No worries, Riddick & the crew's in the next chapter. This is to introduce y'all to a new character so that y'all know how she works.

Disclaimer: We're not the geniuses behind the movie, 'Pitch Black'or Vin Diesel's muscles. wink

Prelude

Matters of Delusions

Patient Name: Mackenzie Lenore La Rue

SEX: Female

DOB: 10/31/1980

Date of admittance: 3/06/1991

"What is the difference between right and wrong?" A middle age man in a white lab coat asked as his pen hovered over his clipboard. The young woman crouching in the chair before him across the table looked at him.

"I dunno, right is when you care and wrong is when you don't." She answered, playing with the ends of her dark brown hair. The doctor made a note on his paper.

"Interesting answer, Mackenzie. What a-"

Mackenzie held up her hand sharply, "Listen, the children are crying again." She said as she tilted her head towards the left. "Why won't anyone take care of them?" Her green eyes locked onto his. "Were they bad?"

"Mackenzie, there are no children here. It's just a delusion." The doctor explained as he jotted down more notes.

"Life is a delusion. Dreams are reality. Or is it the other way around?" Mackenzie murmured as she resumes examining her hair.

The doctor sighed. "Mackenzie, I need to evaluate your progress here. I can't do that if you won't listen." He reached across the table and touched her elbow, causing her to jerk back.

"Don't touch me!" Mackenzie shrieked at him as she jumped up. "I don't like being touched, never did. Momma hated me for that. Momma never did understand." She told him as she paced back and forth in front of the two-way mirror that was in the room.

"Why don't you like being touched?" the doctor asked.

"Some people hate it, some crave it." She whirled around in a circle and suddenly stopped, facing the mirror. "You crave touch." She said to the mirror. "You go where the women are hot and the beer's cold." She moved her arms up sensually as her body curved to silent music, but, then she snapped her hands down on her thighs. "Your other half gonna find out soon." She smiled, "Get ready for some real firecrackers!"

"Mackenzie!" The doctor stood up. "What are you doing?"

"Was I bad, Dr. Forman?" Mackenzie turned around to face him and lowered her head in false shame. "Am I in trouble?"

"Yes, you are. You shouldn't say and do things like that." Dr. Forman scolded. "You're a good girl, but you need to understand you're not a child anymore."

"I'm sorry, Dr. Forman. I'll go to my room now." She turned and walked to the door and waited.

"No, Mackenzie, come and sit down." Dr. Forman said as he gestured toward the chair where she was before. She obeyed and sat down, hugging her legs to herself.

"Wait here, I'm going to step out for a second." He told her as he walked towards the door.

"Dr. Forman?"
"Yes, Mackenzie?"

"Tell Dr. Mott I'm not sorry and that's he's bastard." She told him innocently.

"Mackenzie, for shame!"

"What? It's true. Everybody speaks in lies. Their tongues are black as ink and their noses are long."

Dr. Forman sighed and left the room. He walked to a door that was near the one he came out of and went into that room. In there was a man and a woman. The man's face was red with rage and the woman had a look of scorn on her face.

"Well, Dr. Mott, you heard what she said." Dr. Forman said to the man. The woman looked towards the two-way mirror where they could see into the room.

"It is interesting that she knew that he was here; especially since he was never here before." The woman commented.

"I told you that she's special. Just how special is what we're trying to find out." Dr. Forman said. "But she's dangerous; she had put five of the nurses in the hospital just in the last three months."

"Do you know why?" the woman asked.

"No, she's psychotic. She doesn't understand the difference between her delusions and reality. Who knows why she does the things she do."

"Yet she sees things other people miss."

"Yes, Mackenzie does, and I fear what she sees."

Mackenzie was in a sunny room with other patients, seated on the floor behind a couch that blocked the light from the large windows. She was grooming her long hair, brushing her fingers through it to detangle it.

But her eyes were watching with predatory alertness at the two nurses who was making their way around the room. The petite woman was handing out pills to each of the patients while the burly man besides her was handing each of them a paper cup of water.

The male nurse wasn't there to help her; not really, he was there to protect her. Many of the patients in that room have violent behaviors sometimes.

The nurses were talking to each other and Mackenzie focused, cutting out all other distractions to hear what they were saying.

"This is crap. If the pay wasn't so good, I'd quit." The male nurse complained.

"But who would take care of them if we all quit?" She asked him. "Besides, I feel good when I take care of them. It makes me feel like a better person."

"Oh, so you don't mind being in a room full of sociopaths?" He retorted.

"David! Don't call them that. That's mean." She scolded him as she handed one of the patient his medication.

"Well, what about Mackenzie?" He pressed, "She's put more nurses in the hospital than any other patients in this compound."

"Maybe she resents us. She's never hurt any of the other patients." She defended.

"Yet."

She frowned at him, but didn't say anything as she handed the young woman in question the little paper cup with two blue pills in it.

Mackenzie took it and picked up the pills one by one and put them in her mouth. She took the cup of water that was offered by the male nurse and took a swallow.

"Open up; let's see if you ate them." He ordered her. She obediently opened her mouth. He nodded in satisfaction and moved on.

Mackenzie watched them walk away. She turned her back to them and looked down at her hand where the two little pills were resting. It was child's play to palm them while they were watching.

"Do you really think I should leave here?" Mackenzie asked quietly as she stood up. "But I've never been out There. I'm scared." She said timidly as she looked out the windows. But then she smiled slyly.

"You're right, I don't feel anything." She started to move in slow lazy circles, watching the hem of her plain, simple gown flare out. "See the machines that leapfrog the stars and planets that have heaven and hell." She stopped in front of a young boy who was tearing out pages from a book.

"Am I soulless?"

Mackenzie was lying on her back on her bed as she watched the moonlight travel across the ceiling of her room. There was another bed in her room, another girl who was already fast asleep from the drugs the nurses gave them earlier.

Mackenzie rolled over to look at her roommate. She was slightly taller than Mackenzie, and had blond, shoulder length hair. Her name was Jane Rollin and she was suicidal, her parents had put her in the institution to see if she could be healed.

"Is she normal? Is Jane gonna die?" Mackenzie whispered to the shadows, her eyes focused on watching Jane sleep. She rolled back onto her back and watched the moonlight again.

"Why do you want to die?" Mackenzie asked. The moonlight morphed and transformed into Jane's face, her eyes were hollow.

"Nobody understands me. I feel so sad all the time and I think about dieing and killing." It whispered to her, the mouth moving jerkily and almost mechanically, its eyes were just pits of black shadows.

"So do I; not the part about being sad. I cry crocodile tears you know. But I don't try to kill myself because I think about death." Mackenzie replied, her finger tracing complex swirls on the bedcover. "I love death. I plan to marry him someday."

"But death isn't a man. It's death."

"Exactly, it's Death. How many times did you try to kill yourself?"

"Five times. I almost did it on my fifth try."

"What stopped you? Or should I say "Saved"?"

"My parents. I tried to use Dad's gun but they found me when they heard the gunshot."

"I'm feeling murderous. Have you ever killed anyone?"

"No."

"I almost did. He tasted so good."

"You're disgusting. I don't want to talk to you anymore." The moon face grimaced at Mackenzie and swirled away into just the light again.

Mackenzie didn't say anything, just watched the moonlight thoughtfully. Her eyes were slowly closing when something cold and clammy touched her on her cheek. Her eyes snapped open and she saw before her a little girl with long, wet stringy blonde hair. Her eyes were just black pits and her skin was gray. Mackenzie whimpered softly as she scooted back away from her up to the wall, where she sat with her legs tucked up against her chest, hugging them.

"Mackenzie..." The girl spoke, her voice was raspy and echoed. She reached out to her again and it was jerky and abnormal.

Mackenzie couldn't stop herself; she reached out and took her freezing hand into her warm one. She screamed as the cold from the little girl stabbed through her and her breath escaped in a fog. She jerked away from her and scrambled off the bed. She screamed again as more ghosts formed around her, all of the reaching out to her, their touch chilling her blood. Their whispers echoed through her mind until she couldn't hear anything but for what they were saying.

"Mackenzie..."

"Mackenzie..."

"Mackenzie..."

"NO!"

"How long has she been like this?" Dr. Forman asked as he looked upon Mackenzie's twitching form on the exam table. Her eyes were wide open and her pupils were dilated so much that her pale green irises were swallowed up in blackness.

The nurse who had found Mackenzie, a woman, was standing off to his left. "I don't know, I heard her screaming and Peter and I went to check it out and we found her like that on the floor." She told him, wringing her hands.

Dr. Forman turned to her and patted her on the shoulder. "Don't worry; I don't blame you, Cathy. You are excused."

Cathy nodded and quickly left the room, vanishing into the shadows that were created by the harsh light that shined down on Mackenzie. The woman doctor who was behind the two-way mirror earlier from that day stepped out from the shadows.

"Shame really. I had hoped for a chance to talk with her. See what makes her tick." She said callously, as she examined Mackenzie. Dr. Forman didn't say anything.

"She's dying, isn't she? Do you know what caused it?" She turned to face him, her voice held no concern or very much emotion for that matter.

"Yes. She's trapped in her mind and it's killing her." Dr. Forman replied. "We don't know why or how. She never took the nighttime drug, therefore which cannot be the cause."

"Have you heard about Dr. Mott's studies with cryonic suspension?" She tapped her red fingernails on the side of the exam table. They made a soft scratching sound Dr. Forman found to be irritating to his nerves, almost like fingernails being scratched across a chalkboard.

"Really, Dr. Hellion, Dr. Mott's studies had not yet been proven. He's never tested it on a live subject yet!" He protested. She just smiled at him.

"And now Dr. Mott has a live subject to test it on." Dr. Hellion smiled at him and it was almost devilish. "Mackenzie."

Dr. Forman watched from a window as Dr. Mott and Dr. Hellion prepped Mackenzie in the Cryonic chamber and closed the door over her. He watched as the green fog slowly fills up inside of the chamber until he couldn't see Mackenzie's form anymore.

Dr. Mott went to a panel on the side of the chamber and checked the readouts on the side. He gave a thumbs-up to Dr. Hellion and she turned to smirk at the window where Dr. Forman was standing.

He didn't return her smile. Rather, he frowned as he turned and walked away. He knew that Mackenzie was never going to live again, and she will never be able to die now. He couldn't decide which was worse, to exist half alive, but never aware, or to die and chance that there is really life after death.

It may have been better for her to die instead...