5 A Hopeless Gift

"No this can't be right...nothing to be rid of...nothing vulgar...no work to be done." Eddie's voice wakes Susan from a haze.

Nothing but shadows linger over her and a nearby window gleams light over her frail body. Strangely her hands grasp a silk fabric at her sides and she opens her eyes to a wooden ceiling. She raises her hands and in them containing a silk nightwear of elegance. It's white yet grey stained edges make her shiver. Her breath stops and she lays her arms back down after hearing footsteps edge their way near her. She closes her eyes softly to seem at peace. Regretting so, two muscular arms soon wrap under her at the bend of her knees and her upper back across her shoulder blades. The hard surface soon leaves her, nothing but the feel of the gown draping under her accompanies her along with Eddie's now grasping arms. His hands holding tightly onto her right upper arm and knee.

"You...you shall be my bride. You are perfect and deserved to be untainted by the evils of the world! You will be my bride...my one and only...and your eyes, they carry hope...they too are beautiful like..." he brushes her left cheek with his lips and lets a warm breath haze over it. The odd touch and the words etched into her mind. Panic rises in her making her scream for freedom.

"No let me go!" she yells and his left arm slips letting her lower body swing down and her feet touch the floor. Next thing she knows she is being deeply held by him. His strong arms wrapped around her waist. His nose and lips pressed deeply against the right of her neck.

"I don't want to lose you again." his voice whimpers the vibrations tingle her neck.

Her eyes wide from shock and astonishment makes her think. 'This...man...this victim...this criminal. His life was worsened. He thought we were helping him in reality we didn't...they didn't.' his arms tighten then loosen giving her room to breathe.

He backs away to gaze upon her, most of all at her eyes. Her auburn hair shining and dirty from sweat. Her eyes calm and grey under a light he decided to stop under. The grey of her eyes some what enchants him to be calm and collective. The rich pale blue eyes grasps her attention and the blood around them making them more visible to her gives her a sorrow she never thought existed in her. Being a psychiatrist taught her to be unemotional and at ease to not only be their for patients in need, but to also think of solutions and nothing more. Most of all to not get attached to patients. The files she read, the background she knew of Eddie Gluskin, all of it made her feel worried of what she could do to help him.

"Give him comfort." the voice returned, the Walrider's snake like voice returned to her thoughts. "The ten percent of your mind...use it and erase memories...use it. Give him a peace of mind in order for you to be free."

Susan was never a fighter always into studies and silence within a reading place. She always used words in a sticky situation, but she could not, this time, for a mad man would not listen. An untamed one, one that has been tormented by his childhood. Being raped while his mother stood by and watched. That had developed his hate for women leading him through his murderous background, but somehow being stuck here erased that hate. The hate for men develop by the actions of his father and his uncle only increased by the treatment Murkoff gave him. All the history Susan knew would engulf pain upon him if she asked questions to help, so indeed she needed to use the gift the Walrider bestowed upon her.

"Place your hands on him...the sides of his face will do. Erase what has brought him pain. You too will feel his suffering." the voice whispers in her conscious state.

She watches Eddie kneel before her as she stands a few feet away. Her lips part and words do not form nothing but a breath comes.

"Darling? Is everything...?" he pauses as she smoothly makes her way to him overcoming what fear was left because of him.

Their eyes never leaving each others, gracefully stares deeper into the others' as she drops to her knees.

"Yes...it will be soon Eddie." she stops and thinks, "Trust me...everything will be fine."

"The things they did to me...when I was small...when I didn't know...how...filthy, how wrong it was...only that it hurt...never...never to our children, you understand that don't you darling? I would never let anybody hurt our babies." he says randomly and low enough for her to barely hear.

The words he said gave her an unsureness of how he would be after she has done some good. Her hands are then softly placed along side his face both feeling victims' blood and tenderness of lesions. She closes her eyes then soon feeling Eddie go limp into her chest her hands never leave the sides of his face. Images flash behind her eyelids discovering picture memories of his past through his point of view. Suddenly pain and hatred is pressed on her emotions. She gasps but keeps her hands on him knowing somehow that leaving his skin will somehow lose connection with the memories. First an image of a hand over a man's body on the ground the body drenched in blood and to the right of vision is the hand holding a knife. Eddie's hand, in his own view looking down at the body. 'No more father...no more' his voice echoes in her thoughts and the view soon looks up to an middle aged woman covering her face with her arms as soon as the blade slashes down toward her the vision is then stopped. The image blackened and faded into nothingness. Susan erased it and tears soon flood across her face, for reasons she did not know of what caused so, and dives more into memories looking at good ones and smiling at a happy family getting along soon she comes across the one that started it all. The vision of his father forcing him down and slapping Eddie and eye view of it makes Susan urge it to dissipate quickly. In a jift it does and all is done, but she dives more looking for any memories of killing people. Strangely there are none and she thinks hard on her studies. 'Emotional blockage? Yes...that is the only solution...but what of the bodies in that gym room?' she thinks and looks more finding more disturbing visions of him being touched by a doctor from the facility she then erases it feeling sorrowful and weak from all the emotions felt as if she became him. Her arms loosen and drop at her sides images disappear and the blackness in her vision wisps away like wind. She gasps and feels more tears come. Her body starts recovering from the experienced trauma. She leans over and her head drops onto his right shoulder. A few minutes pass and she feels Eddie's movement and his arms fold around her. His breath gasping as if in shock. Her arms flinch up having her vision hazed by tears she places her hands on his shoulders to lean him away from her seeing if his health is waning.

"What...have you...?" his voice mutters and his arms fall down to his side.

Susan stands up and backs away keeping a safe distance. Her hands fidget and her mind wonders thinking of where her clothes are. She makes up her mind quickly and jogs away from him leaving him alone and by himself groveling on his knees. Her barefeet slapping against the smooth floors keep her in rhythm as she makes her way feeling lost and confused. She uses what sense of direction calmly and collectively and yet gazes at the hallways before she was knocked unconscious. The hall is soon walked by her and she stops at a set of stairs leading down to the room of morbidity. Her hand pauses on the the right door of a set of double doors leading to the room. The smoothness of her hand turns the knob and proceeds to the middle of the, once a gym, room and keeps her eyes above her looking up at the bagged heads. She softly stumbles on a rope and glances to the right to open double doors below a basketball hoop as she slowly stands back up straight. She follows it and makes careful steps down a darkened hallway only lit by windows from a locker room to her left. A few steps forward brings her to a table in the way of the dead end hall. Her eyes slowly glide to the sight of a spotlight gleaming bright. The light being aimed at an wide doorless opening gives her curiosity. Somehow she proceeds anyway hearing nothing. The metal gate door creaks and she steps through feeling her feet grow cold. Her mind scatters and she feels caught up in her own emotions and begins to cry while turning left into the opening. Her watered eyes stare down an aisle and her footsteps slow as she realizes what the scenery is consisted of.

A male mannequin has a hand held up empty but looking as if it held something. It's bridal clothing gives her an edge but nothing surprises her. She sits in one of the white chairs in the front row closer to the aisle. Something deep overcomes her emotionally and tears continue again, the thought of whether or not she will make it out alive was the main cause aside from her lonesome. Her left hand lifts to her forehead and grasps it tenderly to message out the pressure of crying.

"This...what is this? This isn't me." she states. Herself being accustomed to her emotions being shut in and her problems being solved on her own and nothing but her whole attention being upon work, studies and experiments.

Her decision to look on her past and her present state gives her some enlightenment. Wasting her cause on something that was suppose to be harmless came along and became something corrupt. She was part of that but soon saw what was going wrong and aimed to stop it maybe to somehow reverse what she had partook in. All her years she was in solitude and she chose it to be so. Her being thirty-seven gave something for her to think about and yes indeed her beauty stayed. Starting at twenty-three she had devoted her time and effort to achieve greatness and she did. With all that work she had shut out the realities of the world and had forgotten how she wanted to live out. Her eyes only opening now at an asylum with a behind the scenes psychiatric testing and weapon development.