Disclaimer: I do not own any of the Gorillaz characters nor the concept; that belongs to the creators Jamie Hewlett and Damon Albarn. I do however own my OC Alyss.
Chapter Five: Last Connection to Her Part Two
It was that familiar scent of cigarette smoke that made Alyss' worry dissolve into the atmosphere that engulfed the Winnebago as though it was a curtain concealing the main attraction at some sort of carnival; yet she remained cold to the temporary interrogation room. Emotionless were her mismatched eyes as she scanned the horrid scene; a leather couch sat against the dull colored wall with pictures of different people that Alyss knew she had never met, across from that couch was a slightly large bed that was littered with wrappers. She felt something that resembled a disgusted shiver ripple through her fragile body as she felt Murdoc literally drag her toward the couch. She studied the floor and noticed that it was carpet… so much like the one back at the Sanatorium. Alyss kept her emotions locked as she sat down on the leather couch casually and felt herself ease back against it. Surprisingly, it was actually comfortable.
Murdoc let his grip on Alyss' arm go and saw that even though he wasn't even being as forceful as he usually was, he saw the red marks that his fingers had created. He glanced at her and saw that her gaze was set on the carpet and her charcoal bangs covered her expression. He frowned slightly as he walked over to the bed and sat across from the silent teen. The Satanist hated teens, well except for Noodle but that was because the Japanese teen was in the band, Alyss was not; he tried to gather as much patience as he could muster only to realize that it wasn't much. Murdoc took in a breath as though about to rapidly ask her the questions that would demand answers but he was stopped.
Alyss held up a hand as though signaling a halt. Her red eye was visible through her bangs and she whispered, "Let me ask you one question before you ask me about everything…"
The bass slayer crossed his arms and just gave the teen a look that seemed to tell her to keep going and not to stop in the middle of a sentence for his approval.
"Do… you wear an inverted cross?"
Murdoc gave Alyss a strange glance as he took off his inverted cross necklace and handed it to the girl.
"'Course I do. Wot's it to ya?"
Alyss let her slender fingers run over the golden inverted cross and felt a burning sensation on the back of her neck. She kept letting her fingers run over it and she seemed to be calmer than usual, Murdoc took this as a good sign if she relaxed even more against the leather couch and stared at him straight at his eyes. It was the kind of look that Noodle used to give when she first arrived in the FedEx crate; it was the stare that could pierce into your soul and leave you trying to reach for words to avert the gaze. But Murdoc didn't need to say anything to Alyss; she had averted her glance back to the carpet and sighed.
"It's the same carpet."
"Wot?"
Her fingers kept tracing the necklace that she placed on her lap and she looked up at Murdoc then back at the carpet, "it's the same carpet from the Sanatorium."
Murdoc just watched her newfound habit of fidgeting with the necklace and he cleared his throat. Alyss quickly stopped fidgeting and folded her hands and leaned forward.
"How long 'ave ya been in the asylum?"
"… Ten years."
He raised an eyebrow and frowned, "yew sure don' look like some girly that's insane."
Alyss glanced at Murdoc and smiled, "To be honest I am. Just… not in the way you'd expect. Then again with eyes that are so different most people will label you insane."
"So you're crazy?"
The teen gave a slight nod, "I suppose you can say that… what are you getting at?"
Murdoc leaned in and whispered, "If you're insane… why are yew outta there? Obviously if yew were released then you're not nuts… yet… yew claim yew are. Which is it?"
Alyss frowned and her fingers began to fidget with the necklace, "I am insane. Why else would I be placed in such a horrid place? Then again I'm not exactly the right person to talk to about why-"
"Git to the point."
"I was placed in there because someone declared that I..."
"That yew?"
The teen fell silent and the darkest of images flew past her vision. Her eyes gained that darkness again and she glared straight at Murdoc's own mismatched eyes and that's when he knew something bad must've happened.
"Listen girly, tell me nicely 'n I'll let ya stay."
Alyss stood up so quickly that the inverted cross dropped from her lap, escaped her grasp and fell onto the ash covered carpet. Her body was trembling and her appearance seemed to mimic the one that most insane people are given; those who are placed in straight-jackets and are placed in soft bouncy rooms to prevent bodily harm. Alyss growled angrily, "I rather leave then tell ya anything!"
Murdoc stood up, "Yew sure ya wanna go 'n git me angry?"
"I ain't afraid of you. You are intimidating I'll give you that but you're just like mom; all talk but no action. You're a deceiver and the kind of person who only cares about himself and could give a damn about anyone else," Alyss glare narrowed until it seemed like she still had a hold onto his soul and was about to destroy it, "You're so selfish."
If there was one thing Murdoc Niccals never stood for was being judged, and what she was saying about him… was pretty much true. This ticked him off; she hadn't known him for more than a day and she had his personality down as though she was one of the women he had ditched. He looked at her and noticed that the teen in front of her was another woman. Murdoc almost felt his heart stop when he saw that familiar face that Alyss had. It wasn't his own face that stared at him with such savage rage but rather it was one of the very few women he would remember. Murdoc glared at Alyss, how dare she remind him of that part of the past that he wished never happened.
Alyss saw Murdoc take a step toward her and she instantly stared at him with very wide eyes. He was going to slap her but the fear that consumed her in a matter of seconds left him frozen. He took a deep breath, walked back over to the bed and sat down.
The teen stared at him, fear soon turning into sorrow and she leaned against the wall she was standing in front of. Slowly she slid down to the carpet and gently picked up the inverted cross and hugged it.
"… …"
Murdoc could sense that whatever he had done had calmed her, but she looked more like a little child than anything. What the Satanist didn't understand was why in the eighteen years that he had last seen that woman, she would appear to him. He watched as Alyss stood up and tossed the inverted cross at him.
"Gomenasai… I'm so sorry… I didn't mean to yell," Alyss spoke softly, almost as if she was guilty of doing something wrong. She bowed and resumed her seat on the black leather couch. She didn't dare glance at the man that whose gaze was fixed on her. She felt her previous sorrow die away almost as fast as it came and she rubbed her left eye, the red eye.
"I lied. I wasn't released from the Belphagor Sanatorium, I escaped."
This caused Murdoc to snap out of his fixed stare and blink a few times before he stood up, "WOT!"
"I escaped from that horrid place hoping I would find a better place… yet… I guess I found something I didn't want."
"Yew escaped 'n yew expect to stay 'ere?"
Alyss shook her head in a melancholy manner, "no. I never expected to be taken in. Quite honestly… I never want to be taken into a home again."
This made Murdoc pause for a moment before he placed a hand on his hip and questioned, "Why's that?"
"… I can't tell you… if I do… something bad will happen."
"Yew will tell me or I'll-"
"Everyone who adopts me or takes me into their family winds up being murdered! There I said it!"
The once calm atmosphere was shattered as sheer panic replaced every emotion and thought that ran through Murdoc's mind. He moved away from Alyss and just gave her a dirty glare.
"Murdered? Care to explain?"
"I refuse to tell you that. I already told you about the people who keep me being murdered; please don't let me tell you anything else."
"That's not good enough Alyss!"
Alyss covered her face with one of her hands and she shook her head, "Wot do yew mean it isn't enough! That's a warning to just kick me out right now."
Murdoc stopped, noticing how the dialect she usually spoke in changed. He knew that accent, it was close to a Cockney accent but it was a mix with an American accent. Murdoc shook his head, lost in his own thoughts.
"You're just like her…"
Alyss blinked and looked at Murdoc with a pair of eyes that were glazed over with curiosity and tears. She tilted her head and in the dim light that was in the Winnebago Murdoc could see that innocent face. He turned around and shook his head again, "That woman… your mom… yew 're just like 'er."
Alyss looked down, "You knew my mom? What was she like?"
"Yew… don' know wot your own mom was like?"
"No… last time I saw her was when she framed me for her murder… ten years ago," Alyss admitted. Murdoc heard those words and he turned to her and was about to ask what she meant by being framed but that's when he saw something that disturbed him.
Alyss kept rubbing her left eye and on her hand was a red liquid, blood. Murdoc's eyes widened, seeing her bleed yet he saw crystal clear tears falling from her right eye and soon he regained his usual calmness.
"Yew 're bleeding from-"
"I k-know."
Murdoc sighed as he grabbed a box of tissues from the end of the bed and tossed it at her, "Here, yew look like yew need 'em."
"Thank you," Alyss said quietly as she began wiping her bloody tears with the tissues.
The Satanist watched Alyss as she soon stopped crying and gave her full attention to Murdoc. He noticed the hope that lingered in her eyes and he raised an eyebrow.
"Wot 're yew expectin' to hear?"
"What I want to hear and what is the truth behind it are two different things. Besides, if I told you what I wanted to hear you probably would mislead me with your explanation."
Murdoc smirked, she was clever. He sighed, "Awright… your mom was… troubled. She was always complainin' 'bout problems and she had a temper. That's all I know."
Alyss' hope seemed to crack slightly and she sighed, "Thanks."
"Wot did yew wanna hear?"
"That mom was actually nice and she never abused anyone before me."
Murdoc looked at Alyss who was now rubbing the back of her neck, "Abused?"
"Yea mom hated me with every fiber of her being and would always find ways to hurt me. But… I remember that ten years ago she was depressed… and she killed herself and gave the knife to me," Alyss began to tell as her eyes darkened and she started trembling.
X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X
"Mommy, where are you? There are people in a uniform looking for you," a seven year old Alyss yelled into the darkness that used to be her home. Her young voice echoed off the snow white walls and her small feet slammed against the hardwood floor as she ran to find her mom. "Mommy, please come out! Mommy!"
Alyss was panicking; she knew the people who were waiting at the entrance were the people that once took her away. Placed her in all those homes with those nice people who had all been hideously murdered; Alyss was just seven when she was taught to be wary of people like them. And now the small child stumbled through the darkness trying to find the one person she believed could look past their deceiving motives and save her from witnessing more bloodshed.
"Mommy where are you?"
She saw a light that illuminated the darkness, revealing the white and black tiles of the kitchen that always made her think of a chess board. Alyss smiled and slowed down to a walk, "mommy, are you in here? Mommy there are people here looking for you, something about being evaluated or some…"
Every thought that ever crossed her mind, all those words that fell from her lips, everything that she was feeling all died at the glimpse of the fateful sight. Alyss hadn't even seen the thick red blood tainting the floor until her small bare foot stepped in the puddle and she tripped over the weak body of her mother. The small child's baggy jeans started to soak the red liquid like a sponge and her black shirt began to feel heavy in the front as she got up and saw that blood was on it. Alyss did the first thing every child does when scared, she screamed.
"MOMMY PLEASE LIVE! I-I-I need a really large bandage for that… mommy…"
The woman wasn't dead, yet, and her usual tan face was now pale from blood loss and Alyss saw death as a very high possibility for her mother. Alyss saw the angelic blue eyes that could stare into anyone's soul, but the voice that belonged to the woman with the angelic looks could've belonged to the Devil's wife.
"You insignificant little girl, now look what you did."
"I-I-I didn't do anything m-mommy! I-I was-"
"Stirring up trouble just like you always do," the woman said cruelly. The woman's blond bangs were tainted red when she carefully moved the bangs away from her face. "You're such a worthless child, I hope you know that."
Alyss' eyes widened, "Mommy… the people… they're gonna take me away! Don't make them! You have to live!"
"I don't have to do anything anymore. Besides you're old enough to tell them you want to stay here."
"I can't do that when there isn't a mommy or a daddy here! M-Mommy… I don't want you to die!" Alyss shrieked angrily, "Mommy you have to live! Because if you die then I can't stay here…"
The mother just gave Alyss an emotionless stare before taking Alyss' left hand and began to calmly rub it. Alyss was tense as her mother drew her in close as though to drag her down to the floor to hug her, but at the last minute her mother smiled demonically as she pushed the bloody knife into the child's hand.
"A-Alyss… how… how could you?" her mother gasped out before her eyes glazed over and her boney chest no longer moved. Alyss got down on her knees and moved her mother's shirt to see where she was stabbed and her eyes widened.
There were shadows against the bright light of the kitchen and Alyss could see the shock in the eyes of the spectators. They were the people who helped run the foster care system, the people who had placed her in the families that wound up murdered… they were the people who truly believed she had just murdered her own mother.
Her mother had just put the blame of her suicide onto Alyss.
X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X
Murdoc just stared at Alyss who had stopped trembling and her eyes almost seemed black from retelling the experience.
"My mom never loved me, at the time we lived in America and when she committed suicide I was shipped back to England and placed in the first asylum that would allow me in. Once everyone convicted me of that false crime they went on to charging me with the murder of all those families that were killed. Though there was no evidence of me being involved they still found me guilty of it… and they said I would stay in the Belphagor Sanatorium for the rest of my life for mental rehabilitation."
The Satanist couldn't find the words to say to Alyss mainly because this seemed like her problem that she hadn't addressed but also because she was abused and had no one to depend on in the time this had happened. He almost remembered his own childhood with his father Sebastian Jacob Niccals; it was a harsh childhood that mostly consisted of surviving his drunken beatings and being able to avoid conflict.
"Yew can stay."
The teen didn't seem surprised, actually she didn't seem like she was paying much attention to anything. Murdoc got up and moved a hand up and down in front of her face but there was still no reaction; he noticed that her mismatched eyes were distant, that she wasn't even conscious.
"What the…"
A chill suddenly passed through Murdoc Niccals as he moved Alyss so she was lying on the couch; it was a sensation he had felt when the Gorillaz were making their first album. This feeling was similar to the one that he felt when they were on the scene for Clint Eastwood. Murdoc's eyes widened, that was impossible; this feeling only happened when Del was around… but Del was taken from Russel as far as he could remember… that was at least a year ago.
But his assumption became a reality when he heard the all too familiar voice.
"Mudz, where the hell am I?"
It was Del… Del was back. Murdoc yelled as he ran out of the Winnebago; Russel and 2D were not going to believe this.
Finally, this chapter of Unexpected is complete. I don't have much to say about this chapter except it took forever to write because I was at a huge debate about how this chapter was going to play out. Just in case you guys are wondering about the timeline, this is before the El Manana video is filmed which means its set around Phase Two. So what did you think? I would love to hear what you think of this chapter and please do review, it's appreciated. Thank you for reading.
