The Descent

Chapter 21: When Things Change

"-Can't do that!" I heard someone shouting. I opened my eyes, and this time, my spectacles was still on my face. For a moment, my vision was swimming. It was almost like being underwater. I felt dizzy, a little nauseas. I almost vomited, "No! I won't!" Things were coming into focus, and things were starting to look familiar. I knew the table, but there was supposed to be… something on it. "You said you'd listen to me!" It was Mandy, but I wasn't sure who she was talking to – I couldn't hear the other person talking.

I remembered. There was supposed to be an Apple desktop computer on the table. I wasn't at home anymore. Things were beginning to come back to me. I was drugged. Mindy's Hot Chocolate With Extra Marshmallows. As it turns out, there was a little extra something else as well. I looked up, and saw my worse fear confirmed and materialised before me. It was Mindy in her Hit-Girl costume. How did she find out? Mindy turned to regard me, but it wasn't just her regarding me. The Hit-Girl costume was finally filled again – something I had been secretly wishing, just that it happened in an unexpected way.

I was seated on a chair. My limbs felt numb. I tried to move them, but I couldn't, so I looked at them. Ropes. I was tied to the fucking chair! "Dave. You're finally awake." She said. She was a lot more serious than how she was in the morning. Not good. Not good at all, not with Mindy. She got up to me, next to me, grabbed a chair to put a foot on it, leaning her body forward on a raised knee, her masked face closer to mine.

"Mandy, what are you doing!?" I hollered. Couldn't help it. A lot of things were going through my head: What the hell was she doing, thinking and what does she want? What the hell will she do to me? "Mandy, sis… Let me go." I tried struggling against my restraints again, but they were too tightly bound that I couldn't even move. And they weren't just twine either – she had used a combination of materials, near-impossible to break even with improvised tool.

"We both know that I'm not your sister." She said, her voice void of any emotions, her eyes almost glazed as they searched me. She was beginning to terrify me. I looked around – and could only conclude that I was safehouse F, but how did she find this place out? Did she remember it?

"Mandy, please, you know that isn't true." I kept up with the lie. I knew I couldn't yield to her no matter what – already, I was beginning to doubt her sanity for kidnapping me. Not to mention, I was beginning to put the pieces together. She looked like she was talking to herself, and that wasn't normal behaviour, "Mandy, I know I haven't been spending a lot of time with-"

"Shut up!" She shrieked at me. I zipped up, half from the shock of her sudden outburst and half because of her, "SHUT UP!" She looked over her own shoulder, and I had a feeling that the second shut up wasn't for me, "Let me talk to Dave alone!" Mindy clutched her head. I could imagine a cross-vein on her head, funny in normal circumstances, pants-shitting in this case.

"Stop calling me Mandy!" Mindy screamed. If I won't die by her hands, it felt like I would die from a heart attack or hyperventilation, "You've been lying to me, Dave! You LIED to me! About everything!"

"Ma-" I wanted to call her Mandy again, but thought better of it – it was easier to occur to that when I saw her eyes shift back to mine angrily. I decided to switch to something else without revealing too much, "Sis, please, why would I do that!"

"There! There you go again!" Mindy shouted, this time her voice cracking up. I could see her 8-figure mask getting wet, "Do you know how much that hurts!? How much it hurts when I found out!? About everything!? You said you love me!"

"Mandy, I do, I-" The name slipped again, and…

"STOP CALLING ME THAT!" Mindy screamed, and I swore to myself that I wouldn't make that mistake again. I found out after that that I was shaking, shaking hard, but my tough restraints kept me on the chair, kept me from moving even an inch off the seat at all. She took me by the collar, her hands stronger than I remembered, "Now let's start with the basics. What's my name?" It became all of a sudden very tempting to just submit to her whims, but I remembered what I had to do. Not to mention, Mindy was already starting to look a little unhinged…

"Mandy Lizewski!" I spat at her defiantly, breaking the oath I swore to myself never to say that name again. She slammed my back to the chair after hearing it. She'd developed an allergy to it. She clutched her head with both her hands, whispering things to herself which I couldn't hear. And just when I least expected it, she spun around and gave me the hardest slap of my life. My heart felt missing. Probably jumped from New York to Beijing, China, "Your name is Mandy Lizewski!"

She didn't hear me the second time. Instead, she was stomping away, her footsteps louder with her boots on. She stomped away into the storeroom, where all the weapons and gear were. Not good, not good at all! I could hear things getting thrown about, getting kicked, and slammed. Mindy was killing me, killing me from the inside out. She came out with a toolbox, and immediately I knew what it meant, what she was going to do to me.

My adopted sister slammed it down on the table before me. I jumped – by now, I was jumping at everything. She opened it roughly, and poured all the contents out of the table right in front of me for a full view, front row centre of the theatre. I saw pliers, and imagined her plucking out my fingernails one by one, breaking my fingers section by section, and each finger had three bones and three joints each. I saw a hacksaw, and imagined her cutting into me excruciatingly slow, the blade cutting through skin and flesh, taking its time due to its dull nature, going in and coming out of contact of the wound at times. I was whimpering, crying and screaming like a baby or madman myself by this time. "MANDY! WHAT THE FUCK MAN!" There was even a fucking cleaver in there! I would be lucky if she would just be hacking off my toes. "MANDY! NO! PLEASE!"

There were many other things inside her little toy box. Nail files, garden shears, knives, hammers, screwdrivers, all sorts of table cutleries, a small looking gun, and the weirdest being a box of cigarettes, a flask of whiskey and a packet containing some white powder – cocaine? "MANDY!"

But she paid no attention to me. Instead, she was busy arranging the tools on the table, and even added her combat knife to the collection. When she was done, she looked at me again, smiling, "What did you say my name was?"

"Look, look, look, please! Alright!" I said, trying to find a way out, trying to catch her attention. I felt like a rat in a maze, an extremely diabolical one filled with sadistic traps complete with baits, with invisible teleporters thrown in to lead me right back to the centre. Sure enough, she looked at me with anticipation, "Look, sis, I- I've been protecting you! You can't know it! You can't know your real name! Please!" I prayed for a change in her eyes, and my prayer was answered. She started looking around, as if finding her lines from everywhere. I prayed next for her to release me, for this to be over.

Instead, she grabbed the gun from the table, from her selection of torture instruments. From the opposite end of the table I was behind, she went around it, impulsive and rash, at one point knocking the table a bit, shaking the instruments on it. Before I knew it, she was jamming it into one of my eyes, which was thankfully closed. I felt like hyperventilating. With her other hand, she was pulling my hair, but she withdrew after a while and pointed it at my thigh instead, making pretty sure that I could see the gun clearly, which was shaking violently. Mindy was still subconsciously rejecting violence, not that it was stopping her. "At least you weren't lying. That's a good start. But I'm not interested – I want! My real name!" A rock and a hard place. I imagined what would happen if I started going along with everything Mindy said, and I imagined her firing the gun into my leg, the bullet ripping through skin, flesh, and potentially hitting an artery there. I wept at the dilemma, not that the flow of tears ever stopped.

"Do what you have to, Mandy." I finally decided, and tilted my head down, closing my eyes hard, waiting for the bullet to come, "I'm not lying when I said I love you." I listened at the sudden silence, at the gun shaking in Mindy's unsteady hands. I could hear her trigger finger sliding away from the guard and into the concave side of the trigger. She fired.

But it was empty. A loud CLICK! was issued instead of a blast. My heart leapt from Beijing, China, back to New York again. The bang that happened was Mindy throwing the pistol at a wall. "Fine." She said nonchalantly. Grabbing the chair, she repositioned it on the opposite side of the table I'm sitting at. She sat down and put her legs up on the table, her skirt flipping the other way, covering her Hit-Girl utility belt. I didn't have long to wonder what she was up to as she snatched the pack of cigarettes from the table.

"Mandy, no." I stared at the pack of cigarettes in horror with what she was about to do in mind, and it wasn't a nice thought. She rolled her eyes at me, feigning ignorance, and pulled out a cigarette, rested the pack on her belly and lighted it with a lighter from her utility belt, "Mandy!"

"I think you're mistaking me for someone else." She continued feigning ignorance. I felt defeated when she put it to her mouth and sucked. She seemed to know what she was doing, but betrayed that with a cough. Regardless, she continued and ignored my objections, eventually getting a hang of it. "Hmm. This is actually pretty good." She taunted me, threw in a smile just to get me going even more, "Better than your pancakes."

"Mandy, please, I'm trying to protect you." I pleaded, but it felt futile. She was already halfway through her cigarette, learning surprisingly fast how to smoke like a regular.

"So protect me, Dave." She just said after puffing out another cloud of smoke, waving her cigarette, the smoke dancing with it, shrugging her shoulders at me. Damn it don't you do that! I imagined minutes of her lifespan slipping away, her lungs and mind slowly getting corrupted. I stubbornly held on. It was either that or the asylum, another year of crazy experimental treatments. The half-stick of cigarette burnt out eventually to the bud. I couldn't believe that it was Mindy smoking through a whole cigarette.

"We had fun together. You were happy, Mandy." I tried my luck again. At least she wasn't shouting at me for calling her Mandy again. I thought I caught her attention – the way she stared at me. But it lasted only for a moment, then she was back to drawing another cigarette, "Damn it, Mandy!" She knew exactly what button to press, which buttons to get me going. She was no longer purely Mandy anymore. I could only wonder at how long she'd known about her past all along. She lighted her second cigarette and took another quick puff. She was starting to look high as she chuckled a bit as the smoke cleared away, the way she smiled vacantly at me.

"Well, I'm having fun now, aren't I? This is addictive, Dave! I think I'm going to do this every day!" She prodded at me again. I struggled at my restraints to no avail. I watched her burn through that cigarette, up to the halfway mark again. She knew what buttons to press, and she'd pressed my crying button hard. Then there was the bottle of whiskey she procured from somewhere. Getting off her chair, she hoisted herself up on the table, sitting close to me on the same side. She rested her right foot on my thigh, and let her left dangle. Would have been fine had we been hanging out. But this time she was pressing the bottle of whiskey close to my face, "I bet this is fun too."

"Mandy… Please… Just…" She had broken me, but I couldn't, I just couldn't. She opened the cap, and after another puff of smoke, she took a swig from it, downed quite a gulp. A look of disgust on her face, but like the cigarette she smoked, I had no hope that she would stop.

"Wrong answer, Dave." She said as she took another gulp after another suck of her cigarette. She looked like she was starting to get carried away. The bottle started three quarters full. After another gulp, there was half left. I could smell smoke and alcohol off of her. Somewhere around there, she started crying, or weeping. The alcohol looked like it was starting to have an effect on her, loosening her up. On one hand, I was hoping that it would make her realise her mistakes, but on the other hand, she was 11 and she was drinking, "Why, Dave? Why did you do this to me?" She took another swig again, and jabbed at my brother's instinct.

Mindy looked like she was spinning. She jumped off the table, nearly lost her balance, but kept it just fine. She threw herself at me and hugged me. She looked almost drunk – there was still some clarity in her eyes. She smelt like a middle-aged good-for-nothing, something I had been trying to stir her 180 degrees away from, whether I knew it actively or not. "I love you, Dave. Why won't you love me back?"

"Won't you believe me anymore, Mandy?" This time, I was considering every single word. I tried my luck again, this time putting my eggs all in one basket. All the other baskets were incinerated by Mindy anyway, "I've always got your back, don't I? Remember that time when those boys were extorting from you? Remember that time when we were in the diner together? We fell asleep there?"

For once, she stared at me with those cute, needy eyes, the kind you'd expect from a kid. For once, I thought I'd gotten her back. Another bang cleared me from those illusions. Mindy threw her bottle of whiskey at the wall, following her gun. At least she won't be drinking anymore, assuming there weren't any more bottles of whiskey hiding in storage. "SO WHY STOP THERE!?" She roared at me out of the blue – something I'd expect from a drunk, but still not from Mindy, even a half-drunken Mindy. But she calmed down quickly, but too slow to stop me from shaking and nearly peeing my pants.

Then she chuckled playfully, and hopped onto my lap. She was heavier than I thought. She'd been putting on some muscle mass. She caressed my cheek with the back of her hand. She was going places I did not think she would go. I struggled hard against my restraints. I could feel one strand breaking on my left side, but it was one out of hundreds of strands of rope. "You said you love me, right?" The lustful smile on her face was unforgettable, soul-rending. The ultimate proof of my failure. Her hands were set on my skull. I felt her lips on my neck, her alcoholic breath. Goosebumps rising.

"Mandy… You wouldn't…" I thought I would faint as her lips played with my neck, burning me, branding me with an invisible mark that would never go away. The only hope I had was that it was all just a nightmare, and I would soon wake up by fainting.

"You sure?" She withdrew her lips from my neck, and pressed her face close to mine, our lips barely touching. I leaned back as far as I could. She squeezed my chin, almost as if she wanted to force a French kiss on me. She played with my hair. I shivered, "I wonder. What would your new girlfriend think when she hears about you kissing your own little sister?" I refused to move, tried to force my mouth completely closed. I refused to even speak.

Thankfully, she didn't take her precocious sexuality any further than that. She hopped off my lap, looking a little unstable, and disgusted at herself – I bet even she wouldn't go there even in her raving mad, half-drunken state. Quietly, she floated over to her chair again and sat down, her head in her hands, stressed and scarred in her own way. Admittedly, she'd managed to tease her real name right up to the tip of my tongue. It took all my will to stop it from coming out. Had she actually done something to me that way…

"Fine. Have it your way, brother dear." She pushed back her chair before sitting up, lady-like, calm. She grabbed her combat knife, underhanded. It was like watching a tidal wave coming at me, unable to do anything, "Since this is how you want to play. Tell me my name or I'll take myself apart! Piece by piece!" Words that wouldn't have come out of her mouth just a week ago. She'd changed too fast, too fast for me to handle. I wasn't hurt physically in any way, but it felt even worse than getting tied up and beaten up by D'Amico's henchmen. I was still holding it at the tip of my tongue, stubbornly.

"Mandy!" And she did it, she actually did it. She brought her own knife down on her left forearm. It went quite deep. Mindy gasped, and laughed bitterly. I stared wide-eyed at her. I still couldn't believe she stabbed herself. It topped everything else in every category.

"That's how much it hurts, Dave." She whispered in a pained voice to me, her face contorted in pain, "Each lie, a knife." She pulled it out with gritted teeth. Blood spilled through her purple tights. Her knife-hand was shaking wildly, both subconsciously and from pain. She dropped the bloody combat knife, almost involuntarily, almost as if she was shocked by her own actions, "Still not talking, Dave?" She grabbed the cleaver. She was getting carried away, an insane smile on her face. My heart skipped a beat. "Guess how many fingers do I have?" She held out her fingers at me. I didn't answer. My mouth felt like exploding. I could feel my lips taking a life of their own, trembling. She pulled her left glove off, revealing her soft, young fingers. Pink nail-polish and a Hello Kitty ring, bought by Dad recently. "Here's a hint." She snarled harshly, her face displaying a kind of severity I could never imagine on a kid, "I'm about to have less than 10!" Putting her naked left hand down on the table like a slab of meat, she lifted the cleaver up, and was about to bring it down when I finally spilled.

"It's Mindy!" I finally spilled. She stopped, thank God, "Mindy Macready! Just please, no more! Please, just stop, don't do it, please!" She'd pressed all the buttons in me again. I was pathetic, crying and whimpering, bawling like a baby. My pants became wet at some point. I was trembling like a new-born calf.

From here on, Mindy played me like a computer. I was little more than a Hit-Girl wikipedia, dispensing information to her. Whatever she wanted to hear, I gave it to her, especially when I saw her cleaver twitch whenever I paused to take a breath. Father's name? Damon Macready. Have we met before? Yes, yes, Mindy, just please don't. Have you met my daddy? Yes, now please, just put down the knife… It was only when I'd fed her with enough information that she gave the cleaver a rest, and set it down.

Mindy continued grilling me for hours, and I was cooking in my own urine. By the time she was done, she probably knew more about what I knew of her than myself. The only thing I managed to hide was my involvement with her father's death, the only thing I knew for sure that would drive her over the edge, over to becoming Demoness. I was fortunate that she didn't venture into the Demoness territory in her interrogation. She was more concerned with her memories before that crazy shit happened.

It was almost noon when she cut me free. My limbs hurt worse when the ropes were off. I could barely even stand up. Mindy pushed me back on the chair when I tried to. "No, Dave. You should rest." She was back to being my caring little sister again. Somehow, it didn't even seem to bother her that she held me captive and tortured me for hours. "You big baby! You wet your own pants! I'll try to find some clothes for you. You should shower soon, you're stinking up the whole place, Dave."

I didn't talk to her, or so much as look at her. I didn't feel like doing it. I didn't want to. I didn't dare. Everything was gone, everything had changed. I did as I was told. All I wanted to do was to get home and curl up in my own bed.

After I could feel my legs again, I went to the bathroom and showered there. In the meantime, Mindy had changed back into her shirt and jeans, and was cleaning up the place. She found me a new pair of pants. It belonged to her father. It was a little big, so I had to fold it up.

She took me back home by ordering a cab. I couldn't remember everything especially well. I was in a daze. I still couldn't believe what had transpired in the last few hours, how I was treated, how I was humiliated, how she threatened me in the worst way possible – by using herself. I would have actually preferred her using the conventional way of torture. I still couldn't believe everything. She had to lead me into the house by hand, because I simply couldn't care about anything anymore. She had to lead me back to my room, sit me down on my bed. I remember her speaking to dad, probably finding an excuse for why we disappeared, but I couldn't care anymore.

When I was sitting on my bed, she turned to leave, but wouldn't open the door. She turned around again, her face back to being the Mindy I knew, the one named Mandy, "Dave…" She came back to my side, "Dave, I'm sorry. I needed to know, to know about everything." She said, but I didn't really listen. I heard her, but I didn't really listen. I was still trying to process what had happened previously. She sat down beside me, held my hand. It brought me around a bit. All I saw was the bandage on her left arm, where she stabbed herself pretty seriously. SELF-HARM, "Dave, I'm sorry… Won't you forgive me?"

I tore myself away from her, walked to the other side of the room, looked out of the window. I needed to get away, to get away from it all, focus on something else. Mindy followed me doggedly, "Dave, I need you. Didn't you say that... there will always be good times and bad times?"

I turned around and delivered a hard slap on her face. I must have snapped. Somehow, it felt good, it felt great. The look on her face was one more of stunned than anything. Then I slapped her again, and again. The third one knocked her off her feet. "GET OUT!" She scrambled away, opened my door and slammed it shut. I could hear her footsteps receding away, but I didn't care. I needed something else to focus on, something to take me away from what transpired before…

Meanwhile…

I ran into my room and slammed the door shut, as hard as I could. Dave was hurting me! Really hurting me! I can't believe it! When I looked at the mirror, I saw blood on my lips. I must have bitten myself when he slapped me the second or third time. He wasn't holding back at all. I dabbed my lips with a tissue paper.

I had homework to do. I needed to distract myself from everything I'd learnt, from what transpired before. I sat down on my desk. But I couldn't get what Dave did to me out of my mind. He wouldn't understand – he wouldn't forgive me. He wouldn't even talk to me anymore. It was all frustrating – I was frustrated at everything. Angry. Dave wouldn't even talk to me anymore, wouldn't even look at me. Things started flying, because I swept everything off my desk. Pencils, pen, rubber, all scattering all over the place. My books, my homework flapping their wings like birds. I threw things about because it felt good. Dave wouldn't talk to me – this was the only way I could feel good. I slammed my fists down on the table.