CHAPTER 7: THE SINS AND THE FATHERS, PART 4
The Danger Zone is named after its highly unsafe nature, as the title 'Danger Zone' would warn well for anyone coming near. It is known for its low financial status, creating a breeding ground for sex, drugs, and crime. The poor and the disenfranchised take no pride in doing so, but many have made this place, and call it, their home.
Those who make this place their home do not make it so out of choice, but by desperation and force. Many of these people have low-paying jobs or no jobs at all, and their poor income leads them to find the cheapest denomination of housing. They are forced into many dingy apartments, and deteriorating houses that anyone would swear would be condemned. This 'zone' of the city is a country in and of itself in Hillwood, and it it stands as its own third-world country.
Forced into this horrid state, the occupants of the Danger Zone are left not only without hope, but without anything to set their minds to. Without any sense of a future and with no money to put a future towards themselves, they seek out other forms of entertainment to fill the time in their lives, and the streets here have no shortage of pleasures to offer.
The human race has evolved the capability of sexual reproduction for a genetic advantage to its environments, but these thinking creatures had learned how to repurpose it for selfish pleasure and profit. On these dirty streets of the Danger Zone, there is no better example of it to be found here. Strip clubs and sex shops are only the legal examples, and they are frequently outsold by prostitution.
Hand-in-hand with this skin trade is the sale of numerous drugs and narcotics, with heroin and crack being some of the top sellers. Countless times have people been reminded of their horrid effects on the human body and psyche, and reminded of how one's life could be cut short by their use, but, when living in a place so downtrotten as this one and no chance of escape, dying from pleasure does not seem too bad a fate.
Many are aware of the dangerous lifestyles these people live, but none are familiar with it as Arnold Shortman, known by night as the Green Eye. Through his eyes, he can see the inner working of the city, and he can feel its heart beat. He feels the numerous dreams and thoughts of all those within, and he cherishes each life to be protected and led to betterment.
However, if the city indeed had a heart, the Danger Zone would be its cancer. With his powers, Arnold can feel each soul grow weak and restless, and feel hopeless just as they do. He can feel the people in this world die, and, feeling their pain as his own, he dies as they do. He has made countless outreach attempts to help the area the past year, mostly with the financial help of Buckley Lloyd, but he fears that it is never enough.
For now, his focus lies on one particular occupant of the Danger Zone: Wolfgang. Well aware of his strong beliefs in white supremacy, Arnold has made many attempts to steer him away from those beliefs, trying to lead him to a more inclusive way of thinking. With a copy of the graphic novel Maus in his hand, he makes his approach to his home to help the young man make the needed change in his life.
Approaching the front door to his small home on the outskirts of the Danger Zone, Arnold gave a knock on the door, waiting for an answer. His answer came quickly enough, being greeted by a slender young man eating a slice of pizza held in one hand, and holding a cigarette in his other hand. While Arnold remembered his name as Edmund, Edmund did not recognize the guest at the door.
"Can I help you?" Edmund asked.
"Hi, I'm Arnold. Is Wolfgang here?" Arnold asked.
"Yeah, you a friend of his?"
"I was one of the kids in 4th grade, and you guys were in the 5th grade."
"Oh, yeah, didn't we tie you guys to a goalpost or something?"
"Well... among other things, but that's not important. I haven't seen Wolfgang since he was in the hospital. I've been meaning to see him, but I've been busy. Is he here?"
"Yeah, he's here. Go ahead."
Edmund stepped aside from the entrance, allowing Arnold to step inside. Taking the invitation, Arnold stepped inside the house, taking note of his surroundings. While a small home occupied by young men might not be expected to be kept up to the best possible standards, the fact that it was one of the poorer houses of the Danger Zone did not help that status at all.
"So, uh, you're not, like, one of his of his Nazi buddies, are you?" Edmund asked.
"Far from it. I was hoping to talk him down out of that." Arnold said.
"Heh. Well, good luck with that, man. I might've known the guy during school, but, now, he's like a totally different person. You know how he got so deep into this stuff? His dad was killed by some black guys, so, now, he's pretty much become the next Hitler. I mean, he's my friend and I want to help him, but... it's not easy."
"I understand. You have a good heart, Edmund, nobody else would be willing to take him in."
"Yeah, that's part of why I felt so responsible. Though, his disability checks help pay the bills, so, I don't really have a choice otherwise. My job's not the best-paying."
"You ever try Lloyd Enterprises? They hire pretty much anybody."
"Not sure. I'm not really the smartest guy; I can barely keep my job in retail."
"It's a good business, you can probably get something entry-level. I hear a lot of people get in that way. Just trying to help you financially."
"Hmm, maybe I'll look into that. In any case, Wolfgang's in the next room."
Giving a nod to Edmund, Arnold made his way into the next room as pointed out to him, ready to at last meet Wolfgang again. Only remembering some past visits during his stay at the hospital, his only interaction preceding that being their battle during his first year as the Green Eye, he had no idea what kind of state he was in now.
Looking at Wolfgang lay in his bed with only one arm remaining out of his limbs, Arnold now knew what his living state was like, and was not so easy to digest it.
"Hey Arnold. Haven't seen you since the hospital. Good to see another Aryan for once." Wolfgang said.
Looking at the 1-limbed Wolfgang lie in his bed, his response was delayed by a look of shock, followed with a gulp to try to put his thoughts past him. However, what disgusted thoughts that he held mattered not, as his mind was more assaulted with pain by Wolfgang's thoughts.
His pause is brief, but it does not go unnoticed by the bid-ridden Wolfgang.
"What?" Wolfgang asked.
"Your... Your legs, what happened to-" Arnold began to ask.
"What do you think happened? They cut them off. That whole fight I told you about, between me and that Valiance guy? Infection set into my arm and legs, and they had to amputate them. Feels like some medieval shit, what they did."
"Jesus... I'm sorry, Wolfgang."
"Whatever, it wasn't your fault. It was Valiance. Somehow, I'm gonna find that asshole and gut him like a fish. When I do, I bet 10 bucks he's a nigger. Only the goddamn darkies could be capable of shit like this."
"Wolfgang, I came to talk to you about that. I know you told me about what happened to your father, and I am sorry, but what you're doing now isn't right. Minorities aren't to blame for a lot of society's problems."
"Of course they are. America's a white nation; always has been, and it always will be. We didn't have any blacks here before we started shipping them in from Africa. Now, even though we stopped enslaving them, they all demand reparations and apologies, when all they do is suck up the welfare. The beaners might be taking all our jobs, but they at least work some goddamn jobs. Why do you think most of the population in the Danger Zone is full of blacks?"
"A lot of people come down on bad money troubles, Wolfgang, black and white. Need I remind you that Gerald is black, and he's doing just fine financially?"
"That's one nigger out of hundreds in this city, and he's only gotten that far because his parents probably have some decent money. But so did Bill Cosby, and he went off raping tons of white women. And don't even get me started on those kikes Harold and Eugene."
"Listen to yourself, Wolfgang. You grew up with all of us and you never thought those kinds of things about anybody before. You don't seriously believe all that, do you?"
"Of course I do. Why do you think I put that flag above my bed?"
Wolfgang pointed to the Nazi flag on the wall, commenting on how it reaffirmed his own beliefs.
"My beliefs helped show me how my life gets screwed by the whole Z.O.G. (Zionist Occupied Government) nation this country's turning in to. For god's sakes, we pay our taxes yearly, only for the government to give out free checks to niggers to do nothing but breed their little tar babies in shitholes like this one, and give millions of dollars to the Jews in Israel to kill off some Palestinians. I don't give two shits if those shylocks want to kill some towelheads, but I don't want them doin' it on my dollar." Wolfgang said.
"And even if that were true, you think that flag stands for something better?" Arnold asked.
"When Hitler started his campaign, he wanted to cleanse the world of all these untermensch and build a better world. The lügenpresse today like to talk about how many people he killed, but they never go into detail about who he killed. Like I said, the Jews want to expand their silly little state in a holy war to unite their own country, the niggers want to do nothing but breed, smoke weed, and suck up our money, and the spics want to come into this country and take up all our jobs, saying they want a better life than their own country. If that's the case, then why not just revolt in your own country and build a better one? It worked for us. You let all these minorities in our country, the white man's gonna be gone, and it'll be nothing but niggers, spics, and all kinds of darkies. He was trying to kill them to stop that and make the world a better place."
"Well, if you looked at your history, you'd know that our country never stood for those, and we fought against that mindset decades ago. My grandfather was one of those people. When I look at people I care about start to hate like that, I get sick. My grandpa Phil told me about some of what happened in World War 2, and it wasn't pretty. He saw bodies shot up, torn apart, rotting, and all kinds of sick ways to die. I brought you this to see some of what that was like."
Arnold handed Wolfgang the book he had carried over, a copy of Art Spiegelman's Maus, hoping it would change some of his thoughts. Opening up the book and taking a flip through its chapters, Wolfgang held skepticism as he looked at some of its content; the depiction of cats and mice in a Holocaust setting confusing to him.
"Is this a damn comic book? With animals?" Wolfgang asked.
"The author wrote it around his father's experiences as a Holocaust survivor. If you take a look at what the book has to offer, and see what it does to some people, you'll start to rethink about that flag." Arnold said.
"You plan to turn me away from me belief system by giving me a book where kikes and other untermensch get killed off, as shown by one of them? I think I might enjoy this book."
"I certainly hope not. I understand what it's like to lose a parent, Wolfgang, to lose somebody that raised you and cared for you since you were little, but blaming other people won't heal you. It'll only hurt you."
"I didn't lose him, Arnold. He was stolen from me. By niggers. You wanna try to take away my hate? I won't give it up without a fight. If I didn't have my hate, I wouldn't be me."
Unable to do more to convince Wolfgang here, Arnold got up and prepared to make his way out the door, bidding a silent 'goodbye' as he left. Wanting to ask one more question, Wolfgang stopped Arnold before he left, needing this inquiry answered.
"Hey Arnold. I know you hate my guts because of who I am. I know you hate me for bullying you all those years in school. You have no reason to come here and check in on me at all, or, as you would call it, change me. Why do you do it?" Wolfgang asked.
"I don't hate, Wolfgang. Not even you. I want to help you because, deep down, I know there is some good in you, just like there's good in everybody. I want you to be the best person you can be, and help you reach that goal." Arnold said.
"And what gives you the right to decide what a 'good' person is? Who put you in charge of deciding that?"
Unable to answer the final question, Arnold did not give any reply to Wolfgang, but instead continued to head out the door. Preparing his way out for his walk back home, Arnold stopped one last time to bid his farewells to Edmund, thanking him for the chance to speak to Wolfgang.
"You see what I mean?" Edmund said.
"Edmund, Wolfgang isn't evil. He's just very misguided." Arnold said.
"Yeah, right. I get you have that whole 'good-at-heart' thing about you, but there's just some people you can't reach. Trust me."
"Trust me, you definitely can. Even if it seems hopeless, I can't not try. To do that would be the same as giving up on them, and I can't do that."
Before making his way out the front door, Arnold took notice of a pamphlet for First Baptist Church of Hillwood sitting on a table, remembering it as the same church he received a pamphlet for.
"Oh, yeah, some redhead girl left that. I didn't really care to go, but Wolfgang said he wanted to go." Edmund said.
"That's good. It might help him if he gets his mind opened up to some other people." Arnold said.
"Yeah, and maybe some of that 'Jesus loves everybody' stuff might help, too. You know, you were always really cool about a lot of stuff we did, even if we pushed you a little too far. You religious like that?"
"Well... I'm not too sure, honestly. I was raised Catholic, but I never put much thought into it as a kid. Ever since a... 'trip' I spent to San Lorenzo, my worldview changed a lot. I was planning to go to rethink a few things."
"Right. Well, thanks for coming to visit, I guess. Not often I see anybody talk to Wolfgang anymore. When he isn't exercising, he sits in bed all day, I like to see him talking, even if he spews some of that Nazi crap. Sorry to say 'spew' in this same sentence, but, want some pizza?"
Edmund offered a box of pizza to Arnold, with one half being Hawaiian and the other sausage and mushroom. Getting hungry from his long walk to his destination, Arnold nodded and took a slice, opting for a slice of Hawaiian.
"Thanks." Arnold said.
"Anytime, man. Thanks again for talking to him." Edmund said.
With his slice of pizza in hand, Arnold left the small house of Edmund and Wolfgang, snacking on the pizza while making his way back home. Making his way home, he takes a brief look into the heart of Wolfgang, hoping to sense some form of change within his heart, hoping that his efforts were paying off and swaying him from his hateful thoughts.
Within his mind, however, he finds no such change. Thinking over Edmund's warning, claiming that not all hearts can be reached, Arnold stops and wonders whether or not his efforts will indeed pay off at all.
Underneath those doubts, though, he can still find the strength to keep trying. For now, he simply bid the occupants of the home a temporary 'goodbye', making his way home to handle other affairs. His life never finds a dull moment; having much work to do to bring help to the city of Hillwood.
For now, he just tries to enjoy his pizza. It tastes pretty good.
As the Green Eye continues his journey back home, still in the persona of Arnold Shortman, allow us to turn our attention towards his evil counterpart: The Freak, as he continues his indefinite stay at the Hillwood Home for the Emotionally Troubled. Where Arnold lays his alter ego to rest while he continues on his own day, the Freak has never let up his own again.
In his mind, the boy known as Thaddeus 'Curly' Gammelthorpe is dead and gone. To one caring individual, a doctor named Peyton Harvey Scott, that boy was not dead, but hidden away within the corners of his mind. Being a man of medicine and compassion, his goal was to show not only to the Freak that his old self was not dead, but to show it to the world as well.
To complete this task, Dr. Scott begins his journey to that goal with the most simple step: A question.
"So, you've been going over a lot on how you seem to view yourself as a 'villain' to the Green Eye, like you're some kind of opposite to him." Dr. Scott said.
"Right." The Freak said.
"I'm interested in how you see that. Tell me a bit more."
"What's more to tell? I'm the bad guy, and he's the good guy. Fairly cut-and-dry."
"But you haven't gone as to how you two are opposites. Human beings are all different from each other as we are similar, how can you be so sure that you're the complete opposite of him?"
"How much time you got? Trick question, you've got all the time in the world, coming around my bedside day after day for the past year, asking me about it all the time. Out of all the other doctors here, you're the only one who actually makes any real attempt to reach out to me, and I've probably got to be the only patient who doesn't want your help. Ironic, isn't it?"
"Lots of people won't be willing to admit they want or even need help, Curly. Most of the other patients here will tell you that there's nothing wrong with them, or they're fine just the way they are."
"Well, then, at least I'm the only honest one. You don't have to pester me with therapy to tell me I'm screwed up; I'll be the first one to tell you that."
"I don't think you're screwed up, Curly."
"Don't lie to me, of course you do. I killed my parents and burned down their house, raped my crush and put her in a coma, blew out a little girl's brains, turned the entire city against the heroes, and I brag about it. Anybody would hate anybody like that."
"So, you're saying that you want to be hated? Is that why you did all that?"
"Sure. I always hate how people work with love. They can be so confusing and complex about it, and, half the time, it isn't really love at all. At least, with hate, there's no denying that it's real. When you hate something, you hate something. You despise it, you want it out of your life, and, sometimes, you'd be willing to remove it yourself. That's far more sincere an emotion than love, and it's what separates me from the Green Eye."
"How so? You were saying how you were his opposite."
"Remember that little speech I had about angels and demons, and how heroes and villains attract each other?"
"I do."
"I thought a little more about that. The paper went into how the relationship between heroes and villains is about balance; how one needs the other to exist. But I can't stop thinking about how the Green Eye's still out there, even though he beat me. I think it goes a bit deeper than that. At least, for him and me."
"How so?"
"The Green Eye, before he became the Green Eye... the guy was always somebody who cared for everybody and loved everyone. He was always somebody who stood for what was right, no matter what. You could even say he was our personal Jesus. I was never really a religious kid, but the idea of Jesus intrigued me: Somebody incorruptible that loved everyone unconditionally. My parents were never loving people at all. I was beaten for fun, mutilated for fun, molested for fun, and, underneath it, I even started having fun. I didn't understand what love was until I was rejected by Rhonda, and, by then, it was nothing more than just... pain. But that sense of love I felt was so strange, so foreign. It was never like any sort of hate that I knew. It eventually just brought me pain. So, I wanted to be the exception."
"The exception?"
"The Green Eye is somebody who loves everyone unconditionally, he doesn't hate anybody. He might not want to say it, but he even cares about me; loves me in that same way. He could've killed me, but he didn't. He said he wanted me to get help anyways. It was only then that I clearly understood my goal: I want to be the one person that he hates."
"Why? Do you feel as if this could fill some sort of empty space in you? Maybe it could bring you closer to him in some way?"
"No. His philosophy is to love everyone, and help everyone. He believes that he can save everyone and anyone. I want to be the one to prove him wrong. To make him fail. That way, I'll finally have beaten him, and he can never win again. He'll give up."
"And you feel as if that is your goal? To make him give up? To what end would that serve you?"
"Ever since his silly little crusade, people have been starting to get hope again. To love and believe in each other. But trust and love are fragile things. They can be shattered in an instant and turned into something else. I want to show that to people myself, and help people realize that truth. I've suffered a lot, but I'm grateful for it. I have nothing positive to say about my parents, but they had no delusions about who they were. They were pieces of shit that treated me like less than that. But that's shown me how weak and insincere love really is as an emotion. I know the truth, and people deserve to hear it themselves."
Having this one patient under his watch for almost a year now, Dr. Scott rarely got much words out of the bedridden Freak, despite his many enthusiastic efforts of outreach to the troubled young man. For months, he was prying for some sort of raw thought from him, hoping he could take it to analyze him further and seek a way to cure him.
After nearly a year of waiting patiently, his patience is paid off in a way he was not expecting. To hear a good chunk of his entire philosophy laid out in front of him all at once was a treat he was not expecting, but his current mental state could hardly call this a 'treat' by any means. Never before had he encountered such a strange mindset, and it only baffled him as to how he would help this lost soul find help.
Taking in such a dose of information, the only thing he can do now is say...
"Time's up." Dr. Scott said.
"Aw, already? I was just getting started." The Freak said.
"Well, Curly, we'll always have time to talk about these things later on. It may come as a surprise to you, but I do keep my promises when I say I'll be here to listen."
"Yeah, I know. I was really just getting tired of this conversation. It was fun while it lasted, but I can only take so much of this crap."
"Curly, if I may, you never talked about these things before until recently. Why have you just now started to open up?"
"Why? You remember that it's been almost a year since you started working on me, right?"
"Yes."
"Well, it also happens to be exactly 1 year since I was born."
"You mean, as the Freak?"
"Right. I've had a long time to think things over while I've been sitting here. It's not everyday you start to realize who you are, so, it only made sense to share. Besides, you've been awfully too nice to me since we've met. You're not that different from Arnold, so I want to prove you wrong just as well."
"Curly, you'd have to try very, very hard to get me to stop wanting to help you."
"We'll see about that."
"Yes, I suppose we will. Well, then, I'll leave you to rest."
Bidding his temporary and polite goodbyes, Dr. Scott made his way out of the room, allowing the Freak to rest and find something of a good night's sleep. Many ponder on how men who commit such atrocities can even sleep with the acts they have committed, and some would like to see that such people sleep eternally, but Dr. Scott is no such person.
Where his peers look down on the atrocious human being named Thaddeus 'Curly' Gammelthorpe, better known to the world as the Freak, Dr. Scott looks on him with unconditional compassion. His job is to make sure he finds the help he needs, and to do so out of love, even if others would disapprove of the goal.
One such naysayer is the janitor, sharing his own protests of the treatment of the Freak.
"Well, Clarice, have the lambs stopped screaming?" The janitor joked.
"Congratulations. You're the millionth person to make that joke." Dr. Scott said.
"Cool, what do I win?"
"How about a polite request that we stop mocking our patients? These are people we're here to cure, not victims for our humor."
"No. The only victims are kids like Nancy Moore. For god's sakes, he blew a kid's brains out on national TV. You don't think you're actually gonna make some progress attempting to cure this guy, are you?"
"There's been plenty of people who've reformed from harsh crimes, even ones such as his. The important thing to remember is that they don't inherently want to commit these deeds. It comes from a missing need in their lives, something that prevented them from fulfillment, and they went to drastic, albeit misguided, measures to get it."
"Yeah, right. That little hellspawn doesn't want to do anything but just kill anybody he wants. I've heard the kind of shit that comes out of his mouth; bragging about killing his parents and raping some girl he liked."
"You know you're not supposed to be listening in to our sessions. I know a lot of you don't care about hospital policy, but Curly is my patient. I'm starting to gain his trust, and I will not have anyone try to take that from me."
"Who said I was listening to your little talk sessions? I can barely stand what he says to me most of the time, god only knows what he tells you in private."
"Wait. He talks to you about things?"
"Less talking and more rambling. He goes on and on about how he likes how he watched the life choke out of his parents, how he thinks about people dying, and how he thinks about that damn Green Eye."
"Why didn't you tell me about this?"
"'Cause, half the time, I try not to listen to it. The shit he says creeps me the hell out. I eventually just tuned him out completely, or else I would've gone nuts. Besides that, half of what he tells me is just lies. I think he just talks so he can screw with me."
"Lies how? What are you talking about?"
"Like he burned down his parents' house."
"As in, you don't think he did?"
"What, you didn't read anything about this guy?"
"Truth be told, I never got a lot of access to his files. I transferred to this hospital months after he... Well, you know, and the police haven't been the most cooperative in this case."
"Of course they haven't. Cops were mostly bought off by the Russotti family back when they were in charge, what makes you think they give two shits about their job enough now to do the right thing?"
"Then what do you know that they know and they're not telling me?"
"Simple. I lived down the road from that house when all that shit went down. It was among a bunch of other houses, I passed by it a bunch of times to work, and I even saw all the cops lined up when he offed his parents. But the house's still there."
"What?!"
"Yeah. I stopped by the house when the cops were taking care of things, and read in the news later that they were Mr. and Mrs. Gammelthorpe, and their kid was the Freak. I still live down the street from it, and it's still there, up for sale. Of course, nobody's buyin' it after what happened in it, but it's still there. That kid didn't burn it down. If he tried to, he obviously didn't do a good job, because there was not a smell of smoke anywhere at the crime scene."
Gaining this new information, Dr. Scott felt a strange uncertainty in his mind. Where the Freak's answers to his questions were detailed and nuanced, and their conversations articulate and enriching, this new factor could change everything he knew and had built up to with his patient. Digesting this information on his own, Dr. Scott turned silent for a moment, unsure what to do now.
"Doc? You okay?" The janitor asked.
"I... You said you knew the house. What was the address?" Dr. Scott asked.
"523 Wylie Avenue. That's W-Y-L-I-E."
"Thank you."
Dr. Scott proceeded to go one his way once again, only to be stopped one more time by the janitor.
"Hey, Doc, what you got in mind?" The janitor asked.
"I know I said I'm very tight on the rules, but... Can you keep a secret?" Dr. Scott asked.
The janitor nodded.
"He's only just been open with me about things, and I might finally make some progress on him. But, if what you're telling me is correct, then it can mean one of two things: One, he's lying to me and I haven't been making any progress." Dr. Scott said.
"And 'two'?" The janitor asked.
"I've mainly dealt with very mild cases in my career. If it's 'two'... then he might be something I have to work very differently on dealing with."
Many do not think about the concerns of the rich and ultra-wealthy. With a track record of exploiting the wealth of the country for decades, average citizens could care less about what becomes of them in their private lives. They are mainly thought of as living a life of luxury and convenience; eating expensive dinners, voyaging exotic lands, and sleeping peacefully in million-dollar mansions.
But Buckley Lloyd is no such case. A man of wealth as he might be, and might he have gained his wealth from playing the stock market, he is rarely one who allows himself to indulge in such luxuries. Even if he did allow himself, there would be no way he would actually enjoy himself, either.
People think he dines on veal and champagne on a nightly basis, talking over business deals with his managers. But he barely eats anymore.
People think he spends his nights on the starlight sea with his friends on one of his yachts, holding a model in his arms to replace his mentally institutionalized wife. But he has never thought of any other women since Brooke was lost.
People thinks he sleeps soundly in his home, sheltered by walls of brick and marble, able to rest peacefully. But he has almost never slept in a year.
And he most certainly has no peace.
Once, he had a family, with a wife of Brooke Lloyd and a daughter of Rhonda Lloyd. A man called the Freak took that from him; forever stealing away the balance and structure in his life. Never before had he put much thought into his family, only concerned on his wealth, and now he pays the price.
Returning home from his trip to Wisconsin, yet again having no fruit in the search for a means of bringing back Rhonda found, Buckley once again tries to get himself the sleep he needs. Though the day draws near the afternoon, he hopes a few hours of rest will give him the energy needed to complete his duties on patrol later.
His mind does not wish for rest now; calling out for vengeance and blood. It is a pain that itches at him to act, and a pain that the Green Eye has fought long and hard to see he never fully acts on it. To drown out that call, Buckley pours himself a glass of 95% proof vodka, and downs two tablets of triazolam. It just barely works, but the job soon is done.
Feeling his mind and body grow tired at last, Buckley disrobes and enters his bed, hoping to at last get some rest from his troubles. For just a brief moment, when his mind begins to drift out of its conscious state, Buckley begins to relive himself of that pain, if only temporarily.
But he does not sleep alone. Over him looms a shadow; an invisible apparition that watches him in his bed. He cannot see it, but it sees him. He knows it and it knows him, but he would not recognize it if he saw it. He had not returned home alone from his business meeting; having an uninvited guest join him for his sleep.
His business meeting was with a man named Vlad Masters, unknown to the rest of the world to be the world's first half-human/half-ghost entity: Vlad Plasmius. Though he never has had the chance for using his powers in this timeline, his powers are not gone, and, with his age, they have only improved over time.
For now, he puts one power to use, entering the body of Buckley Lloyd to use it. Entering the body of the vigilante millionaire, Vlad does not overtake the body, but he does make his way into its mind. With an unconscious mind in focus and allowing the conscious mind to take a rest, this leaves an entire world for Vlad to manipulate himself.
For a moment, Buckley had slept easily, as easily as he could. Now, Buckley not only sleeps uneasily, but far worse than he has ever slept in months. He tosses and turns, sweating heavily, hoping that his pains will leave him. He groans and struggles, hoping that his pains will leave him.
Inside his mind, his pains will not leave, and they have only just begun.
Inside the dream of Buckley Lloyd, he imagines himself in his own bed, feeling as though he had woken up from his own sleep. He does not know that he is not truly awake, but he can somehow feel it. He can somehow sense that something is not right with this world, and there is more to it than it seems.
As he opens his senses to the world around him, voices start to come at him. They dart across his ears, and in the space between. They are fast and unfocused; strong but unclear. He tries to escape the voices and run, moving down the hallways of his mansion, but he can still hear them. The voices sound distorted and vague, but they come into clarity as he runs.
"She's gone." One voice said.
"Move on." Another voice said.
"Let her go." A different voice said.
"Bury the past." A new voice said.
"Start over." A separate voice said.
"Forget it." An unrelated voice said.
The voices, along with several others, continue to surround Buckley. He cannot hear himself think, although the only thoughts he would have now are those of guilt and remorse. They continue to shout their harsh criticisms, and they all beat down on him further.
Without any escape from the noise, Buckley screams.
"Stop! Please let me sleep! I can't take it!" Buckley shouted.
Suddenly, after his cry for peace, the voices stop, giving him one brief but sweet moment of sanity and clarity. However, that one moment of sanity is soon gone, after he hears one more familiar voice. This one is far too familiar, and he has not just heard it in his dreams, but in everything he does.
"Daddy?" The voice asked.
Though the voice does not give him a sense of peace or sanity, it does motivate him to turn to it in an instant. Within that instant, Buckley turned to the voice to see Rhonda, his deceased daughter, standing before him. All possible logic tells him that this is not Rhonda, but he still cannot help himself from looking on her with tears of joy.
"...Rhonda? Is that you? But- But you're dead!" Buckley said.
"No, daddy. I'm alive in your mind. I'll never leave you here." Rhonda replied.
"Rhonda..."
Wanting nothing more than to hold his daughter in his arms, Buckley approached his daughter to hug her, hoping for a feel of his seed's presence keeping him warm. Before he can make his hug, Rhonda pushes him back. Buckley does not understand what is going on, so he opens his ears to his daughter for answers.
But the answer is not something he wants to hear.
"Daddy. You can't keep this up. I'm dead. You can't keep going about this business trying to bring me back. Let me rest in peace." Rhonda said.
"No, Rhonda, I can't do that. I failed you, and I want to give you another chance. That monster took away your life, and I-" Buckley began to say.
"No, daddy. I gave up my own life to save Helga. You know that. I'm at peace now, don't take that away from me."
"I'm not at peace, Rhonda. I can't go on knowing that I failed you like that. That... that man came into my house, where you should have been safe, and he tore you apart. While... While I was out playing golf..."
"I don't care. I'm fine now. Just live your life in peace. I don't even want you to be Valiance anymore. Let Arnold do the job, he's more than capable of taking care of Hillwood. I just want you to be happy."
"Happy? HAPPY?! I KILLED YOU! THE MAN WHO I LET KILL YOU IS STILL ALIVE! I CAN'T BE HAPPY KNOWING THAT PIECE OF SHIT IS STILL ALIVE!"
"Daddy, please, listen to me, let it go-"
"NEVER!"
With that final word leaving his mouth, Buckley slapped Rhonda across the face, sending her falling on her back. Shocked at the action her own father would take in his own obsession, Rhonda looked at herself, then back at her father, unable to understand how he could do such a thing.
The viewpoint in Rhonda's mind is not an easy one to take, and neither is Buckley's. Looking at his daughter as he laid his own hand on her in violence, viewing her as she laid on the floor of his mansion, he saw a different vision come to his mind: That of the one where she laid bleeding, comatose, and exploited by his sworn enemy.
And, in that same viewpoint, he sees himself as the Freak.
Unable to take this horrible nightmare any longer, Buckley had no more reason or sanity to keep his grip on himself; now letting out in a raged scream. Grasping his head and gripping it tightly, hoping the pressure would rid himself of the negative thoughts in his mind, Buckley hoped that this dream would end.
Soon, it does.
Rising from his bed in a cold sweat, Buckley pants as he overcomes the vision that he had suffered. For a moment, he is not sure if this is the real world again or not, but, with the strange sense of the dream no longer present, he is sure now he in the real world. Or, at least, he is as sure as he cares to be for now.
Instead, his only concerns now are to block all thoughts of this nightmare from his mind. The vision he had might not have been real, but the feel of it all had felt almost as real as reality itself, leaving him with the still-remaining guilt of the dream's last moments: Hitting his own daughter and viewing himself as the Freak.
With this guilt still in his mind, he buries his face into the pillow, and he cries. The tears will not truly give him the healing he needs, but it will suffice enough for now. All he is truly greatful for is the fact that no one can see him in such a vulnerable state, which is the only thing that allows him to cry now.
But, outside of the visible spectrum of man, he is not as alone as he thinks.
Floating just above the weeping Buckley Lloyd, Vlad Plasmius remains his watch over the troubled man, having just put him through those horrible thoughts and visions. There is no pleasure in his heart for such mind games, and not even would he in his past life would go to such lengths on someone, but, here, it is a necessary evil to prevent the laws of nature from being tampered with.
"I'm so sorry we had to go through that, dearie, but it was for the best. You know him best and his obsessions, you surely understand that this was the best logical step." Vlad said.
Even within this invisible spectrum, he is not alone. For the Rhonda Lloyd within the dream of Buckley Lloyd was not some mere construct of his mind, but, rather, the real and true Rhonda Lloyd herself. While no longer having a living body to occupy, her soul now takes the form of a ghost, brought out of the Ghost Zone for this particular mission by Vlad Plasmius.
"I know. I understand perfectly." Rhonda said.
She knows that Vlad did what was best, but it does not make watching her father weep any more easy to view.