Wolf Within: No-name
Little story I wrote in one sitting, Comments and criticism greatly appreciated.
I opened my eyes, staring vacantly at the off-white ceiling, laying on my off-white bed, in my off-white clothes. I sat up, placing my feet on the off-white tiles, and walked over to the off-white sink, where I splashed water on my too-white face. I would tell you my name, But names don't mean anything here. I was in an asylum, and the screams echoed through the halls night and day. Was I mad? maybe. Dangerous? Yes...
It started my sophomore year of high school, I was a normal kid, maybe a touch depressed, but come on what teen isn't? On the whole though, I had nothing to complain about, I had friends, decent grades, a future lined up for me, anything a kid can ask for. And as I stood in front of my off-white sink in my off-white room, looking at the metal mirror in front of me (glass is a no-no in an asylum) I remembered the day it all changed, how I stood in school, gun in hand, blood dripping from my fingers and splattered on my face. Now I know what you're thinking, I deserve to be in a crazy-house, right? Wrong, listen to my story and you will learn the truth.
The day started out just like any other, I woke up at five thirty in the morning, went to work out at the local fitness center, ate breakfast in the local coffee-shop, and headed to school, with the only exception of ordering a 20oz coffee instead of my usual 16oz, a fateful decision it turns out. First period went by normally, shortly into second period however, my day began to deviate from the norm, and the 20oz coffee was working its magic. Bladder fit to explode, I begged the teacher to let my out of the classroom to relieve myself. She relinquished grudgingly, and I near-sprinted to the bathroom. I stood in front of the urinal, smiling blissfully as my bladder stopped screaming at me. I zipped up and turned around, walked to the blue sink, washed my hands and turned to leave, I was just about to leave the bathroom, when another kid walked in, starting violently when he saw me. He was rather scrawny, glasses and baggy clothes, a nerd if I ever knew one, But we are all humans and I don't judge.
"Hey Eric." I smiled,
he twitched a slight nod, and rushed to the stall. 'when you gotta go, you gotta go' I quoted, laughing inside. I continued on, but stopped when I heard a metallic click. Curiosity piqued I turned back.
"You ok Eric.... Eric?"
I heard a soft sound behind the door, and to my astonishment realized that eric was sobbing.
"Eric?"
I jumped as at the door slammed open, and my eyes grew wide when I realized that Eric was holding a handgun to my face.
"Im sorry" he said, tears streaking his cheeks "I liked you, but if I let you go, you will warn everyone else, and they will get away"
"Wh-what?! Eric, you don't want to do this"
"Yes... Yes I do" he grinned, even as tears ran down his face.
And without further warning his finger began to tighten on the trigger.
After that, Its hard to remember what happened, I wasn't thinking, leastwise not like a human, but I'll try my best.
His finger tightened on the trigger, and something inside me changed, like flicking on a light switch, or shifting gears in a car. Something Felt Different. Time slowed, and his finger began to pull the trigger backwards, the hammer on top of the gun moving in tandem. I saw all this happen, and I broke, snapped, exploded. I twitched my head to the side, bringing my left hand up to grab the barrel of the gun, I missed and instead grabbed the muzzle. I watched in horror as the gun fired, blowing a hole through the center of my hand. Gore flew against my face, and pieces of bone embedded themselves in my skin. Eric stared at me, horror on his face. I didn't scream, I didn't yell for help. Instead I somehow kept hold of the gun with my left hand, brought my right up to shoulder height, and then sunk it into Eric's cheek as hard as I could. He went down, pulling the gun, and me with him. He recovered quickly striking my head with his free hand, I postured up, knees straddling him, with my ruined left hand still holding the gun fighting for possession. I heard a shot, and another. And then I pulled my right hand back and began raining blows upon Eric's head and face. His grip slackened on the gun, and I pulled it from his grasp. On the fifth punch, I heard one of my fingers snap. I opened my fist. And began slamming powerful blows with my palm into Eric's head. I don't know how long I beat Eric. All I know is that my hand was cut to pieces from the sharp edges of his broken skull. And still, I pounded on his lifeless corpse, I realized that I was hearing something strange, In my left ear I could hear only ringing, but in my right. I was listening to the wild ululations of a mad beast. I realized it was me making those terrible noises, But still I beat Eric. Finally, I was exhausted, I stood up, turning away from the scene of gore before me. It couldn't have been more then a few minutes since I first saw Eric. But it felt like a lifetime. I looked at my left hand astounded to see that the mangled claw still grasped onto the black muzzle of the gun. I looked at my right, and saw a very similar sight, with skin lacerated, and fragments of bone sticking out at random intervals. I began to laugh, starting slow and quickly rolling into loud guffaws of amusement, call it survivors high, or whatever you want, but I was laughing because I knew I wouldn't have to go to another stupid piano lesson in my life. I stopped laughing when the guffaws began to gurgle. And I looked down to see that a bullet had found its mark, straight into one of my lungs it seemed. I began laughing again. 'Guess I wont be running for cross country this year either' I began laughing, regardless of the blood spilling from my mouth. And it was like that, that the teachers found me, Hands dripping blood and clutching a gun, standing over the lifeless corpse of a nerd, laughing insanely to the off-white ceiling. It didn't occur to me that I looked like the aggressor, the school shooter, the sick fuck who killed for fun. I began to feel light headed, wondering why the people were all looking at me like that. Like I was a rabid wolf. My vision blurred and I blinked, rubbing my mangled right hand across my face, only smearing more gore than was there before. I blinked again, and sat down.
When I opened my eyes, I was staring at an off-white ceiling, laying on an off-white gurney, In an off-white hospital gown. Neutral as can be, to prevent me from getting upset I guess. No one talked to me, No one said a thing. When they moved me from the hospital, they forcefully sedated me until I was in my permanent holding. I didn't know the name of the place I was being kept, And they never let me out of my room. I didn't see anyone. I was alone.
Chapter II
The first few months were the worst. My healing injuries pained me greatly, and my hands throbbed with every heartbeat. I began to truly go insane, funny how I was sane before they locked me up, but to go truly insane they had to put me in an asylum. I began to mutter to people who weren't there. I knew they weren't there, but at least they listened. I kept track of the time by carving lines into the paint of my wall, when they found out about that, my keepers-the same people who slipped food under my door- stormed into my room dressed in black and beat me savagely. They told me when they moved me to another room that I wasn't allowed to change anything about my cell. I wasn't going to argue with the men when they were beating me with nightsticks. But without something to count the time, I began to lose it. eventually I carved patterns into my skin with my nails, not because I liked the pain, but because it was me. Those marks were me in a place where everything is nothing. I made a cut a day, and could count how long I was in the cell. They didn't bother me, as long as I didn't make a mess, they didn't care. My wounds healed, though my hands still throbbed. My body grew as thin as my sanity. I had covered my left arm with scars to match the round one in my palm from the gunshot. And I had started on my right, but it wasn't enough. I needed more.
One day, I was pacing my room, five steps to the door, five steps back to the bed, four to the toilet, and four back to the bed, five steps to the door....5, 4, 4, 5, 5, again and again. I paced faster and faster, moving as quickly as I could. I needed more. I dropped to the ground and began doing pushups, as fast as I could for as long as I could. When I could do no more, I turned onto my back and started doing sit-ups. my abs burned with my arms, throbbing in time with my ruined hands, which had healed into crooked claws. When I couldn't do any more sit ups, I rolled onto my side and did more push ups, back and forth until I couldn't do any more. I struggled to the toilet, pulling myself up only to vomit into the bowl. I was so exhausted I fell asleep right where I was, laying against the toilet.
I dreamed, for the first time in a long while, I dreamed and I remembered it. I was laying in a vat of acid, Green bubbling acid that stripped the skin from my body and ate my muscles away. I wanted to scream, but couldn't. I heard someone say something. A soft melodic voice, a voice that belonged to someone that didn't exist. She didn't have a name, but out of all my imaginary conversational partners, I talked to her the most, and what a beautiful voice she had. I strained, trying to make out her whispers. She was screaming. Yelling in pain! I forgot my own agony and struggled to find a way to end hers, But I was still in the vat of acid, and my struggles only expedited my dissolution. I woke with the image of my skull sinking into the green goo burned in my own very alive head. And the terrible cries of Her agony ringing in my ears. Ringing is all I ever heard in my left ear, It having been blown to shit due to the close proximity to the muzzle of the gun. I tried to sit up, and for a moment I thought I was still dreaming as acid burned my chest and stomach, I wanted to laugh, I was more sore now then I had ever been in my life. No wonder the dream seemed so real, I could actually feel my muscles burning. I struggled into a sitting position, flushing my own sick down the toilet, and crawled to my bed. This became a routine of mine. Work until exhaustion, and sleep. Work and then sleep. I still kept carving on my arms, Not because I needed to now. But because I still wanted something that was mine. My body is my temple, and I was going to decorate it. I smiled even as that sadistic thought passed through my mind. In between working out, "decorating" as I began to call it, and sleeping, my mind wandered, searching for the answers I wanted. I puzzled out geometry trigonometry a little calculus, philosophy, theology and ecology. Working from memory, and my own very limited experimentation. I wanted to work at astronomy, but try as I might, I could only remember a couple constellations. Unbeknownst to me, I had rediscovered in my mental battles pythagoreans theorem, the quadratic formula and many of the basic rules of evolution present in biology, nothing your average highschooler wouldn't know, but It kept my brain keen and sharp. I still talked to the people who weren't there, and even began debating the finer points of philosophy with one of them, an elderly grey haired man who I always imagined with a crow on his shoulder. And every night, exhausted from my workout I would slip into my bed and dream. I would dream of living, I would dream of flying, I would dream of loving... and sometimes, I would even dream of dreaming. I came to live in my dreams. Doubtless a dangerous thing to do, but without a life, one has only one option. I worked, thought, and argued myself to exhaustion everyday, until I could slip under my covers at night, and explore the universe. I even began to stretch my hands, worked through the scar tissue, even though the pain was greater then anything I could imagine.
Over the years, my mind grew vast, my body like iron, and my hands, nimble. I was beaten regularly, They told me to "stop working out, or else!" But there nightsticks bounced off my muscles, leaving nothing more than bruises. I would cower in the corner while they beat me. But the whole time I smiled, knowing that if I wanted to, I could unleash the beast. Unchain the monster that had killed before, and wanted to do it again. I grew taller as well, I could no longer see my eyes in the mirror when I stood up straight. I could have grown a beard if i wanted to, but I kept my chin smooth, They allowed this by giving me a safety razor on a string that they could pull through the door if they wanted to. Im sure I looked almost normal, shaving my beard in front of the mirror, whistling a little tune I had made up. That is, if one could ignore the cord attached to the razor, and the scars that covered my hands. Even my face had changed in my duration at the asylum, My jaw grew sharper, more defined by the poor food and hard work. My black hair was short--I used the razor to shave my hair when it grew to long--and even my eyes changed. I thought that I was born with blue eyes, but when I looked in the mirror they were always orange. A wild color that seemed to flicker even as I looked at myself. It was strange seeing myself. It was like looking at another person, this person was hard, this person was mean, this person was a killer. But I didn't feel like one. I smiled a little as I saw the white lines that reached out of my shirt, crawling up my neck. I stripped my shirt off, admiring the pattern of swirls and sharp edges that made my masterpiece, symmetrical lines crisscrossed my arms and legs, pulling up towards my head. And on the center of my chest, embedded in the skin over my rippling muscles, was the head of a snarling wolf. I could not recall ever having planned on creating the wolf, It just kind of appeared there. But I liked it. The animal within.
Im not sure how long this continued, there were enough lines on my body to constitute almost a decade of time, and I had stopped cutting myself long ago. And eventually I grew tired. I wanted more. I lived more and more in my dreams, and of late, they were centered around Her, the nameless beauty who I quite honestly, had fallen in love with. I laughed at myself then, I truly must be insane to love a figment of my own imagination. And yet I was undeniably in love with her. 'I have to get out of here' If I spent any more time in the asylum, I wasn't sure If anything would help keep my sanity from fraying further.
My plan was this, I was going to scratch the Mona Lisa into the wall-or at least my interpretation of it-and when they came in to beat and move me. I would fight them off, take their keys and make a run for it. I had only done about half of the face, when I stepped back and looked at it from a distance "not bad" I stated, at least you could tell it was a human, unless you looked at it with squinted eyes, then it kind of looked like an octopus, "whatever it will do just fine" I had just uttered these words when the door banged open, I turned around, bare-chested and greeted the men in black with open arms,
"Look gents, Its Lisa herself!"
They gawked, looking up at me. Never had they seen me in person while I stood tall and straight. Always had I pretended to cower while they beat me. I smiled, and the first man rushed me, nightstick held up. with a quick chop into his throat he went down gurgling. The next came at me and I pulled his head down into my rising knee. I heard his nose break, and he went down as well. The third, and last man stared at me apprehensively. He twirled is baton and rushed me just like the others. 'Dolts' I thought, it didn't work the first two times why would it work now? without any other adversaries I was comfortable in dispatching this man in a much more showy fashion, I picked him up by his thick leather jacket, cleaned him over my head, and dumped him straight into the off-white sink, shattering the thick porcelain. I wiped my gnarled hands on my shirt. Fighting the effects of the adrenaline in my body, I picked the keys off of Sink-heads belt, and strolled out of the open door. I was walking down the hall when I heard something that I should not have heard, at first I thought I had truly lost it, but no, there it was again. A soft sound, a feminine sound, It was her, Her! I turned trying to locate the sound with my one working ear, this is it! I said, walking towards a nearby door. There weren't many keys, which led me to assume that all the cell doors were opened by one master-key, and I only had to try four before the lock clicked open. There she was, curled into a ball in the corner, Sobbing gently. Rocking herself back and forth. I stared, she was decorated in scars, they covered her hands and arms thickly, one on her forehead cut through her eyebrow, interrupting the hair. She was beautiful. Absolutely stunning. She looked up at me with tear-filled eyes, and I gasped, She had orange eyes, orange eyes framed with black hair, Just Like Mine.
I stared at him, my lips quivering slightly, on the verge of breaking down. I recoiled as he approached me covering my stomach and face with my aching hands, protecting my vitals from the abuse I knew would come, The last thing I expected where strong, but gentle hands to encircle me, pulling me into a warm, ridged chest. I uncovered my face only to see the fierce eyes of a wolf staring at me, carved into his skin like some tribal tattoo, I felt a hand on my chin and I jerked away, fearing the worst. He held on to me, and tilted my head slowly upward. Until my eyes met his. I gasped, His eyes were Orange, bright orange, just like mine.
I felt something in my mind nag at me, I knew this terrifying man, it was Him, the man I talked to when I was delirious after being beaten and raped by the terrifying men in black. I smiled slightly when I realized this.
"Its you" he whispered,
"no" I said,
shaking my head.
"Its you"
We both began to laugh, quietly at first, and then louder. I laughed until tears rolled down my cheeks, and my belly ached from it. His deep rolling laughter bounced me up and down as he cradled me to his chest. He stood up, and I struggled to free his grip, I trusted him with my life, but I would walk on my own thank you very much. He set me down, and my legs collapsed under me, I closed my eyes as I saw the tiles rushing up to meet me, but I felt something catch me, and lift me into the air. I opened my eyes to once again see his own staring back at me.
"guess you're not quite ready for that yet"
I smiled, and nodded, embarrassed. I leaned my head against his shoulder, and he began to walk, just casually strolling out of the asylum. It was nighttime and there were no guards around, this got me worried and when I looked up at him, a questioning look in my face, he just shook his head.
"lets save the explanations for later"
I nodded, trusting him. I fell asleep, rocked by the steady motions of his gait. My Wolf, I thought. Smiling with the thought even as my conscience drifted into the realm of dreams. My Beautiful Wolf...
I held her limp body in my arms. Reveling in the soft feel of feminine flesh against mine. Never could I remember having felt something so soft. And the cute sounds of her small lungs at work, breathing warm breath onto my bare skin. I shivered, as I felt her breath caress my neck. I looked down at her face, and watched astonished as she drifted to sleep, even as I carried her like a sack of potatoes, Golden potatoes sure, But potatoes still. I started as she gave a soft whimper, Worried that I had hurt her, but her breathing continued on, slow as ever, and I smiled as I realized that she was dreaming. I saw something on her shoulder, a white line that curled its way up her neck, I pushed aside her sleeve with the hand supporting her back, and saw a wolf, She-the wolf, though I have no idea how I knew it to be female- Had her head thrown back, and was howling to a silver sickle shaped scar that looked exactly like a crescent moon. My wolf, I Sighed as I carried her warm body out of our own personal hell. My Stunning, Gorgeous Wolf.