disclaimer: I don't own Haiyo Miazaki works.
A/N: the chapter before was supposed to contain some of the stuff in this chapter but I got excited and uploaded it before I saved it on my computer :/, oh well, it ended up working better like this anyway. The character before in therapy was Nausicaa(maybe she's not a main character because of the difficulties in spelling her name?). She only wears a pink dress at the end, most of the movie she's in blue.
What was she trying to cover up? Howl seemed the same, his smile was gone but I just assumed that he had gotten bored. Maybe it was something else. After a while I realized that he looked more and more as if he was struggling against something and finally he got up and left.
"Howl, what are you-" the door slammed before the therapist could get done with her sentence.
The next thing I knew I was out the door as well. I wasn't sure what led me to follow him, but as soon as I was in the hall Kiki was behind me.
She grabbed me by the arm and stopped me. "I wouldn't follow him if I were you. Not while he's Pendragon."
"What are you talking about; I thought you said 'no one was crazy' in here."
"Howl really does have MPD and that's one of his personalities, a violent one, so don't follow him." She cautioned me.
"Look, I can handle myself." I told her as I freed myself from her grasp and took off on the hunt for Howl.
It took me what seemed like hours to find him, I searched every inch of the Asylum, even snuck through places that seemed off limits. I had looked in both men and women's bathrooms, which got me a few scolding's and effectively acquainted myself with the building. I had just about given up looking for Howl when I spied him.
He was huddled in a corner in the rec room, hugging his knees, soaking wet. It had apparently started to rain while I was looking around for him, and judging from how wet he was, I guessed he had been outside. I decided that it wasn't the time to ask how he had gotten himself outside and went over to him.
"H-howl?" I asked cautiously, remembering Kiki's warning.
No answer.
"Pendragon?" I took a step closer to him at that point.
He glanced up at me quickly and I barely heard him say "Whose Pendragon?" and then he buried his head in his arms again.
I knew Kiki was lying to me. Maybe she was the one with the disorder after all. "Okay, Howl, why did you leave therapy?"
"Who are you talking about? My name's Jenkins." He sounded hurt that he had to explain this to me, and he seemed about five years younger than he normally did.
"I'm sorry?" I didn't know what to do. A shudder went through his entire body and I found myself sitting beside him awkwardly. "Are you okay?"
I got no response and so I sat there for a few moments in a silenced panic wondering what I should do in this situation, what someone with better social skills might do. I put my hand on his back like Lin would do and he all but collapsed into me.
We were still for a while, I would have thought that Howl was sleeping but with his head in my lap I could see that he was sobbing. From time to time his body would let out a horrible shiver that made my heart ache to watch. I tried to ease his pain in some way but nothing I tried seemed to work so we just sat there in silence save for the sound of his inconsistent breathing.
Howl was inconsolable so I said nothing and sat there wondering when he might pull himself together. From time to time I attempted to say something but I was either ignored or the words didn't come out at all.
Eventually, he did fall asleep.
Now I was stuck there by the dead weight of this person using me as a pillow. Not that I minded, an unconscious Howl was better than Kiki, who stared at me in the dark.
The rain outside made the view from the windows that lined one side of the room dark and only faint shapes of a basketball court could be made out. Inside it was only marginally lighter since Howl, or Pendragon, or Jenkins, or whoever hadn't bothered to turn the lights on. Good thing I was no longer afraid of the dark. There were pool tables and old sofas around, here and there were beat up old arcade games like pinball, and a TV was poised on the wall above my head. It was a lot like what I would imagine a rec room anywhere else looking like and so I decided that this is where a lot of my free time would be spent. It made me feel a little bit safer.
Absentmindedly I stroked Howls blue locks, his hair reminded me of Kohaku, although the spirit I knew kept his hair well-trimmed.
I was beginning to dose off to the thought of the river spirit laying in my lap rather than Howl when I heard footsteps approaching us. Waking up slightly I looked to where the sound was. It was one of the nurses that frequented the hallways during the day. She seemed slightly annoyed.
"I've been looking all over for the two of you. It's way past lights out." She said continuing toward us.
I was about to open my mouth to apologize when I felt a hand on my cheek, it was Howl's.
"Sophie?" He whispered, his tear streaked face lifted with bewilderment.
"Um, no?" Who was Sophie?
The hand on my cheek changed from that of a soft touch to a slightly painful grasp. Howl's face twisted in rage and I was caught by surprise when I was thrust downward headfirst to the floor.
The nurse was surprised too. She quickly took something that looked like a walkie-talkie from her belt and mumbled into it. "Pendragon! What are you doing! You're going to hurt her!"
My left side slammed into the tile floor and Howl got to his feet as a stinging sensation preceded the pain that I would feel in my forehead and shoulder.
"Damn straight I am. She took her away from me! You too!" Then he seemed to forget about me and approached the nurse.
I got to my knees and looked on in awe. I should have been running for the door but I was in shock and the severity of Howl's personality difference. Before he didn't seem like he had the capability of scaring a fly away and now he was menacing and poised to kill. Or so it seemed to me.
The nurse backed away slowly, she allowed a pool table to stand in between the two of them but Howl took care of that by flipping it on its side, scattering all of the balls and chalk within it across the floor. She let out a small shriek and the man in front of me chuckled cruelly.
The fear was beginning to sink in, that this really wasn't the Howl I had met the day prior and if his attention found me again I might not get away with just the bruises that were forming on my shoulder and forehead. I started inching toward a side door, unfortunately getting to my feet made a noise and His attention was brought back to me.
Now I could see his face, distorted in a mixture of rage and cruelty and vengeance, Pendragon was his own entity. And he was coming for me.
"Where are you going?" He said loudly, his question needed no reply, it was obvious that I wasn't going anywhere anymore.
I was about ready to dive for one of the pool balls that had scattered on the floor to throw at him when two very large men came bursting through the door. Pendragon spun around with a new vigor at the prospect of two more victims.
These men weren't going to back away slowly though, they advanced on him, letting the nurse disappear through the door as they passed her.
She was lucky.
Pendragon hardly had time to move before his arms were seized, a large man on each side. He started screaming in defiance but they were unrelenting. After a few moments the silver metal of a syringe glinted in the light from the hallway as they plunged it into the struggling captives neck.
Slowly the fight drained out of him and his eyes drooped in the haze of sleep brought on by the sedative they had given him. I couldn't decide whether the attack or the sedation was more horrifying.
As the men dragged an unconscious Howl from the room I all but fell back to the ground. It was silent for a while, then the nurse came back in, apparently I was not forgotten.
"Chihiro." She said testing the waters.
"I want to go home." I was twelve, and after witnessing that, I really did need therapy.
"I'll help you back to your room."
So we went back to my room because now the really wouldn't let me leave.
I crawled into bed without changing, and without saying a word to Kiki. If she wasn't asleep she was at least pretending to be and I was grateful for that. I was in no mood to talk.
Of course sleep didn't come nearly quick enough and I was trapped in the dark thinking about what had happened. The event itself was horrible, but it was worse to think about what else was within these walls.
If that monstrosity was Howl, what of the other people that I hadn't met yet? What of Kiki, who seemed like she was normal, just as Howl had? Had he been normal upon entering this facility or had the denial of his sanity driven him insane? Would I suffer the same fate? To grow into the insanity they had picked for me, become schizophrenic, hear voices in my head?
These thoughts circled, unanswerably in my head until I exhausted myself and settled into a state of dreamless unconsciousness.
Thank God it was dreamless.
A/N: I'll try not to disappear too much but I make no guarantees, sorry guys.