Lecture

Her friend got strangled. Poor girl.

I had watched Mary Alice for several days now, watching her every move. How she ate, how she slept, even how the men beat her. Such an unfortunate soul should never be treated like that!

But I had no right to say that, for I had killed many in my life as a vampire. A dreaded, awful creature who hid from the sunlight by day, and hunted for blood by night. Who had a sister that ran away from him. Who was crazy. Who is me, Alex Bay walker.

And then Mary came. When she did, I suddenly felt hope. Like I could resist my urges to drink so much, like I was with an angel who came down from heaven to help me fight the beast inside of me, to let me, one day feel victory. I was sorry to have been the one to drag her to her doom the week before, and because? As she looked up at my angry eyes, my awful expression and my mad frown, I felt like I was staring down at a saint.

Now, it's dumbfounded me, and made me extremely fond of the child, maybe even in love, as I wanted to apologize to her when I had the chance.

So this was my agenda for today. All I had to do was persuade Mr. Hawker, the manager and CEO of the asylum, to make Alice's stay here a little more comfortable. I would tell him how hard it was for people to live in a world of pure torture, and how "Curing someone" in this place was actually killing them. Hawker had to understand this, for he was proud of the methods of treatment in this lunatic institution and a heartless man. He needed to know about his cruelty.

"Hello Mr. Walker."

I had almost ran into the office, eager to tell the boss about my ideas and thoughts about captivity and torture. But, when I came in, he sounded like this was a casual little chat! "For an idiot." I muttered under my breath. It was harsh, yes, even for me, but he knew better than to stare blankly at the air when his accountant charged in on him. Not even a moron would do that. "Now Alex," he asked me, "What brings you here?"

A moron, like I had said, a pure moron this man was.

Thinking about it made me angry, how he treated people made me angrier. Really, who did this person think he was? A King? That, made a whole cloud of mad, mixed words fly out of my mouth;

"Why the hell do you have to treat people this way?! You're torturing them! Is this a place where they get killed?" The sentences blasted out of me like a siren, like a big boom, "I thought an asylum was for curing the mental! Really? Cause you've turned it into a hellhole! Get what I mean? A massive, disgusting, HELLHOLE!!!!!!!!"

Now Mr. Hawker didn't understand this.

First, what I was saying to him was a gigantic jumble of nonsense.

Second, in his twisted mind, right and wrong had switched around. The "wrong" was letting the mental live in healthy surroundings, to let them go free of their dark, lonely cells and to treat them like normal humans. Human, I thought, as the word mixed with "blood" in my head, and created "Human Blood".

Oh no. I was going crazy again, and so, I shook the phrase out of myself before it would mess me up further.

Now, the "Right" in Hawker's mind was to torture them, make them forget themselves, let their minds become filled with suffering and pain, which was exactly how bad he was, and how unlawful.

Our conversation heated up again.

"Now Alex, why would you use such language? This is a hospital that has helped patients for 52 years! I am proud of the talented doctors here, and your hard work at creating files for me. At this institution, we do not "torture" people, but instead we offer them methods for their insanity." He paused for a moment. "Which is why I am going to show you what I mean" Then how? I thought.

Mr. Hawker seemed to read my mind.

"A little tour perhaps."

He led me down a little hallway, stopping at the side of a large window, in front of, ironically, a large room. All you had to do was look inside and discover the horror in front of you.

Now I probably wasn't the only one to see this.

A little boy, about 8 or 9, strapped to a chair, screaming. With 2 surgeons bending over him, they stabbed his eyes, over, and over again! I had to cover my nose, because his eyes were gushing a tremendous amount of blood and gore, so much that it actually started to make me sick. Fluid splattered on the tiled floor, moving slowly toward the door. I couldn't stand this! And my thoughts were directed to the manager. That awful man!

He noticed my horror."Now Alex, don't be horrified. This is the right way to treat a patient. The only way. We let our patients feel the pain so they can get used to it, and when they do, they can go free."

It didn't look like anyone would get used to that.

By evening, I had seen enough of the gore. Girls stabbed, hair pulled off by a scalpel, throats cut, skin sanded off….. ugh, it was too much to bear, and so much blood to resist! I would be lucky if I had just killed the little boy! But there was one more thing I had to look at.

Alice's dead friend.

Mr. Hawker had sent me with Robbins, the foul man who had killed her, with me. As much as I wanted to scream at Robbins, Hawker had said that it was only an "Accident", and he should not be blamed.

Not be blamed huh? He looked smug, what a liar.

As we entered the room, the first thing I saw was a wooden coffin on a metal table. Which made me feel awful for her. She must have been in horrid pain when Robbins killed her. Which made me think… That evil little-

"Hello???" Robbins was waving his hand in my face, disturbing my thoughts. When he was done, he started to pry open the small coffin, which made me wonder, who did this person look like? I visualized my runaway sister, Elizabeth. She had the most beautiful red mouth and grey eyes. But that was pure nonsense, Elizabeth wasn't mental, so she surely would not be in the coffin. But….. as Robbins opened the box,

It didn't seem like nonsense anymore.

I could feel my eyes go blank as I saw that it was Elizabeth in there, and I knew that my imagination had run too deep. Too far down. Elizabeth had her eyes closed, with a metal cord pressed into her neck one inch deep. Her skin was a pale grey like her eyes, and blood was drying on her shirt. The lips were still as red as I remembered them, which was my proof that she was dead.

But I had no time for grief. No time for mourning this.

Robbins had to pay. He had to die. This was no accident.

He seemed to sense what was going on. As I turned around, he squeezed himself into a little corner. Coward. Really? He wasn't so much of a coward when it came to killing someone's sister? So why was he being one now?

"Don't do this Alex. Please."

"You don't deserve to live."

"Why are you doing this? I didn't know that was your sister?!"

"Ahh, a mind reader. Well, even if you didn't know, you still had the nerve to kill someone right?"

I stalked toward him. Closer, Closer….

"I'm sorry,.. sorry!!!"

"So it is….. it's no time for that…..DIE!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Snarling, I lunged at him. Robbins screamed 2 octaves higher than me, enough to make the guards to come running. I couldn't care less about that, they could come all they wanted and be like little ants to my strength. Enough of that thought, I had to finish what I had started.

I crushed Robbins's chest, sending sweet blood flying at my face. Slamming him into a wall was my next step, enough to make the screaming stop entirely mid-air. I killed him when I slit his throat with a surgical knife on the next step.

3 steps, how easy. Killing was easy. Getting blood was easy.

Blood.

There was no hope for me now, all I could see now was the delicious, red fluid over the dead Robbins, and the more I was exposed to it, the more reason not to resist anymore. I didn't care about Alice anymore, the blood was so sweet.

And revenge was so sweet.