, the colors ranging from a pale dry green to a deep shade of orange, spotted with brown. The path running back through the forest, back towards the mansion, was supposed to have been leaf-blown, but one couldn't tell now, the servants didn't bother on windy days, and the breeze was enough to scatter leaves along the path. It would have been pointless to blow the leaves back where they belonged.
The little girl looked up at the angel on top of the crypt with deep blue eyes, blank, with no emotion shining through them. She sighed; tugging at the baggy sweater which was a size too big. Then she spoke, as if someone was in the clearing, at the mausoleum with her.
"Mommy, Daddy's been giving me the shots again." She started in a voice low enough that could be considered a whisper. Her voice grew a bit stronger, and she spoke a bit louder, as if trying to be heard. "He says they're good for me. But I don't feel any different."
"He says everybody else is getting them. The gatekeeper, Sam, even Sandy, and she hates shots. Daddy says we need them." She took a breath, taking in the chill air, then expelling it before continuing. "But that doesn't matter."
"They've been making me angry. Everybody else in the Manor, that is. I've been noticing their annoying little habits more and more. Sam chews gum, did you know? A lot. He pops it, loudly. It interrupts me when I'm trying to read. Funny, I'd never noticed it before. "
"Jason, the new gatekeeper, his hounds are too loud at night. I never noticed how loud they are. Maybe the shots are helping me after all? But, mommy, the dogs are loud. And they don't like me. They growl at me whenever I come near. One even tried to attack me once. I broke its paw. Jason wanted to know what happened, so I told him the hound knocked a canister of kerosene, one of the big ones, onto its paw. He believed me." The girl said, smiling slightly at the memory as a flash of anger crossed her otherwise blank features.
"Sandy says I've been acting odd lately. I don't know why she thinks that; I've been normal, completely normal. She says I've grown a short temper. She makes me angry sometimes. Daddy says not to listen to anybody; he says their opinions don't matter. That they're jealous because I'm better than them, for getting the shots longer than them. He says it's okay if I want to hurt them."
Silence for a moment. The trees rustled again, the low skittering noise of leaves blowing across pavement echoed out in the near silent clearing. The angel on the crypt seemed to stare down with pity on the quivering form of the little girl, now seeming to be filled with anger as she mulled over what had happened in the past week since she'd been to her mother's mausoleum.
The girl looked up at the angel, staring into the blank statue's eyes with her own anger-filled ones. "Mommy, you were wrong. You always said the shots were bad, no no no, don't take the shots. But I feel better. Better than before. Stronger, justified. You were wrong, Mommy. And Daddy was right. The shots help. The lab helps. The shots are special; you were jealous just like the rest, because Daddy liked it that I took the shots."
Dark angry blue eyes stared at her hands, clasped in her lap. The breeze got stronger now, and it was getting dark, darker, too dark for 5:36 PM. Clouds floated across the cold autumn sun as it set, explaining the darkness. The anger faded from the sapphire eyes, and now the girl looked back up at the angel statue, bottom lip quivering slightly as panic flashed across her eyes.
"There's something wrong with me, Mommy. I wish you were still here. Daddy takes me down to the labs more often now, the people are scary there. They have animals in there, they look…wrong. Mutated. I saw a rabbit with its heart torn out. It was still moving, it trailed the heart along after it, still beating. I saw a raven, going crazy, banging against the glass until it killed itself. I saw a mouse big as my hand. Its heart… its heart was attached to its backbone. I could see its heart beating through the flesh. It was horrible, angry. They put it in a cage with more mice, normal ones. The mutated one ate them. The other mice."
The girl wrapped her arms around herself, shuddering at the memories, her eyes clouding over. "What's happening to me? What's going on? Why am I so angry…why, why?!" A few tears trailed down the girl's face. She unwrapped her arms from herself, creeping to the doors of the crypt and resting against them, trying to get as close to her mother as she could, before she started sobbing. Everything was so wrong. What was going on? The curiosity drove her crazy. Crazy, crazy. Angry, crazy, hating, a red haze. It was all wrong, something was wrong, something bad.
Something was wrong with her.