(MADELEINE'S POV)
A sharp pain in her abdomen sliced at Madeleine and forced her to open her eyes.
Looking about the room, Madeleine realized she was lying down on a small platform that was covered in a strip of tissue paper. Bright white lights hung from above, blinding Madeleine temporarily before she took her eyes to her feet, straining herself from gasping in terror.
Her dilated eyes scanned over the dominant bump in her stomach, finding yellow bruises and whatnot lining her exposed torso. Daring to move her eyes to the audience, she looked to her side and found a doctor moving an ultra-sound across the bump on her stomach.
Looking to the monitor, the doctor's eyebrows furrowed in confusion as he searched the screen. But while his eyes were busy, preoccupied with searching for the baby inside of her, Madeleine glanced back to her stomach, finding five, tiny little bumps crate indentations that slid across her stomach before they faded away.
"Madeleine…," the doctor said in a low, distressed and familiar tone.
Madeleine ignored this as a loud, dominant ringing sounded in her ears, forcing Madeleine's head back to stare at the ceiling before her until the quietest sound of laughter became distinct.
Never worth…unfortunate that your eyes betray your past; never worth.
Understand that through time the barrier will grow thin… -less…
Breathing through her nose as she gritted her teeth, Maddie's attempt's of freedom came to no avail, only projecting a wall in her mind; it's crimson-stained wooden panels wearing and tearing as her eyes went to Johnny, who keeled helplessly on the floor before the mess, whispering out the burden of his job.
He shall rise again through the procedures of the birth… worth(worthless…)
And the bloodshed of the victims shall start again; from the beginning.
"Madeleine…," Maddie's mortified face turned to the doctor whom had then pulled away the mask, revealing Johnny's worried face looking to the monitor on the wall. Taking her own eyes to the screen, her screams were cut off from blood pooling in the back of her throat.
Another sharp stab of pain nudged inside of her as her fearful eyes scanned the monitor, traveling over the curves of the infant's indefinable appearance; an assortment of jaws, tentacles, and talons protruding from it's mouth and spine.
Never worth;… the bloodshed of the victims shall start again; from the beginning.
The image of the wall in her head morphed as the Wall cracked and broke apart before a large mass of tentacles, claws, assortments of dilated eyes, endless amounts of faceless heads and teeth slid out from behind the wooden boards, captivating Madeleine's attention and consuming her, turning her vision black.
"NO!"
"Madeleine, wake up. Damn it, wake up already!"
Madeleine's eyes shot open immediately as her heartbeat raced at a crazy speed; the image of her child morphed into the spitting image of the horrifying monster that had once threatened Johnny's own sanity.
Squeezing her eyes tightly, Madeleine shook her head in desperate attempt to get the thought out of her mind. Scrunching her nose up in dislike, a sharp headache pierced at the back of her head before she opened her eyes once again, her vision distorted and blurry. Screwing up her eyes, she slapped at whatever was being held to her face before bringing her fists to her eyes.
Rubbing the dream from her eyes, Madeleine set one hand behind her back, propping half of her body up from the couch beneath her. How the hell did she get there?
Immediately, Maddie closed her mouth as her face turned an extremely light shade of white in disgust.
Pushing herself up, Madeleine walked in a daze, past Johnny who stood next to the sofa with a confused look on his face.
"Made-."
Raising her hand in order to silence Johnny, Madeleine continued out of the room in an emotionless trance. Holding her breath, she passed the Bub's burger boy which sat beside the exit of the house in silence as she walked through the doorway, into the beginnings of a sunrise.
The color of the sky, however, made Madeleine's stomach churn even more in discomfort as she looked up at the beautiful crimson hues; but keeping her expression wiped away, Maddie hurried off of the lawn, keeping off of the loose soil and heading to a nearby bush.
Never worth…unfortunate that your eyes betray your past; never worth.
Understand that through time the barrier will grow thin…
Once she was close enough to the shrub, Madeleine vomited onto the ground, the brown, murky substance staining her head as she tried to drown out the sound of the omen ringing loudly in her head.
He shall rise again through the procedures of the birth…
And the bloodshed of the victims shall start again; from the beginning.
(JOHNNY'S POV)
"Made-," Johnny was cut off from Madeleine who signaled for him to stay quiet. Thoroughly confused, Johnny followed Madeleine through the house and stopped at the doorstep, watching after Maddie who walked over to a small bush and projectile vomited.
Perhaps she ate something bad at the family reunion after the wedding, causing her to have the stomach flu…
She had the symptoms: shakiness, cold sweat, and vomiting; but Johnny wasn't assured by the fact that he had heard her yelling in her sleep.
He came into the room to find Madeleine squirming on the sofa, muttering nonsense about a barrier growing thin, something that was to rise through the stages of birth, and bloodshed beginning again.
Those, definitely, WEREN'T symptoms of the stomach flu.
But through each attempt that Johnny had tried to wake her, she only struggled more.
"Reverend…," Johnny began as he headed back into the room, a frown forming on his lips as his eyes flashed to the decoration.
"She muttered, whispered things… Meaty…guy, you are connected to me, and bound to this house through some…superficial dark magic, I believe. And I know you know what Madeleine had seen… she mentioned the barrier…"
Johnny flinched as he said these words, still glaring at the plastic decoration in confusion. He had thought he rid the house of the monster; he thought it was gone for good.
"Precisely. Johnny, my boy, she is now attached to you through marriage vows, meaning she is connected to you in both the physical world, and the supernatural through this house. She has been given a dream which has warned her for the future laid out before her; an omen of simplicity and terror."
Looking to the entrance of the house, Johnny continued to frown as he realized what Reverend Meat was saying. The supernatural forces; the monster from the Wall was picking away at Madeleine's head. It had the courage and willpower to fuck with Johnny's wife, cursing her with omens and such that would probably scar her for life.
His hands clenched into fists as his feet took him down his stairs and to the legendary Wall. However, he heard no movement whatsoever on the other side of the wood. Complete silence.
Bringing himself closer to the wood, Johnny kicked at the Wall with his boot, denting the rotting wood as he groaned, "I thought you LEFT. I thought you already got your share of freedom; but if you're going to fuck around again, stay the hell away from Madeleine. Do what you want to me, I don't give a damn; just don't… don't taint Madeleine like you did, me."
The muscles in his neck tensed as he spat at the wall, as if to belittle whatever could have been hiding behind the barrier. Johnny backed away as he heard a slight scuffling behind the wooden panels before he walked out of the room, aggravated as his eyes shone with worry.
(SQUEE'S POV; heh, this is new…)
The loud sound of the alarm clock rang through the air as the child squealed in surprise. Dragging his heavy eyes to the clock, it read, 6:15 A.M.
Rubbing the sleep out of his eyes, Todd hung his legs over the side of his bed as he reached for his brown, worn teddy bear, Shmee before shutting off the alarm with a grunt of annoyance.
Yawning, Todd did his usual routine for every morning: check underneath your bed for any monsters that thrived beneath him. He had, in several cases, had to ward off and run from an amount of creepy, crawly beasts, making Squee more and more anxious on whether or not he should check underneath the bed at all.
Once this was said and done, finding no weird, unnatural things creeping about his room, Squee plopped down onto the floor in a daze before changing into a new set of clothes. After this, Todd shuffled out of his room, dragging his stuffed bear into the hallway and into the bathroom where he then brushed his teeth and combed his naturally straight, black hair.
Now mostly awake, Squee searched the house for his backpack, looking in the kitchen, the living room his own room, and the bathroom before narrowing his eyes and looking to Shmee, "can't find my bag…"
"Where'd it go," Todd raced to his parent's bedroom before peeking in and whimpering nervously, "M-mommy…?"
Getting no response, Todd walked farther into the room, a worried look spread across his face as he looked to the bed, where her leg hung off in an awkward position, "Mommy," he said in a louder voice.
Still, the woman did not answer him.
Slowly, Todd walked to his mother's bedside, spotting an empty prescription bottle lying next to her while a few pills lay strewn on the sheets. Widening his eyes in confusion, Squee tugged on his mother's arm, noticing how oddly cold it was.
"M-mom? Mommy? MOM!"
Now, forgetting the fact that he was looking for his backpack, Todd began to cry out, desperate for an answer from his mother; but she did not answer, leaving Squee bathed in a room of deathly silence.
Eyes wide with fear now, Todd ran out of the room and called for his father in a shriek, finding him in his office, which smelled sour of alcohol and sweat. His father, being blind due to the fact that Scary Neighbor Man had knocked him unconscious with one of Squee's very own toy robots, kept his father disabled and even more angered as he blamed Todd for having blinded him.
"D-DADDY! There's something wrong with Mommy," Squee said with a terrified tone in his voice; taking his father by the hand, Todd led him to the bedroom, where it took his father a few moments to get situated onto the bed, next to his wife.
"What…," his father started as his hands roamed Todd's mother's face, feeling her cold skin before checking her pulse, "TODD, WHAT DID YOU DO?"
Squee began to cry as he whimpered out, "n-nothing Daddy! I was looking for my bag and I came to ask Mo-," a hard slap came upon his face as his father turned toward his direction. Although his father was blind, he had fine-toned his awareness to sensitivity, pinpointing Todd's location, and hitting him hard on the cheek.
Backing away from the impact of his father's hand, Todd let out a shrill, "Squee," before his eyes watered, watching his father with an incredulous face.
"You've blinded me, taken away every ounce of happiness I had by being born. You've only been a nuisance to your mother and I; I work, solely to keep you alive, to feed you, and you've returned this by killing your own MOTHER? Dammit!"
Todd ran out of the room, piecing his father's words together as he cried. Bursting through the front door of the house in desperate attempt to flee and get help, Todd let small, hot tears stream down his face as he called yelled, unsure of what to do, "help… help! He-help…"
"Hey Squee-gee," a feminine voice sounded to his left, startling him and making him shout in surprise, "SQUEE!"
Bring his eyes to his visitor, Todd wiped away the tears that burned at his face while the dark, red hand mark had yet to fade away. Blinking away more tears, Todd realized that it was Madeleine, the woman whom he trusted so well and served for in her wedding just yesterday. She didn't seem too well, having a clammy face and sweat lining her forehead.
She held an intrigued smile on her face as she studied him, but that immediately washed off once she spotted the tears and the large red mark on his face. Todd ran up to her, immediately glad that she was outside for the moment.
"T-Todd? What happened to your face," she said in an angered tone. Her eyes grew hard as she stared him down, making Squee flinch.
"H-help… Mommy… mommy is cold. She won't answer me, and Daddy blames me… Daddy said I did it, but I DIDN'T! I didn't! Help, Maddie."
(AUTHOR'S NOTE)
I veered away from the romance in this chapter, giving you a rather dramatic scene. Sometimes, you just need a break from that… sappy lovey dovey ehhh….
Yes, for those of you who were wondering about Madeleine's dream, what does it mean, why so random, blah blah blah?
I did it to warn Madeleine; if she were to conceive a baby, the supernatural forces of the house and the Wall monster/(the moose), project a threat to hurt the baby, and most likely possess it in some horrid, tragic way, through an omen.
Weird; yes. Dramatic; yes. Sappy(this chapter); not so much.
Oh no… is the wall monster coming back? Or was that just Mr. Samsa crawling on the wall, making little noises?
*BIG GASP!*
Squee's father ABUSED TODD? Yes… because he disliked the fact that Todd was alive; he hadn't even smiled ONCE since he'd been born. So… his father blamed Squee for knocking him out, and blinding him. The only person he COULD blame was Squee. Do you see the dilemma?
(Spoiler; it's alright, you can read this:) you will find Squee and hear a lot more from him in this story. I might, every now and then, use his POV in the story like I did in this chapter.
Lucky you, you got no song lyrics for this chapter.
HOORAY FOR THE DRAMA LLAMA!
*llama passes by*
Author's question to you readers out there: (completely random and has NO relation whatsoever to the storyline) Have you readers seen 'Llamas with hats'? If you haven't, check it out on youtube… It kind of reminds me of Johnny…
Ahh… for those of you who have been reading my story and found the last chapter to have been… a little… awkward, I do apologize. I meant to add the last bit to show you that Johnny, is, in fact a human. He is forced upon his own will to feel emotions, and so forth and so on…
But the little 'game' I added in the previous chapter was to embarrass the characters and make you realize that it was just a joke; a tease.
I truly do apologize for how awkward or how… strangely odd the last chapter was. That is probably the farthest it will get to 'sappy' and 'adorable'.
DISCLAIMER: Johnny and all JTHM characters belong to Jhonen Vasquez, not me; (I am not, and never will be to the level of superiority such as he…) I do, however, own Madeleine.
I am ranting…
Oh, and if you review, you get a free digital cookie. Yay, cookies!
"YUM! AIR!"
-Happy Noodle Boy/ Johnny C./ Jhonen Vasquez