Chapter 19: In the Dark

I feel Yuuri's fingers stroking my hair, and I really do try to stay calm, but I hate feeling like I can't move. My eyes are still covered so that I won't see where I am. Stefan has gone back to the rehab center, and we're waiting to hear what's happening there, as soon as he can get word to us. In my mind, I keep going back to those minutes before Masha arrived in my room. I remember Yuuri kissing me goodbye and us talking about seeing each other when I go home next weekend. I recall sitting down on the bed, but then everything gets fuzzy, and I don't remember writing in my journal.

"Yuuri, will you bring my journal?" I ask.

"Your journal?" he asks softly, "Do you want me to record something in there for you?"

"No," I tell him, "I want you to start from the beginning and read the short notes I wrote to you each day. Read them out loud."

"Okay."

There is a pause as he opens the book and finds the right page. He doesn't start reading right away, and I feel his eyes looking at me.

"You wrote a note to me every day?" he asks.

"Yes. Will you please read them back to me?"

"Just the notes to me?"

"Yes."

I listen quietly as he reads, and within a few entries, I begin to feel it in the words. I feel the slow, but undeniable change that I just couldn't see before. Yuuri pauses amidst the set of entries and I can feel his eyes are on me again.

"You made all of these entries for me?" he says, sounding touched, "Victor, that was…good of you to share this with me. It makes me feel like I was almost there with you."

I give him my warmest, most loving smile.

"Yuuri, there is never really a time that you aren't with me, because you're so far inside my heart. You know that, don't you?"

"Yeah," he whispers, sniffing softly, "I do."

He continues to read the entries aloud, but his voice wavers a little as he reaches the last few.

"You…signed this one Victor," he comments, "You had signed them all Vitya up until this one."

There is a long, uncomfortable silence between us.

"It's really true, then," I have to admit, "Bershov was messing with my head all along."

It's a frightening admission, because, right now? I have no idea what this man might have done to my mind and even less what he might have done to my body. I get a horrid, sick feeling and I start to feel dizzy.

"Victor, you've gone pretty pale," Yuuri says worriedly, "Are you okay?"

"No, not really," I have to confess, "It's just…all of those times I was alone with him. Yuuri, I wonder what exactly did happen, since obviously, I don't remember the reality. I have blank spots in my memory. What if he…?"

"Shh," Yuuri soothes me, kissing me on the cheek and squeezing my hand, "Try not to worry about that. Bershov is going to be caught, and he will pay for what he's done."

"Maybe," I whisper, "but he may have done things to me…while I was thinking I was Oska…"

"Stop. Don't think about that right now," he insists, climbing onto the bed and resting his head on my shoulder.

"He might have…compelled me to do things too. What if he wanted me to hurt you?"

"You would never hurt me," he assures me, but I hear it in Yuuri's voice.

The truth is, neither of us really knows what could happen.

"Yuuri, we aren't alone, are we?" I ask in a haunted voice.

"You aren't alone," my mother's voice says from nearby, "Vitya, I am here also."

"Okay."

My voice is shaking and I feel so scared, like I've never felt in my life. Even in the worst of times, I've never felt like I wasn't in control of my own mind. Addiction made my body my enemy at times, but my mind always worked with me. To suddenly feel like my mind is something I can't control…I don't know…

"Victor, what can I do?" Yuuri pleads softly, "You're trembling."

"I just can't wrap my mind around what's happening. And Yuuri, I'm not just worried about myself. What if Bershov tries to hurt the others at the center? Vasily is there, and Bershov knows that I am close friends with him."

"Don't think like that."

"Vasily has a daughter, Yuuri, a beautiful, innocent little girl! Bershov could…!"

"Stefan isn't going to let that happen. He's…"

"He's walking into danger too!" I exclaim, "Yuuri, it's like Petya tried to tell me. Bershov isn't just a monster, he's a monster holding everyone's strings!"

"He's going to be…"

"What?" I demand, "He has hypnotized, not just me, but other people too. I know he has! I see it now…how he used each of us and played with us while we were all focused on our addictions. I may have been his target, because he saw something in me that he wanted, but Bershov uses everyone. Yuuri, what if Nurse Ivken was just another of his pawns? Oh god, what if he's also hypnotized Stefan?"

"Stop!" Yuuri snaps, putting his hands on my face, "Victor, if Stefan was hypnotized, then you would never have left that office. If Stefan was controlled by Bershov, he would have called him in to deal with you and Masha."

"What about Petya and the journal?" I ask in a haunted voice, "I know that Petya must have realized what was going on, but he also knew that eventually, Bershov would catch on to him knowing. I think he hid his own journal, so that the truth wouldn't be destroyed. He wanted there to be evidence in case he was incapacitated or killed. But we don't know how many of the staff and patients Bershov affected. We don't know who might still be an enemy."

"Shh, you're safe," he assures me.

"I'm not the only one who matters, Yuuri!" I yell at him, "Look, you need to let me up, now!"

"What are you going to be able to do?" he asks pointedly, "You are not a police officer, and you are still affected by Bershov's mental conditioning. If I released you, you could go into some kind of trance and go to him. That's what he's doing all of this for. You know that. Oska knows it too."

"Oska doesn't exist," I scold him, "It's just a thought that Bershov put into my head."

"But you don't control that thought," he points out, "Whether he is in this room or not, he could still be influencing you. As long as that's true, you need to stay here and let us protect you."

"Even from myself?" I have to ask, "Yuuri, even if Bershov is caught and I'm deprogrammed, you and everyone else are still going to have your doubts about me, aren't you? How can you really be sure, after all? Are you going to let me stay tied down then too?"

"No, I'm not!" he assures me.

"How do I know that?" I ask, "Right now, you don't trust me, and I can't trust myself. This is never going to be over, even if Bershov is captured, is it? I'm going to be put in a crazy house somewhere and left there to rot!"

"I won't let that happen!" Yuuri hisses, "Victor, stop this now. I know you're scared, and it seems like you're trapped, but you have friends who are working really hard to protect you and to stop Bershov."

"You know there's only one thing that will stop him," I say, almost reflexively, "He won't stop until all of his enemies are out of the way, even if he has to kill them, or…or have them kill each other. He won't stop until I go to him!"

"No!" Yuuri shouts.

I feel his body stiffen against even the suggestion.

"Victor, you can't do that. If you go to him, and he gets his hands on you, then everything that the others have suffered…Masha, Tomas, Tolya, and whoever else he might have hurt or programmed other people to hurt…all of them will have suffered for nothing. You need to stay here with me, no matter what happens. You have to let Stefan and the authorities do their work. They will stop him, and then Stefan will make sure that you are deprogrammed. You just have to trust him. Trust me!"

"I do trust you," I insist, "but there's something that I keep seeing in my head. It's a place, Yuuri. I don't think I've ever been there, but I feel like Oska has been."

"Victor, you have to stop this!"

"You don't understand!" I shout at him, "Something happened there! I know it did! It's something that Oska knows and he's been trying to tell me."

"Victor, you said yourself that Oska was put into your head by Bershov, right?"

"Yes, but…"

"Then, if he is just a false image that Bershov put in your mind, why would he give away information that would not benefit Bershov in some way? Think about it! Maybe he put that in your mind so that you would go there and he would be waiting to take you away! You have to consider the possibility."

"I am," I tell him urgently, "But you have to consider the possibility that it may not be something he meant for me to uncover. Yuuri, I know that sometimes I would see things in his office, and they would trigger memories of things I thought were just my imagination. There was a picture I saw, one of Oska."

"Victor, you're not making sense!" Yuuri argues.

"Just listen, please! There were…papers that fell off of his desk and I remember some of the things I saw on them. If I try, maybe I can figure some of this out. I could be able to help Stefan and the others…"

"You have to stop, please!" he insists anxiously, "I am not going to let you leave here. And even if I wanted to let you up, Mirra-san is here to keep that from happening. You and I are both watched every minute to prevent you leaving and falling into Bershov's hands."

"But I can't just sit here and let more people die!" I sob, unable to hold back my desperation anymore, "If anyone else dies…Vasily, Masha, you, Yuuri! I couldn't live with myself!"

"But you can't control yourself," he cries, finally breaking down into tears with me, "Your life depends on us not letting you go!"

"LET ME UP, YUURI!" I scream at him, losing control completely, "LET ME THE FUCK UP NOW!"

I hear the door open, then footsteps approach and stop by the bed. Yuuri tears himself away from me and I feel a pinprick in my arm. I'm glad he can't see my eyes right now. I can hear him sobbing and I know without my eyes that my mother is holding him. I'm not sure what I scream next, but it's in Russian, so hopefully, he won't understand all of it. Weakness steals over my body and my chest heaves as I fight the sedative with everything in me. I hear Yakov hustling Mother and Yuuri out of the room, and then he returns and tells whoever gave me the shot to leave. I'm barely holding onto consciousness, and fighting for every second, when I feel his hand grip mine.

"Vitya, it will be all right."

"H-how can you say that?" I pant, raging against the heaviness in my chest and eyelids, "You don't know what he is doing. You don't know what that bastard might already have done. You think you're saving me by keeping me h-here, but if they…if they…d-die…"

I hear only one thing more before I collapse into unconsciousness.

"If anyone else dies, it is because we love you too much to let you go. At least, you can understand that."

I sink down into blackness, but it's strange, because I still feel aware. And even in the depths of my body, I am not alone. Oska is there, looking like he did in that old picture from Bershov's office. He smiles sadly at me, and his lips move, but no matter how I try, I can't hear the words. I see him moving closer, reaching out to me and pulling me free of the restraints. Only then can I follow as he leads me.

I know where he is taking me. I have seen a picture before. While I am not conscious, I can remember that Doctor Bershov showed me a picture of the place…a tall, lonely tree shrouded cliff, somewhere in a park on the edges of Saint Petersburg.

"It was winter," I hear Bershov's smooth voice tell me, "You went to the cliff alone to meet me. Do you remember what happened there?"

I don't remember. I know I am not Oska, but there is something in everything he has said to me in these sessions, everything he has shown me. He can't be telling me the truth about all of this. He keeps saying that I…that Oska died of Leukemia, but even though he says that, I keep seeing that image in my head. When he asked me about why I, or Oska, had gone to the cliff, I felt ice in my veins. Something happened there. I know it did. Something happened there that Bershov did not want Oska to remember, even when he awakened in my body.

Yuuri said that because I am not Oska, I can't know what happened, but I know if I go there, I can find a clue. I just have to get out of the place they are keeping me. I have to go and confront him!

After I don't know how long, the fog around me begins to fade. I come back slowly, and I find myself still lying in bed, but now I am in a locked room and left unrestrained. I can feel that I am being watched as I sit up and look around, feeling the weight of danger that everyone is facing, because this insane man wants me to come to him.

Why are they risking their lives? All I have to do is go there and the answers will be there.

I sit on the edge of the bed, staring listlessly at the floor.

This is what I was afraid of. They have thrown me in some loony bin, and I'm going to spend the rest of my life here, because of what he did to me.

I wonder where everyone is?

The room is plain and there is nothing inside that can be used as a tool for any kind of escape, be it literal or figurative. If I was trapped before, I am hopelessly so here. At the ends of my wits, I sit and cry without making a sound. I know that there is nothing left to do but to wait. I am so involved in my thoughts that I miss the first sound of gunshots outside the room. I stiffen when I realize, then I feel a sense of fate wrap around me. I'm quiet and calm as the gunshots ring out again, then the lock on my door clicks and the door creaks open.

XXXXXXXXXX

"Oska?"

I stand and stare in dismay as Senya steps over two bodies and reaches for my hand.

"Come, Oska," he beckons me, "It's all right. They won't bother us now."

I follow quietly, feeling the weight of Victor Nikiforov's presence, his deep depression and anxiety over the people he loves. Victor is right to be frightened for him.

Senya is a monster!

I know this, but I also know that Victor's heart can't bear it anymore. He can't sit, locked up in that room, while god knows what is going on outside, and who knows what has happened to the people he loves.

At least, I know the guards were not the ones who usually guard the family. As we exit the room, I see several more bodies, a physician who was probably taking care of me, another guard and then…Nurse Ivken.

I stare at Ivken's open and shocked looking eyes and notice that he wasn't shot from the front. He was shot in the back, probably by Senya, himself.

When the strings have lost their usefulness, he cuts them.

"Oska, come away from him. He is nothing. We must leave now."

I go because I know that there is no use in resisting. But beneath my skin, I feel Victor's mind working and he manages to speak to me for just a few words.

Go there!

"Senya, can you take me to our special place?"

He frowns at me.

"Have you forgotten what happened there?" he asks.

I look at him quietly.

"That man who arrived and talked to you?" he inquires, "There was a struggle, and…"

And all of a sudden, Victor and I merge completely. We come to the same realization, and we know, beyond doubt, what happened at that place, so long ago.

Senya killed us.

I don't know if he meant to, but somehow…we fell off that cliff.

And now, he is taking us back.