A/N: This is a very very short story that I've been working on for the better part of a year. The chapters are written already but the updates will be sporadic because I still have to edit and get someone to Beta for me. But enjoy the first!
Disclaimer
I don't own Twilight. Never did own Twilight. Never will own Twilight. Hop off my back if you think I'm getting any monetary value from publishing this fanfic. Have a good day, babies!
The sound of rubber squeaking on linoleum is the first thing they hear when they come to. It seemed like a blink, and in truth it couldn't have been more than that. There was no mistaking it. One moment, they were talking- just regularly with their mother in the back garden, taking in the late summer breeze with a bottle of pop on either side of each of them, and in the next moment, thick restraints covered their upper arms.
Whining, they tugged at the restraints and gagged as something large and rubbery was forced into their mouth. Choking, they barely had any time to try and force it from their mouth before rough hands dragged their hands back down to where straps were tightened to restrict movement. Suddenly, a sharp and stinging pain reverberated through them, powerful enough that they could faintly hear a buzz echo throughout the room they were in. They screamed around the blocky thing taking up space in their mouth, biting down harshly and feeling the material nearly give beneath their teeth. And just as quickly, it was over and their eyes blinked open in fright, jumping from the lawn chair, the trees overhead allowing little beams of sunlight through the leaves.
Beside them, their mother looked over in alarm, concern and confusion decorating her features before they felt a sharp pain radiate through their jaw and extend towards their left side, before slumping forwards and falling face first- conscious of the alarmed shriek that came from their parent.
And as though they'd just been submerged into a frigid water body, the scene changed again and the strange and unfamiliar sight of white fabric covered their head. Gasping quietly, they became vaguely aware of the voice of a man they'd never met before talking, over what they expected to be a phone call.
"Yes, that's right," he answered once more. There was a pause, before he continued, "She was smaller than five feet, so I'd suppose one for a large child would suffice,"
Gulping, they raised their hands upwards under the sheet, its itchy texture feeling foreign to their fingers. Unable to find the end, they slowly sat upright, red eyes shot with nerves as they finally came to the startling conclusion that everything was not okay and that they really had no idea where the hell they were.
The sheet finally slipped away and their heart was further gripped with unsurety as their breathing began to pick up. The room they were in was nowhere near the sight of anywhere they'd ever been. It looked, for lack of a better phrase, near decrepit. Old wooden walls lined every corner she looked at, from top to bottom. Most of them were covered in a stripping, white paint and they had yet to see any windows. To their left, was a doorway where a bulbous man stood with one arm braced against a wall, the other held an overly large bell shaped earpiece that resembled one of the older style phones that had an accompanying piece on a wall- but if they were right- they had yet to see the adjoining part. The thin wire attached to the earpiece connected to the wall along with other odd wires that seeped in and out of the box that housed the rotary dialer.
"Yes," The man says again, before he shoots a look over to her. His eyes flickered back to the dialer for a moment just before his eyes widened and with a sharp gasp, looked at her again as though he could not fathom what he saw. It was almost as though he'd seen a ghost. The hand holding the mouthpiece fell, and upon stumbling back, the man clutched at his heart and sank to the ground next to the phone. His skin paled drastically and his mouth opened wide from the shock of it all. His eyebrows raised and arched and despite his thinning and graying hair he looked as though he had aged several years in a single moment before he collapsed, eyes frozen in horror, still looking at her but now- limp.
Behind them, the sound of shattering glass rang through the narrow hallway and an almighty scream shook the old walls.
What might have been weeks passed by in a blur- but in reality, was just a few days. Time seemed to slow to a crawl in their cell, no windows along the bare walls to see and no sunlight to accompany it. The monotony of it all would drive anyone insane. But somehow, the repetitiveness of it all helped to keep their wits about them. The injustice of it all left a bitter taste of a desire for revenge in their mouth. What god had they pissed off to get here? What sick joke was this? And why did everyone around them continue to look at them like they were crazy?
They have them strapped down to a gurney, they realize in some half-drugged haziness in between shots of what they assume is some kind of sleeping drug or calming medication. Not that they can blame them, of course- heck- they'd have probably have done the same had a random person just risen up from their deathbed. But it had been so long ago now, the warped sense of reality they'd had, what little glimpse of the afternoon sunlight seeped into their dreams and made tears leak from their eyes out of pure, unadulterated want. When would they wake from this hell?
They'd never experienced such a deep harkening or want before… But only now, amidst the consistent drowsiness and tremors they'd had at the same time every day, they were cursed with all different manners of hallucinations just scraping away what little remnants of sanity they had remaining, knee deep in a dark, small, mildew ridden four walled room they now had to call 'home'.
Images flashed through, unbidden. The first, in their hazy memory, was of two strangers copulating heavily on top of an office desk. Clothes had been strewn all over the room, hanging off of old, wooden, green vinyl cushioned chairs. On the desk, the woman had moaned loudly, the man thrusting sharply and shortly to the point they had to wonder if the woman was faking her pleasure. But still, the woman who was clothed in an old, white, lacy negligee pushed up to her waist had pearls dripping from her neck on a line of silver. They rattled against the wood of the desk, just near her neck in time with the man's thrusts. Above her, he grunted roughly, a large hand gripped the supple flesh of a creamy breast whose rosy bud was nearly exposed to the air. His belt jingled and the swell of his ass clenched everytime his cock left her soaking hole. His hair dipped into his face, the short, inky blackness unruly among the sweat that clung to his partially exposed chest, the half-unbuttoned shirt doing little to hide the dark smattering of hair just below his navel and the skin that pistoned in and out of the woman's sex.
It had been a strangely nauseating sight, one which led to the subsequent vomiting that they could hardly hold back when the whites of their eyes finally dipped back behind closed lids. They had not been expecting that. It had been a brief flash, darkness creeping into the very corners of their vision like a part of a torn page. However brief, it was startlingly vivid.
It had barely been twenty four hours when the next tremor occurred and with it another hallucination as well. Thankfully, there was no couple this time… but one which struck a pang of pain deep in their heart and branded onto their soul. A small girl, hair dark and dipping just past her shoulders, a white bow forming a makeshift headband on her head sat on a swing in a barren, sorry excuse of a park. Her green eyes were half-closed, tears falling like rivers down her cheeks and onto the pink, pretty, lace dress that went an inch below her knees. The swing was creaking, the old wood beneath her straining even with her small weight resting upon it. The dirty rope on either end supported it and kept the swing anchored to a tall, sycamore tree, whose branches ached to sweep low and provided the girl with ample shade as the wind assisted the feeble, repetitive movement of going back and forth.
It was barely on the edges of their mindscape when fast, another flash whipped across their sight and was replaced with a hispanic woman with blood red eyes looking sinister and revengeful, a snarl pulling at her lips to expose bloodstained teeth that glimmered and shone in the moonlight bathing the desert behind her in a cascade of dark blue. It had been so fast and they barely had time to take a breath before another glimpse, just as brief but vivid as the others ran across their mind..
A man with dark hair, and the most beautiful features whose face looked as though Adonis himself had carved it from the finest marble. He was pale, too pale and the man almost looked like a statue in the dim light. He was dressed in a white lab coat, made of heavy cotton. His lab coat, they suspected, was full-length, reaching his ankles, with long sleeves that buttoned at the wrists. Underneath, he wore a white shirt with a bowtie, and black pants. Accompanying this, he wore a vest buttoned at his torso. His face was contemplative, eyebrows creasing as he looked down at something or someone and thin, almost purple lips drew into a frown as his jaw clenched.
Gasping awake, they came to, deep breaths assisting in reclaiming what oxygen they could get what with being strapped down like a feral animal.
His eyes, dark and foreboding, looked down at them and for a moment, they thought that they'd been sucked back into the hallucination but when he took a step forward and his nostrils flared, they realized- he was here. This wasn't a hallucination. They stare at the ceiling, their eyes unfocused and expression blank, but they know the man knows that his presence is going ignored on purpose. It must have been a show of stubbornness, their true nature shining through.
The doctor walked further in, carrying a newspaper where, in big black block letters, "Man Calls the Coroner for Himself" sticks out from under his arm. He looks at them, his expression unreadable as his free hand comes to a rest on the side of their headboard.
"Do you know why you're here?" he asked.
However, they don't respond. The doctor sighed and walked to the end of the bed, skimming through the newspaper.
"It says here that a 'man called the coroner for himself'," the doctor says, not expecting an answer. "It must have been quite a shock seeing you after you were declared dead not thirty minutes before.."
But they still don't respond. The doctor sat the newspaper down and pulled out a chart. He scanned it for a moment before looking up at them once more.
"What's your name?" He inquired a few moments after, but they don't see a point in answering anymore. He has their file, he can see for himself. But, a little voice in the back of their head remarks, you can't remember now, can you? Shifting slightly, their mouth curls downward more, a sour taste emanating from the back of their mouth as their jaw clenched. How long has it been? Certainly not long enough for them to forget. It was almost within reach, like it was on the tip of their tongue, but still out of reach no matter how hard they tried to remember.
"It says here your name is Mary Alice Brandon," he said then, his voice cold and matter-of-fact, having clearly had enough of their little game.
That however, made their eyes flicker up to him, expression still blank. The doctor sighed again and sat the chart aside. Silence fell over the room. If he'd been expecting more of a reaction, he wasn't about to get one right away. But the name had struck a chord in them. And in the deep blankness of their mind, a memory rose and tugged at their subconscious, begging to be acknowledged. If computers had been around then, they'd bet good money that their brain would have sounded like a fax machine in that moment, processing the new information with a mechanical type of precision.
Then after a few moments, their lips curled up into a smile, then a husky, broken chuckle exited their mouth from days of misuse. It was a weak sound, pathetic in nature but then the chuckle grew into a hoarse laugh, then an almighty cackle that seemed to echo in the dark, damp of their cell. And in the deep crevasse of their mindscape, a story unfolded and in disbelief, they barely realized that their mask of steel had fallen so far and a vulnerability as immense as this was showing on their face. And so they laughed. They laughed so hard that tears started streaming down their face. It went on for a long time but the doctor just watched then pulled out a large needle with a syringe filled with a clear fluid. He held it up for them to see, but they just laughed harder, their body shaking with the force of the hysteria they felt. Their body strained against the restraints and it wasn't long before they felt a pin prick in the corner of their elbow and their laughter slowly began to fade into breathy snickers. And on the edges of the calamity, they watched as the doctor looked upon them with sad eyes and left the room, vision blurring into darkness as reality came crashing down upon them.