Stained

When I was a little kid, all I wanted in the whole world was the love and attention of my parents. I was never abused physically, but there are scars none the less. I'm the eldest child of three, the one that always set the good example that no one chose to follow, the one who learned to fade into the background because the other two just seemed to need so much more. I was extremely neglected, terribly shy, and between the two, I adopted an attitude of wait and see in regards to personal interaction. I was, and still am, pathologically reticent about sticking my nose in any business into which I have not been invited by word or deed.

I just wanted them to love me. I thought if I was selfless enough, that eventually they would SEE ME. I have been all through the "five stages" model of grief, but I started out with bargaining instead of denial and ended up with anger. Nearly to acceptance; wish I wasn't. I really believed IF I was good... if I did everything to ensure everyone else's happiness... if I loved them as selflessly as I could... eventually they would have to notice me and appreciate how much I loved them.

For a smart person, I can sometimes be very stupid.

Really, I should have known better, but I was worried about E-Bear. That was the only thing that motivated me to visit my sister. Executor must have known it too.

I went home because Executor once again insinuated that my family was in danger. It sounds simple enough on the surface of it. What kind of inhuman monster wouldn't be motivated by familial ties to investigate such a threat?

It was not my mother that Executor had targeted this time, nor E-Bear, not directly at any rate. No, it was my sister who went bat-shit crazy in the aisles of a Toys-R-Us, screaming about people in masks coming to take her daughter away. She was taken to a private asylum in Limeport for "observation." I hate that word so very much... for obvious Slendy-related reasons.

Another word I hate? Normal. Normal is a statistical illusion. There's no such animal. Normal is a word politicians use to alienate us from our own individual natures, maintain the status quo, turn us into mindless, consuming robots. I hate normal. But maybe I protest too much. Yeah… because I’ve never been normal. I accepted it a long time ago, though it took me years to be comfortable with myself.

The Limeport Asylum is a horrid place. I don't know how it manages to pass state inspection. I don't know how OSHA doesn't shut it down or how the human rights people can let anyone, even the dregs of human society, live in such a place. But then, after what happened when Shady came to bust me out... maybe that won't be a concern for much longer. What makes it worse... what makes it worse is that I‘m pretty sure most of the staff was indoctrinated. Who knows how many of the “inmates” were being broken there, being “reformatted” for Slenderman’s use?

I arrived around noon after a visit to my mother. Now I have to admit that I always thought my sister would end up in an asylum. She's been a manic depressive all her life and if anyone in the family deserved a little one on one with psychotropic drugs, it was her. I've always been pretty sure she felt the same way about me.

They showed me right in when I arrived at the Asylum, which in hindsight should have been my first hint that something was off about the place. They didn’t ask for ID. I just said, “I’m here to visit J_______ M________,” and they let me right in. Not suspicious AT ALL, right?

Yeah, I can be pretty oblivious to “warning signs” when I’m focused on a problem.

They led me right to the room where she was being kept, through a series of corridors that look so exactly alike it was like a scene out of the Shining. Second warning sign… my sister was wearing her civvy clothes when all the other crazies where in patient PJs. They showed me into the room where she was watching TV and looking bored as hell. Her eyes lit up when she saw me, and for a moment, just a second, I thought she might actually be glad to see me.

Yeah, because I’m an idiot.

“This is all your fault!” She glared at me, practically spitting. “I can’t even turn around in my own home without falling over one of your little charms. Everywhere I go, they’re carved into the woodwork and the molding and written on the underside of the fucking welcome mat for Chrissake!”

“Those spells are there for your protection!” I didn’t even bother to correct her about ‘her’ house.

“That sounds like paranoia and possibly OCD to me,” said the doctor who hadn’t left the room. I scowled at him, but his expression remained bland, disinterested even.

“Seriously! My husband had to repair the porch, and there were all these crazy symbols painted on the underside of the boards. Who does shit like that?” She smiled as she said it, her eyes glittering with malice. “She’s the reason I had those dreams. My husband has started remodeling, ripping out the molding, and he just keeps finding more spells. There was a bottle of something absolutely disgusting buried under the porch.”

“You need to leave those alone!” I could care less about my sister or her husband, but there was E-Bear to consider.

“You need to calm down.” An orderly had slipped into the room and grabbed me by the arm as the doctor scribbled onto his clipboard.

“Excuse me, but keep your hands to yourself!” I yanked my arm away from the orderly’s grasp, and he stood kind of blank eyed. Third warning sign, folks.

“Agoraphobia,” the doctor muttered. “Possibly Mysophobia.”

“Oh, now you are just making this crap up!” Not that I’m not agoraphobic, but I don’t think he could just decide that based on my protest. And, name me one person that likes to be grabbed by a random stranger…..

He just nodded, and the orderly made another grab for me. Which is when I bolted, finally catching on that things weren’t quite right as my sister hopped off the bed like she was going to help them wrestle me to the floor.

I made a beeline for my car, but there was already an orderly out there. He could have just been heading in for his shift, but it didn’t look that way to me. So I ducked into the trees instead, and tried to be invisible while I speed dialed Shady. I was pretty jumpy at that point though, and invisibility does take a certain amount of concentration, at least to start. They must have seen me go in too, because Shady had barely answered the phone before I was being grabbed and dragged back inside.

They proceeded to jab me with a needle and manhandle me into a straightjacket, emptying my pockets and grabbing my backpack. I wanted to snarl when they opened it up and tsked at my spell-on-the-fly supplies. By the time they threw me into a room with a prison-style bed and a mattress as thin as a notebook, I was feeling… very confused. And the frikken water stains and black mold on the walls kept twitching like it was going to jump out and swallow me whole. I swear to the gods those stains kept moving the entire time I was there.

So it’s at this point my sister came in, all smug and swinging her key ring in one hand. “Bet you thought you’d get away with stealing my car. Everyone always gave you everything, and you have to come and steal my fucking car, you bitch.” I was hardly in any shape to argue with her. My tongue didn’t seem to be working very well.

“You listen to me, bitch.” She leaned in real close, and I was tempted to puke on her. I felt nauseous enough. Too bad I can‘t projectile vomit on cue. “I met your fucking dream-fucker, and I made a deal with him. We give him you, and he leaves all of us the hell alone forever. After what he did to mom, I wasn’t going to let him screw with the rest of us. Don‘t bother trying to call her whenever they let you out of that monkey suit by the way. I made sure she knows getting jumped by that son of a bitch was all your fault. She didn‘t want to know how I took care of this, just so long as she was finally free of you. So have a nice life, sis. Be seeing you, never.”

And she just left me sitting there, listening to the hiss of the air conditioner and watching the oozing walls which I know logically could not really be moving but which still LOOKED like they were on the verge of jumping off the wall.

I don’t even know when I passed out. I woke up in PJs, my heart thudding in terror at the thought the stains had crawled down my throat while I was sleeping. And I smelled like puke. I’d either been sick or the PJs were not at their cleanest. Given the state of the place I can believe the latter.

They came in and jabbed me with a needle again, but I absolutely refused to fall asleep a second time… or talk. They tried to get me to “share my feelings,” and frankly, it’s my sister who has the potty mouth. I stayed silent. I lost track of how many times they injected me with stuff before Shady showed up, or the pills. I just have no idea. It seemed like a lot of medication for the short time I was there. After the initial passing out though, I made damn sure I didn’t lose consciousness again. I must have recited every nursery rhyme I knew to keep myself awake, and then I started on prime numbers and then I just counted and kept counting until Shady showed up.

The nightmare escape through the hospital with Victor running through the halls was just surreal. Until we actually got outside I thought it might all have been a dream, but the pain of running through the woods barefoot kind of killed the idea real quick. I LOVE being barefoot, but running through a forest, in the dark, without shoes… not recommended.