Disclaimer: I own absolutely nothing to do with Dark City, aside from the home video. I don't own the city, I don't own Schreber (If I did I wouldn't be WRITING about him now would I?) and I don't own anything else that'll get my behind thrown in jail.
Author's Note: YEAH YEAH! ANOTHER MARY SUE! KILL ME! For God's sakes, the stuff I write about leaves little room for anything BUT! And This ones unlike most Mary's, although you may not know it at first. JUST READ THE DARN FIC!! :-)
ENJOY!!
The sun was setting. Dr. Daniel Paul Schreber, Psychiatrist, looked longingly out the window. It had been a year since he had first seen the sun...For the second time. The first time was forever a mystery to him. Most of everything was a mystery to him.
He winched at his 'first' memory, waking up on the cold, dark, black-blue floor, pain in his back, leg, eye. The last of which bled heavily, turning half his vision into a blurred reality of red. Slowly the memories he had imprinted his self with had began to fade into his head, earning a sob of defeat.
"Enough" Schreber hissed to himself, shaking his head as best he could without causing pain. Sighing he slowly looked about his large, empty office. In front of him laid a report he was doing on one of his so precious few patients. What irony, this particular patients was a murder. Sadly, unlike Murdoch, this one was truly guilty. Was it a last twist of nonexistent irony on The Strangers' ghost? He didn't know although he wondered so often.
Winching he raised himself gently from his seat and limped over to the window of which he had been gazing out. A soft breeze blew through the open portal, ruffling his short corn-blond hair, gracing the soft skin of his face. That same breeze so long ago had caused him to shiver, had reminded him of The Strangers' breath so constantly down his neck. Now it was almost like the caress of a lover...Although, what would he know of lovers?
A soft knock on the door. Schreber gave a small jerk as he was so quickly brought back to reality.
"Come - in" He called in the direction of the door, limping over to his desk and leaning against it, arms crossed over his still-aching chest. He watched, somewhat wide-eyed as the familiar body of a young, strong faced girl walked through the door, clad in jeans and a black T-shirt, fiddling with a second, beautifully decorated belt that buckled with the first one that went around her waist, curled around her backside and attached to her jeans, regarding him with wide eyes. Her face was somewhat the same, young and yet the same time old, her hair silver gray. It had been that way when he had first imprinted her. She must have had a rough life before the Strangers had took her that had resulted in her hair graying at such a young age, her young face now ever slightly so hard. And yet, there was a new emotion on her face. Something between confusion, pain and anger, perhaps a mixture of all of them.....Had she been one of the ones to wake up? He had forgotten, it had been so long ago but he could have swore something along those lines made her different. And he had seen the eyes of those who had woke up before. Although very dim, mocking even, he could see something like that in her eyes.
"May I - help you, young - lady?" He asked, assuming his usual, ever professional tone. The girl's green eyes flashed ever so slightly, a emotion he knew very well overriding the unnamed one at the present: She didn't know where to begin.
"Um...Dr Schreber?" She asked, her voice shy, pronouncing his name "Schreaber". Schreber couldn't help but grin, she had not been the first to mispronounce it, although that was the more pleasant of the 3.
"Schreber" he corrected gently, "Is there something - I can - help you with?". They was back at point one again, ah, how he loved being a Psychiatrist.
"Um...I don't know how to start" She said, her voice so gentle for her face. She looked from one end of the office then the other, looking as though she wished that she would find the answer standing out like a painting on the wall...However, there was no paintings. Just the bare, newly painted olive green walls and dark brown wood trimming. It suited his life really, Schreber thought. Lonely and bare and repainted.
"I...Well..." She dug into her left hand pocket as she walked towards him on somewhat short legs and brought out a crumpled card and handed it to him. Schreber grained inside. It was his very own card, Daniel P. Schreber, PH.
"That, believe it or not, landed on my head a few days ago" She said. Schreber looked at her with a upraised eyebrow.
"And - you thought that perhaps - you'd come see who - This Dr. Daniel P. Schreber - is?" He asked. She shook her head of silver hair, pail green (scared?) eyes looking anywhere but directly into his eyes.
"No....I don't know where to begin, but...I think I may need your help" She said, voice emphasizing the 'Your'. Schreber nodded, smiling his 'Psychiatrist' smile as some had called it and motioned to a chair in front of his desk.
"Please - have a seat" He said, pushing himself from the leaning position he had maintained and walked around his desk and sat in his own chair. She regarded the chair, uncertain and then sat, seeming very uncomfortable and shy.
"Now - I have all - night so please, start - wherever your mind - lands" He said gently. Silence passed after a small nod from her and he sat, smile still on his face, fingers laced in his lap.
"This is going to sound crazy" She finally said. Schreber laughed, a sound that he was sure once charmed people. Now it sounded empty, phoney, a echo of what used to be to his own ears. Had it always sounded like that? Oh he had lost so much....So many people had due to him, even his own self.
"Listening - that what appears - to be insane ramblings is my - profession, Miss" He said. She giggled shyly and stopped very suddenly, her face winching in pain. Schreber tried to hide the empathy he felt for her. He had imprinted her so many times, all her chosen fates being hard, each earning her a scar, a wound, a injury that would never leave her. In ways, she was something like him.
"OK then" She said, giving a unsure turn of the head and fixed her eyes on the wall just above his head.
"my name is Trinity Butler, I'm currently unemployed, I grew up on Shell Beach, lost my family to a sickness and became a Orphan. At the age of 13 I ran away and began a life on my own, doing just about anything I could to put cloths on my back, food in my mouth" As she spoke, she waved her hands about, emphasizing her points, a attribute she had had before her first imprint, and would for the rest of her years, "At 14 I joined a resistance group, I killed my first a month after that and suffered tremendous feelings of guilt but grew out of it within a few weeks.....I can remember all this in very great detail Dr....Schreber" She said, pausing to make sure she got his name right, still avoiding his eyes, "I remember the smell of the sea, the feel of the wind, the sound of the gun...Yet....At 15 everything goes blank and my age eludes me. It's not amnesia" She said, raising her voice as Schreber started to speak, "It's not, I've looked into it so deeply it's painful. True, my symptoms are very much like amnesia but thats not it I feel......Anyway, thats not what matters. What matters is...Through the long - for lack of a better word, blank streak, theres suddenly a very bright flash of light and a outline of a face. At first, this confused me, as everything else does, and I regarded it as another strange dream....But, more and more it'd flash in my mind till I finally began thinking about it....Sunday I drove myself insane thinking about it to the point that I split into a long string of curses, amongst them was "Send me a reason why I keep thinking about this" and..Well...Your card landed on my head. Usually, I'd laugh at something so ironic but...It's been nagging at me. I understand if you think I'm crazy, I'm starting to think I'm loosing my mind" She finished, trying to add humor to her voice but failing. Her hands fell inactive in her lap, her head turned to the side, her hair catching between the chair and her shoulder, pulling away from her cheek to expose a very long gash that started from her hairline, curled around and went into her ear then down to her jawbone. It had never has stitches, like so many of Schreber, and left a very wide scar.
Schreber sat there, his hands still in his own lap, fingers laces, but his smile had faded. He remembered now (Oh what irony), she had woke up, jerking as one would from a nightmare. It had been a lot like Murdoch who would happen but a week after, only this time she had truly knocked the syringe out of his hand, unlike Murdoch whose unharnessed and at the time, unknown, Tuning had thrown it out of his hand. The bright light she had spoke of had been one of many lights of the subway where she had fell asleep. She had came there to pick up a shipment of cocaine, she was meant to leave on a job to assassinate the head of a large company. She had instead left very confused and frightened.
He had never told The Strangers, he didn't want to suffer the punishment that would surely befall him if they had found out about his failure. As a result he was now being visited by her, the wind having carried her his very own card as though blaming him for this. As though saying "You break it you fix it". Perhaps THIS was the last act of irony of The Stranger's ghost.
Trinity....He had chose that name for her, personally. It sounded so graceful and small yet beautiful. It had been his own irony that had chose such a name for someone with her fate. It sounded nothing like the woman who sat before him, scared and (he was sure) scar riddled.
Trinity shifted with nervousness, the leather of the chair beneath her groaning, bringing him back to the present.
"Is that - all you have - to tell me?" He asked. Trinity's jaw clinched, the effort making two small round shapes stand out at each side of her face. She took a breath to speak but only let it out and instead shook her head no.
"Last night I dreamt it again....Do you know why I regarded you so oddly when I first came in, Doctor?" She asked, raising her head, finally locking eyes with him. This time fear was most definitely the overriding emotion in them. Schreber didn't know what to do, his mind had went numb with all of this. He shook his head and spoke a quiet "No", leaning back in his chair on impulse.
"Because....I recognized you from the dream last time. It was very clear. The subway light and your face hanging over me. I don't know what to expect you to feel about this, I barely understand it myself. I've been outside your office door for the past hour wondering whether I should leave or not". Schreber's brow furrowed.
"The past - hour?" He asked. She nodded, blushing.
"I saw your face in the crowed. I -- followed you. I hadn't got a good look and at first I was questioning that maybe it wasn't you....It is though...". Schreber nodded and rose, limping to the window again, not noticing her empathetic winch when she noted how he walked, although she knew not why he had the limp. He placed his hands on the sill, looking out at the city Murdoch had so wonderfully re-made. From here he could even see the shoreline, water the 'killer' had made playing joyfully with the shore. He wondered what to tell her. If he explained what happened, the truth, she'd surely think -he- was the crazy one and God knows what she would do, wondering whether to believe him or not. Or.....Or he could lead her under a guise, slowly getting her used to the idea of what was the truth then finally tell her in whole, along with a explanation of why he had 'lied' to her. Yes, that seemed the most reasonable.
"Well" He finally spoke, turning around to face her, "I think - I have - an idea of what it is you - suffer from. It is - indeed amnesia, Miss Butler. There - are many types. Yours, - from everything you - have described to me, - is indeed a rare one but - it is still amnesia. As for - seeing my face in a vision is - yes a dream. Perhaps you - have seen my face - in a crowed without actually - registering it in your - conscious yet your subconscious did, and you - simply dreamed it later on, misinterpreting - it as - a memory in your - search for - your memory" He gently explained, sitting on the desk in front of her.
"Oh...Forgive me for bothering you, thank you" She quickly muttered and went to rise.
"But!" Schreber added before she actually stood, "Perhaps - I can help you - with your memory. I have - had a patient who suffered - from memory - loss. Although it was a long - therapy, in the end he - regained his memory" He lied. God what was he getting himself and her into?.
Trinity looked into his eyes again, hope sparking amongst the many emotions ("Oh her eyes are so like mirrors into her soul" Schreber thought) that pooled inside them.
"Do you mean it?"A nod. She looked back down again and then around the office, almost like one whose looking into buying a house. Schreber couldn't help but feel guilty, he was misguiding this girl so badly, promising her something that would never come true, could never come true, only to in the end to tell her that she'd never know she who really was again. That she had had many lifetimes before this, none of the real, just as the one she remembered to little about was not real (That it was his fault). She was probably the most real she had been in - years? How long had they had them here?
He was brought out of his thoughts again by her locking eyes with him, the faintest traces of a smile on her lips.
"Thank you" She said, almost a...Sob?. Schreber nodded, taking a hand from her lap and placing it sandwiched in between his.
'It's began then' He thought. 'A false promises built on vain hope.'
Author's Note: YEAH YEAH! ANOTHER MARY SUE! KILL ME! For God's sakes, the stuff I write about leaves little room for anything BUT! And This ones unlike most Mary's, although you may not know it at first. JUST READ THE DARN FIC!! :-)
ENJOY!!
The sun was setting. Dr. Daniel Paul Schreber, Psychiatrist, looked longingly out the window. It had been a year since he had first seen the sun...For the second time. The first time was forever a mystery to him. Most of everything was a mystery to him.
He winched at his 'first' memory, waking up on the cold, dark, black-blue floor, pain in his back, leg, eye. The last of which bled heavily, turning half his vision into a blurred reality of red. Slowly the memories he had imprinted his self with had began to fade into his head, earning a sob of defeat.
"Enough" Schreber hissed to himself, shaking his head as best he could without causing pain. Sighing he slowly looked about his large, empty office. In front of him laid a report he was doing on one of his so precious few patients. What irony, this particular patients was a murder. Sadly, unlike Murdoch, this one was truly guilty. Was it a last twist of nonexistent irony on The Strangers' ghost? He didn't know although he wondered so often.
Winching he raised himself gently from his seat and limped over to the window of which he had been gazing out. A soft breeze blew through the open portal, ruffling his short corn-blond hair, gracing the soft skin of his face. That same breeze so long ago had caused him to shiver, had reminded him of The Strangers' breath so constantly down his neck. Now it was almost like the caress of a lover...Although, what would he know of lovers?
A soft knock on the door. Schreber gave a small jerk as he was so quickly brought back to reality.
"Come - in" He called in the direction of the door, limping over to his desk and leaning against it, arms crossed over his still-aching chest. He watched, somewhat wide-eyed as the familiar body of a young, strong faced girl walked through the door, clad in jeans and a black T-shirt, fiddling with a second, beautifully decorated belt that buckled with the first one that went around her waist, curled around her backside and attached to her jeans, regarding him with wide eyes. Her face was somewhat the same, young and yet the same time old, her hair silver gray. It had been that way when he had first imprinted her. She must have had a rough life before the Strangers had took her that had resulted in her hair graying at such a young age, her young face now ever slightly so hard. And yet, there was a new emotion on her face. Something between confusion, pain and anger, perhaps a mixture of all of them.....Had she been one of the ones to wake up? He had forgotten, it had been so long ago but he could have swore something along those lines made her different. And he had seen the eyes of those who had woke up before. Although very dim, mocking even, he could see something like that in her eyes.
"May I - help you, young - lady?" He asked, assuming his usual, ever professional tone. The girl's green eyes flashed ever so slightly, a emotion he knew very well overriding the unnamed one at the present: She didn't know where to begin.
"Um...Dr Schreber?" She asked, her voice shy, pronouncing his name "Schreaber". Schreber couldn't help but grin, she had not been the first to mispronounce it, although that was the more pleasant of the 3.
"Schreber" he corrected gently, "Is there something - I can - help you with?". They was back at point one again, ah, how he loved being a Psychiatrist.
"Um...I don't know how to start" She said, her voice so gentle for her face. She looked from one end of the office then the other, looking as though she wished that she would find the answer standing out like a painting on the wall...However, there was no paintings. Just the bare, newly painted olive green walls and dark brown wood trimming. It suited his life really, Schreber thought. Lonely and bare and repainted.
"I...Well..." She dug into her left hand pocket as she walked towards him on somewhat short legs and brought out a crumpled card and handed it to him. Schreber grained inside. It was his very own card, Daniel P. Schreber, PH.
"That, believe it or not, landed on my head a few days ago" She said. Schreber looked at her with a upraised eyebrow.
"And - you thought that perhaps - you'd come see who - This Dr. Daniel P. Schreber - is?" He asked. She shook her head of silver hair, pail green (scared?) eyes looking anywhere but directly into his eyes.
"No....I don't know where to begin, but...I think I may need your help" She said, voice emphasizing the 'Your'. Schreber nodded, smiling his 'Psychiatrist' smile as some had called it and motioned to a chair in front of his desk.
"Please - have a seat" He said, pushing himself from the leaning position he had maintained and walked around his desk and sat in his own chair. She regarded the chair, uncertain and then sat, seeming very uncomfortable and shy.
"Now - I have all - night so please, start - wherever your mind - lands" He said gently. Silence passed after a small nod from her and he sat, smile still on his face, fingers laced in his lap.
"This is going to sound crazy" She finally said. Schreber laughed, a sound that he was sure once charmed people. Now it sounded empty, phoney, a echo of what used to be to his own ears. Had it always sounded like that? Oh he had lost so much....So many people had due to him, even his own self.
"Listening - that what appears - to be insane ramblings is my - profession, Miss" He said. She giggled shyly and stopped very suddenly, her face winching in pain. Schreber tried to hide the empathy he felt for her. He had imprinted her so many times, all her chosen fates being hard, each earning her a scar, a wound, a injury that would never leave her. In ways, she was something like him.
"OK then" She said, giving a unsure turn of the head and fixed her eyes on the wall just above his head.
"my name is Trinity Butler, I'm currently unemployed, I grew up on Shell Beach, lost my family to a sickness and became a Orphan. At the age of 13 I ran away and began a life on my own, doing just about anything I could to put cloths on my back, food in my mouth" As she spoke, she waved her hands about, emphasizing her points, a attribute she had had before her first imprint, and would for the rest of her years, "At 14 I joined a resistance group, I killed my first a month after that and suffered tremendous feelings of guilt but grew out of it within a few weeks.....I can remember all this in very great detail Dr....Schreber" She said, pausing to make sure she got his name right, still avoiding his eyes, "I remember the smell of the sea, the feel of the wind, the sound of the gun...Yet....At 15 everything goes blank and my age eludes me. It's not amnesia" She said, raising her voice as Schreber started to speak, "It's not, I've looked into it so deeply it's painful. True, my symptoms are very much like amnesia but thats not it I feel......Anyway, thats not what matters. What matters is...Through the long - for lack of a better word, blank streak, theres suddenly a very bright flash of light and a outline of a face. At first, this confused me, as everything else does, and I regarded it as another strange dream....But, more and more it'd flash in my mind till I finally began thinking about it....Sunday I drove myself insane thinking about it to the point that I split into a long string of curses, amongst them was "Send me a reason why I keep thinking about this" and..Well...Your card landed on my head. Usually, I'd laugh at something so ironic but...It's been nagging at me. I understand if you think I'm crazy, I'm starting to think I'm loosing my mind" She finished, trying to add humor to her voice but failing. Her hands fell inactive in her lap, her head turned to the side, her hair catching between the chair and her shoulder, pulling away from her cheek to expose a very long gash that started from her hairline, curled around and went into her ear then down to her jawbone. It had never has stitches, like so many of Schreber, and left a very wide scar.
Schreber sat there, his hands still in his own lap, fingers laces, but his smile had faded. He remembered now (Oh what irony), she had woke up, jerking as one would from a nightmare. It had been a lot like Murdoch who would happen but a week after, only this time she had truly knocked the syringe out of his hand, unlike Murdoch whose unharnessed and at the time, unknown, Tuning had thrown it out of his hand. The bright light she had spoke of had been one of many lights of the subway where she had fell asleep. She had came there to pick up a shipment of cocaine, she was meant to leave on a job to assassinate the head of a large company. She had instead left very confused and frightened.
He had never told The Strangers, he didn't want to suffer the punishment that would surely befall him if they had found out about his failure. As a result he was now being visited by her, the wind having carried her his very own card as though blaming him for this. As though saying "You break it you fix it". Perhaps THIS was the last act of irony of The Stranger's ghost.
Trinity....He had chose that name for her, personally. It sounded so graceful and small yet beautiful. It had been his own irony that had chose such a name for someone with her fate. It sounded nothing like the woman who sat before him, scared and (he was sure) scar riddled.
Trinity shifted with nervousness, the leather of the chair beneath her groaning, bringing him back to the present.
"Is that - all you have - to tell me?" He asked. Trinity's jaw clinched, the effort making two small round shapes stand out at each side of her face. She took a breath to speak but only let it out and instead shook her head no.
"Last night I dreamt it again....Do you know why I regarded you so oddly when I first came in, Doctor?" She asked, raising her head, finally locking eyes with him. This time fear was most definitely the overriding emotion in them. Schreber didn't know what to do, his mind had went numb with all of this. He shook his head and spoke a quiet "No", leaning back in his chair on impulse.
"Because....I recognized you from the dream last time. It was very clear. The subway light and your face hanging over me. I don't know what to expect you to feel about this, I barely understand it myself. I've been outside your office door for the past hour wondering whether I should leave or not". Schreber's brow furrowed.
"The past - hour?" He asked. She nodded, blushing.
"I saw your face in the crowed. I -- followed you. I hadn't got a good look and at first I was questioning that maybe it wasn't you....It is though...". Schreber nodded and rose, limping to the window again, not noticing her empathetic winch when she noted how he walked, although she knew not why he had the limp. He placed his hands on the sill, looking out at the city Murdoch had so wonderfully re-made. From here he could even see the shoreline, water the 'killer' had made playing joyfully with the shore. He wondered what to tell her. If he explained what happened, the truth, she'd surely think -he- was the crazy one and God knows what she would do, wondering whether to believe him or not. Or.....Or he could lead her under a guise, slowly getting her used to the idea of what was the truth then finally tell her in whole, along with a explanation of why he had 'lied' to her. Yes, that seemed the most reasonable.
"Well" He finally spoke, turning around to face her, "I think - I have - an idea of what it is you - suffer from. It is - indeed amnesia, Miss Butler. There - are many types. Yours, - from everything you - have described to me, - is indeed a rare one but - it is still amnesia. As for - seeing my face in a vision is - yes a dream. Perhaps you - have seen my face - in a crowed without actually - registering it in your - conscious yet your subconscious did, and you - simply dreamed it later on, misinterpreting - it as - a memory in your - search for - your memory" He gently explained, sitting on the desk in front of her.
"Oh...Forgive me for bothering you, thank you" She quickly muttered and went to rise.
"But!" Schreber added before she actually stood, "Perhaps - I can help you - with your memory. I have - had a patient who suffered - from memory - loss. Although it was a long - therapy, in the end he - regained his memory" He lied. God what was he getting himself and her into?.
Trinity looked into his eyes again, hope sparking amongst the many emotions ("Oh her eyes are so like mirrors into her soul" Schreber thought) that pooled inside them.
"Do you mean it?"A nod. She looked back down again and then around the office, almost like one whose looking into buying a house. Schreber couldn't help but feel guilty, he was misguiding this girl so badly, promising her something that would never come true, could never come true, only to in the end to tell her that she'd never know she who really was again. That she had had many lifetimes before this, none of the real, just as the one she remembered to little about was not real (That it was his fault). She was probably the most real she had been in - years? How long had they had them here?
He was brought out of his thoughts again by her locking eyes with him, the faintest traces of a smile on her lips.
"Thank you" She said, almost a...Sob?. Schreber nodded, taking a hand from her lap and placing it sandwiched in between his.
'It's began then' He thought. 'A false promises built on vain hope.'