Four: Mad
Pregnant.
Regina was pregnant.
If this stupid fate he had was to come true, not that it was even really possible, he would murder not just the love of his life, but also the unborn child the two had created.
Stakes were too high - they were too overbearing. Robin stared at himself in the car mirror, his eyes fixated on just himself, not bothered by anything outside his line of vision. He heard car horns and police sirens in the background, all of which aided him into closing his eyes and having another vision.
"What have we here?" A man said. He was older and scruffy, maybe his late fifties, with significant blue eyes and a tall, muscular figure. He looked down at Robin and clicked this tongue, "Are you alright, sir? Do you remember anything? Can you tell me what happened?"
Robin froze and looked around - all he could see were the thick clouds of smoke. All he could smell was the distant ghost of fire and all he could hear were sirens. Nothing sparked anything. He couldn't remember anything.
Another man grabbed Robin's arm, "Can I ask you to stand up and walk in a straight line for me?"
Robin looked towards the man and cocked his head to the side, finally spitting out some words, "A straight line?"
The man nodded and helped Robin stand up, before letting go and pointing to the yellow line in the middle of the street. Robin looked up at the audience of officers that were watching him, then he looked down at his hands and body. His eyes grew large as he noticed the blood on his shirt, coming from his head.
"What the hell happened?" Robin blurted.
"That's what we'd like to know, Mr. Locksley. Please walk on the yellow line."
He looked down at his feet, suddenly his vision becoming blurry. He shook his head and nodded before clearing his throat and stepping onto the yellow line. The audience was silent as Robin began to walk, dragging his feet behind him and walking off the yellow line. He held his arms out as if he were walking a tightrope and became unbalanced as he moved. When he finished, he turned to the group of officers and smirked, "Good, eh?"
"Mr. Locksley," an officer said, coming to Robin and holding his arm, "I am putting you under arrest for intoxication and vehicular manslaughter. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you do or say can and will be used against you in a court of law."
Another officer grabbed Robin's other arm and cuffed his wrists as Robin strangled and said, "What happened? I don't even remember what happened!"
The two officers dragged Robin to their squad car, him catching one last glimpse of the crime scene. The smoke finally cleared, and he could finally see the gruesome event. His car - his beautiful blue Tesla - totaled. The ambulance door was still open, and he saw a man and woman pushing the victim into the back. It was a woman - she wasn't breathing.
"Can I ask one thing, officers," he pleaded, "before I go?"
The officers stayed silent and stared at him.
"Who was she?"
They sighed and looked at each other, one officer hitting the other to spit out her name. He looked at Robin with sorrow-filled eyes and sighed, shaking his head and murmuring, "I'm very sorry, Mr. Locksley."
The other officer coughed up her name finally, "Your wife, Regina Mills Locksley."
"She's gone." The other said.
The sound of a long and loud truck horn returned him to reality. He took a long breath and shook his head, pulling back onto the road to drive home. As he drove, he thought of the vision and all its details. He was drunk - but he'd never put Regina in that kind of danger.
When he got home, he went right inside and threw his jacket on the couch beside Regina. Without saying a word, he rushed through the living room and into the kitchen to get a glass of water. She came behind him and laid her hands on his arms, "What's wrong?"
He didn't answer, all he did was turn around and look into her eyes.
There was a silence, and an exchange of understanding looks. She rubbed his arms and pulled him into a hug, kissing his neck and holding him close until his breathing slowed down.
"I'm with you," she whispered into his ear, "Always."
He smiled and held her tighter, "You are my future."
Robin let them separate before he remembered that he wanted to grab some dinner on the way home, "I'll go grab dinner, I forgot it."
"It's fine, Robin."
"No it's not, now there's two fo you to feed. We can't be eaten cereal every night." He pushed past her, sending her a quick smile, and grabbed his jacket before running back out to his car. He began driving and driving. With another shaking of his head, he took a right instead if a left and found himself driving right to the docks to meet Deanna. He parked and looked around, before getting out of the car and making his way to her shop. Robin didn't bother to knock, in fact, he walked right in, pushing through the purple curtains that dangled in front of the table and calling for her. She came out, not angrily, but more surprised, and raised an eyebrow at him, "Mr. Locksley, how can I help you?"
"What's wrong with me, Deanna?" He pleaded.
She pulled her chair closer to him and sat down in it, staring at his face and noticing the overwhelming fear developing in him. She cocked her head to the side and her mouth fell open, but no words came out.
"Well?" He pushed.
She shrugged, "Robin, my dear, there's no going back now."
His mouth dropped and his eye grew wider, "No going back? Where did I even go?"
She sighed and stood up, walking over to a wall that held a single portrait and staring at it, "When I was a young girl, my father used to tell me stories of the boogie man. Ever heard of him?"
Robin nodded.
Deanna turned away from him and stared at the portrait of her father, "The Boogie Man - a universal villain of the story - used to scare children into doing their chores and listening to their parents. Yet, no one ever knew his back story. My father expected more of me; he knew that my brain was more experienced and more capable of holding such information. One night, I asked him, 'Who really is the Boogie Man?', and he laughed at me."
She paused and looked back at Robin over her shoulder, before turning back to the portrait and sighing, "What I didn't expect was what he said next, 'All men are the Boogie Man.' I was intrigued by his sentence, of course, since I am who I am, but I questioned him further. He told me the origin of the Boogie Man - father by day, monster by night. Nothing that I ever expected, but the Boogie Man was a family man. He was normal and real; he worked and provided for his wife and children. He loved and he forgave. He wasn't always a monster. My father insisted on ending the story then, but I pushed him even further, something I regret doing to this day. I asked, 'Well, then, what happened to make him such a scary guy?'
"My father laughed, but he continued telling me the story, even though deep down I knew he didn't want to tell me. The Boogie Man went mad. He went on a downward spiral. It wasn't noticeable to the public at first, only to his wife, who he had started snapping on and getting angry with all too quickly. He began acting irrationally in the silliest of situations, and his children became quite scared of him. One day, the neighbors heard a scream next door and called the police, who came too late to the scene. There was a note on the kitchen table that read,
I don't know what has come over me, but all I feel is anger and hatred and my body feels the need to put it out on something. I will miss them dearly.
"When the officers searched the house, there was no other signs of him, except the cold, dead bodies of his wife and two children. He killed them. All men are the Boogie Man, because all men are somehow doomed to become mad. Some just experience it worse than others."
When Deanna looked back at Robin, he was frozen and he couldn't even spit out any words. He took a deep breath and finally looked up at her eyes, "What did that have to do with me?"
She paused once more and found her way back to her seat, taking Robin's hand in hers and letting her eyes grow wider. Her mouth fell open as she took in one more glance of this sane family man, "Robin, my dear. You are going mad."
A/N: Woah, this is getting to the serious stuff. Stay posted, I'm updating soon!
