Never Change
Disclaimer: Okay, so go easy on me! This is my first Kingdom Hospital fanfic and I'm a bit nervous about it. Anyway, all of this wonderful stuff belongs to Mr. Stephen King and I am certainly not taking credit for it.
The Noss-a-la Cola can connected with his foot and skittered down the hall. It ricocheted off the wall and continued to echo after it had stopped moving. The boy smirked at the can and continued his walk down the old, dingy hall of the Old Kingdom.
For Paul, being dead wasn't much of a change. He could still pull tricks on whoever he wanted. Only now he had the advantage of not being seen when he wanted to be and he could continue helping Dr. Gottreich experiment. In fact, the only worries he had now were the goddamn anteater and the time girl.
Mary.
As the name passed through his head, Paul was seized with anger. He stomped on the can. That bitch had brought the short-times into it. And the anteater, Antibus, had only made things worse. But they hadn't gotten rid of him, even though the old hag was quite certain she had.
He climbed up to the pipes where he had tried to take that flea-ridden fur bag out. He leaned his head against the wall. He was never this emotional, not the he could call being pissed off emotional. Malicious, evil, the "bad boy", yes he was all those things. He had been like for as far back as I could remember…
"Paul, please escort this young woman to the pain room." The old man crooned.
"Of course, Dr. Gottreich." Paul nodded at the doctor before "escorting" the lady to the large room full of chairs, tables, and other odd-looking instruments.
"No! No! No!" The lady began shrieking as Paul dully strapped her into one of the chairs. He stood and awaited the orders that would turn the day from dull to exciting. He glanced at the woman as she started to convulse, her head wildly twisting from side-to-side, a bemused expression on his face.
"Paul! There you are! Let's get started then, shall we?" The doctor asked. Paul nodded and opened his bag…
A faint smile played across the boy's lips as he remembered how well that particular experiment had gone. He had been duly rewarded that night, though how was forgotten. Just lately, Dr. Gottreich's experiments were failures. It seemed short-times weren't as exposed to pain as they had been. Gone soft, one might say.
Footsteps thundered down the hall disturbing his thoughts. Paul thought about jumping down, but decided against it. Whoever- whatever, it was would be there later. If the Old Kingdom taught him anything it was that nothing disturbed left. He sat back again and reflected on how he'd met Gottreich in the first place.
"Don't get huffy with me, boy. You're at working age now and ought to start acting like a man. That means taking responsibility and stopping this going out all the time."
Paul rolled his eyes, his back turned from his father. If only his father knew what he was up to- the animal experiments that often left him at his wit's end. He knew it was because he didn't have the proper tools and the animals always died.
"Are you listenin' boy?"
"Yes, father." Paul replied, irritated. One day he would be a famous doctor and his father-his drunk, uneducated father- would be sorry.
"Good, get outta here."
Days later his father discovered exactly what he was up to in the woods.
It was an easy operation really. Something he had been working on for a while. All he did was catch a mouse and open it up to look at. He simply wanted to know what a beating heart looked like. The frustrating thing was that the mice kept dying on him before he opened them up completely.
He was sitting on a log, using a large rock as his operating table when he heard something snap. He was used to such weird noises, so he ignored is and looked around the rock, desperate for an answer. Several tiny corpses littered the leaves because he hadn't bothered clearing them away from the last time.
"So this is what you're doing!" a familiar voice roared. Paul jumped a foot in the air, angry and embarrassed at being caught. He wiped the blood on his pants and glared at his father. "This is…"
"Sick?" Paul answered, feeling some sick satisfaction as his father's anger and embarrassment.
First his father thrashed him, hoping to get whatever was in there out. It was soon obvious; however hard they tried, they could not help the boy themselves. So, they did the only thing they could.
To Paul it seemed stupid to lock him away. He only grew more agitated and possibly dangerous. He sat in the room the asylum provided for him a week before he met the doctor and was offered a once in a lifetime chance.
Dr. Egas Gottreich was everything that Paul could have wished for himself. He, like Paul, shared a fascination with experimenting. Dr. Gottreich operated on humans and with all the right equipment.
"Boy, I heard the nurses talking about you when you arrived, so I monitored you myself. You're a special case, you know this?" The thick German accent only added to the awe.
"No, sir. I'm just crazy." Paul replied.
"Aha," The doctor laughed. "Do you think I'm crazy, boy?"
"No!" the answer was sudden and sharp, which cause the doctor to laugh again.
"I thought not. No, not crazy. How would you like to be my assistant, boy? Help me to operate on and cure the real crazies?"
Paul agreed that he would like that very much.
Once again bored with memories, Paul hopped down from the pipe work. That was the day he met and became assistant to one of the craziest men in history. And hey, maybe he was a little crazy himself.
Feeling sufficiently energized he walked down the hall again.
"Paul," Dr. Gottreich appeared in front of him. "Time to operate."
"Yes, Doctor." Paul smirked and followed the doctor; thoughts of anything but this new experiment now seemed to be the farthest thing from his mind.