Captive II

It had been more than three months since he had thought of his last memories of his previous world.

In fact, although he had often dreamt of his world and sought refuge in his memories whenever the fancy hit him, he never indulged in remembering the more sordid past.

Why would he, when the memories would only bring great sorrow, to witness such a gruesome scene broke his heart more than he could even imagine? So much so that the moment he gazed at the eyes of the werewolf cubs back at the factory, his heart trembled and nearly resurfaced the suppressed memories.

It had all started when he was supposed to meet up with his sister for her weekly allowance. For the past eleven years, he had crawled his way out of poverty to begin life as a newly blessed lower-middle class man.

Normally, their meetings would often start with some chit-chat regarding her kids, his one niece and twin nephews, how they did in their school, which one got a new prize or award, and, eventually, how she lost her job once more.

It didn't matter to him if every visit to her home was the day he loses half of his paycheck, for he loved her kids so dearly that he ought to have been a second father to them.

He valued her family, for his family did not value him. 

After he had been employed as an assistant to Doctor Giselle, earning more than a dozen dollars per hour, he had changed their monthly exchanges to a weekly one. Not because he was more well-to-do then, but it was the fact that her eldest daughter had gotten a hold of her cell phone and called him in the middle of the night.

It took all his restraint not to barge kick the crap out of her sister when he heard that they hadn't eaten anything except for breakfast while their mother had left before they were even up and about.

He loved his sister, but her terrible habits had a limit and that limit was affecting her kids.

The weekly visits were great for his peace of mind and her kid's physical and mental state, even more so when Doctor Giselle would stop by their meeting place and have a rather lovely talk with the kids.

The good doctor was great with kids, having no one of her own, nor had she the ability to have one. He had suggested adoption at one point, but the doctor rejected the idea because she knew that her workload and social life would not be great for a kid.

His respect for Doctor Giselle rose to the stratosphere that day, gaining both a good friend and a terrific employer at the same time.

It had been a wintery night when the soul breaking event happened.

She was supposed to meet him in a nearby park, one that her kids were very much fond of. He waited for a couple of hours, worry nearly leaping out of his nerves.

So much so that he drove to her neighborhood. It was not unkind to call it a shithole and, given that he too had lived in this kind of neighborhood since he was a kid, it was also not unkind to think that his sister had failed her kids the moment she had let them live here.

Enough was enough. He'd rather starve than let Theresa and the twins live in between danger and death.

Walking past the crack whores, the gangbangers, and the occasional cops who received head from the crack whores and got paid off by the gangbangers, the run-down apartment came into his view.

It was much better than the rest of the street, but it was like comparing a pig to another with makeup.

Their door was ajar. Grunts and moans, although not unusual within the halls, were coming from inside. Anger beset his mind, thoughts swirling regarding the depravity her crack-addicted sister had gotten herself into.

The sight that revealed upon himself the moment he opened the door was one that he would never forget.

Theresa, his lovely muse. Defiled, desecrated, and destroyed by a man whose cruelty knew no bounds.

He had left her on her living room couch, crotch wet from the blood, shallow cuts and saliva-fille bites all over her body. Mere moments away from death. Her mouth, wet from torn lips and dry drool, cried out to him, weakly.

He had tried to soothe her, to tell her that soon peace would come and she would suffer no more, but she was as kind as she was wise. He knew what was on her mind and that there was no changing what had happened.

He gave a smile through gritted teeth and a crying face. A smile that reminded her that whenever she felt lonely, whenever she felt sad, whenever she felt happy, or whenever she just felt that he would be there. 

He would always be there.

But she was gone. Her pulse quickened at the last second, perhaps due to the joy of his sight, but that, too, was gone.

A thought then entered his mind, his body moving faster than ever as he gently placed Theresa back on the couch and sprinted to the other room inside of the apartment.

What he found halted his tracks, his mouth agape with horror. The twins, Arthur and Lance, were dead. 

Arthur, the most willful yet kind child he had ever known, had bled to death on the kitchen floor as cockroaches and rats tore apart his skin. His eyes, so gentle and lovely, had a look of longing for someone to save him.

Lance, who had dreamt of becoming an astronaut, was face-down on the bathtub, not far away from his dear brother, having drowned to his death, his hands were chipped and calloused as if he had fought off his attacker for seconds before eventually succumbing to his fate.

His face had already fallen, tears flowing down his eyes. He wanted to cradle them, tell them that he was here and that he had saved them. 

But they were already dead.

He was already too late.

It was as if one of the seven sins took over his body. His mind was nothing but an observer as he moved to the last room in the rathole of a house.

His sister, eyes glazed and dilated from the sheet toxicity of her heroine, was on her back as her newest boyfriend bucked his scrawny hips against her crotch.

He didn't even know when he had pulled the knife out of Arthur's chest, more so when he had suddenly stabbed the man in the back. Repeatedly.

What he knew, however, was the delight in his face when he saw the crack addict's face contorted into pure pain and dreadful surprise. 

His screams and wails and pleading were music to his ears as he tore apart every piece of skin in his torso. Letting the man succumb to his wounds as he bled to the death, much like what he had done to poor sweet Arthur.

And, yet, he wasn't done. Not by a mile.

He watched himself climb into his sister's bed and saw that she was too out of it to notice him or the dying man beside her.

He still remembered what his mouth had spoken at that moment. Years of frustration, anger, and envy bubbling up in that very moment.

"It's alright. You're not gonna suffer anymore."

It was full of pity, senseless pity. That was what underneath his anger, his wrath, his frustration.

He had let it go for too long. He should have ended her suffering ages ago. His mistake had cost him too much.

It had cost him the lives of three beautiful souls.

The events that happened thereafter were a blur, momentarily being supplemented by what the angered police officers had told him.

It seemed that they had entered the house and saw him bashing her head against the concrete floor. His sister's head was nothing but mush at that point. Her skull was in pieces.

He did not even try to defend himself, merely showing contempt and callous disregard for his sister and junkie boyfriend's corpses. Not that telling the truth would matter anyway, for the investigating detectives had already formed a prejudicial analysis before they even came close to the crime scene.

The beating he took as the detective in charge, a cowboy wannabe, forced him to write his confession on paper using his broken, bloodied hands. The bastard didn't even wait for the newspapers to run the story before he got convicted.

Doctor Giselle, for all her kindness, tried to help him. Affording him a veteran defense attorney and getting his confession thrown out of court, but, for all her work, none mattered because he knew his life was over, anyway.

It did not matter that his prior arrests were from juvenile records or that he was seen at the park an hour after the supposed deaths of the children. He believed that it was his fate to suffer in prison; not to be rehabilitated, but to be punished for the crimes he had deemed himself to be responsible for.

If he had just got there faster, if he had not been a bitch and met then on their home, or if he had not been a fuck up his whole life and took in the kids when he knew his sister was not getting any better. 

These thoughts swirled inside of his mind, not caring when the judge threw out their motion for dismissal or when the jury indicted him on his crimes.

In fact, all he knew at the time was that instead of two counts of murder–a crime which would put him behind bars for 25 years to a lifetime–he would, instead, serve two counts of manslaughter to the first degree, concurrently, and other misdemeanor charges. From almost two hundred years to thirty-five years maximum, removing years if paroled.

Her handiwork was all over the place. Of course, it also helped that, in the five years of his incarceration, she was the only one to visit every month, sometimes twice or thrice a month. It did not take a genius to figure out how she had wanted to help him out.

Every visit was, at some point, regarding the truth. The whole truth. But, at some point, every visit ended with Irwin denying to tell the truth. Because he deserved it, he deserved everything that was happening to him inside.

Every beating, every sleepless night, and every sexual harassment was his punishment. It didn't matter if he was limping or his face and body were too swollen for all of thirty years; he had to take it for it was just.

But, like every man before him, he was weakened, his mind more so. But to think that he would fail to hang himself and, when given another chance, also fail to bleed to death.

The moment he was placed on Suicide watch ended his first attempt at ending himself. That was until the good doctor began subtly speaking about a retrial and giving him another chance at a new lease on his otherwise horrible life.

He had instructed Doctor Giselle that he would sign a form the following visit. For years, she had requested him for him to speak his truth, to overturn the results of his trial.

He did not know why, nor did he want to know why she was doing this for him. All he wanted was to bring peace with himself.

The date was set, and all she had to do was bring herself and a pen–to be used to sign the consent forms for his retrial. 

But why did she have to meddle in his plans? 

Why did she try to grapple away the pen before he could stab himself? 

Why didn't she stop the bleeding in her stomach? 

Why did she have to die? 

Why did he have to kill her?

Why couldn't he just be born normal?