Delusion Duology

The Delusion Duology

Episode 1: Little Chickadee's Emporium of Wonders

Daniel was a man of great confidence. A natural leader and a loyal
friend, there weren't many that thought ill of Dan Freeman. He took
pride in the fact that he could think on his feet, and he was ever the
high achiever, some say that Dan had developed a knack for being
exceptional, and others would admit to thinking that he was born ready,
for whatever life might have to throw in his direction, so it was not
out of character for Dan to be driving through the outskirts of town to
one of his favourite make-out spots with his date, Jacqueline
MacKenzie. Of course, she had enjoyed their movie date, and Dan knew
it. He was brimming with confidence, although he had enough grace to
cover for himself, lest she misinterpret his body-language as
"arrogant".

The travelling became more battered and brutal, of which the rain
pummelling down on the car and road did nothing to improve. Thunder
rolled through their ears, lightning launching through the sky
silhouetting the trees on the side of the road, capturing the violent
angular branches and torturous shapes in a mere instant before flicking
out to the nothingness of moments before. The car's wiper blades
slashed across the front windscreen with speed and aggression. As they
travelled further from town, the buildings became smaller and spread
over a wider distance. The scattered lights on the side of the road
were either too dim, flickering violently, or were victims of vandals,
and had been shattered completely. It was becoming increasingly more
difficult to see the road ahead, so it was somewhat with relief that
Dan turned the car into the large patch of earth (or mud, to more
accurately describe it), and parked outside the old abandoned toy
warehouse, the Little Chickadee's Emporium of Wonders. The large iron
gates harboured an impressive rust infestation, to the extent that
holes had been eaten out in seizable chunks. Beyond those gates stood
the building, itself. Massive for a toy store, but quite the child,
when the term "warehouse" is thrown around. The sign had faded, the
building was falling apart. Some holes were patched up crudely using
old sheets of scrap metal, a sure-fire sign of shoddy workmanship. But
Dan wasn't here to go sight seeing, well... not that site anyway. So,
Dan turned the ignition off and turned towards Jacquie, a grin
spreading across his face. She returned the grin, and added her
trademark penetrating glare that was oh so seductive. They were lost in
each other's eyes, and, leaning in, breathing deeply, they prepared for
the embrace...
THUD!

The two lovers snapped out of their trance, upon realizing that
something had dealt a forceful blow to the rear end of the car. Jacquie
was quick to jump. It wasn't hard to tell that she was on edge. Dan
wanted to stay in the car, but he knew she wouldn't calm down until she
knew what the noise was. So, with their jackets held over their heads
to shelter the rain, they got out of the car and inspected the back of
the car. The dent was relatively small, and there was nothing to show
what had actually hit the car. In fact, the only thing that lay out of
place near the car was a small ribbon, that looked like it had fallen
delicately to the ground.
"W-what the hell was that?" Jacquie asked, a little freaked out.
"Beats me" Dan responded. In all honesty, he didn't care, he was only
interested in her. It was that lack of awareness that meant that he
didn't notice the minute microphone pinned to the ribbon on the ground.
Nor did he notice the sleek new security cameras that were perched atop
the fence...

An estranged man sat in the dark confines of his office, watching
one of the many screens in front of him, listening and watching,
feeding off their every move.
"Beats me" He heard the trespassing youth say.
"Yes it does" he said to himself, allowing a malicious cackle echo through the room.
He watched as the strangers returned to the confines of their car. The
rain continued to bucked down, the increasingly frequent lightning
illuminating the sky, followed shortly by the thunder rolling through
the night, the ribbon-microphone clipping and distorting the sound.
Dan had, yet again, become oblivious to his surroundings, so it was to
his great annoyance that Jacquie continued to show her irritation at
him, and her imaginative fear of what might possibly be outside. Dan
held her arm gently, leaning closer to her, trying to lull her into the
security of his arms, but she couldn't, she had a dull lurching feeling
in her gut, like there was something outside. Another flash of
lightning and crack of thunder and she was never coming back from this
tense anxiety. She saw what looked like little people, children,
silhouetted against the lightning, and they were all surrounding the
perimeter completely.

"There's definitely something out there" said Jacquie "let's go, let's go back home, please".
"C'mon, there's nothing out there, and if there was, it couldn't get in
the car anyway. Shh... just calm down, it's just the weather" Dan had
guessed that any attempt to pacify would be useless, but he tried
regardless.
It was rather unfortunate that Jacquie was so paranoid, convinced there
was something (or things) out there. They WERE outside, and they would
come up to the car and do something utterly unimaginable to them lest
they leave immediately. Dan continued to attempt to comfort her, but
every moment he moved closer, she shuffled further up against the car
door. Wild eyed, Jacquie looked everywhere but at Dan, trying to keep
track of where these creatures were. She let out an ear piercing
scream, only to have Dan jump out of his skin and split his skull on
the car roof.
"Argh! Jacquie!" Dan winced and clasped both hands over his head.
"Dan..." She said in a shaking whisper "it's... it's in the car" she
was staring in the rear view mirror at the little creature in the back
seat she could only describe as a robot child-doll, possessed with the
gleaming red eyes of Satan himself.

Dan slowly turned around, staring wide eyed at the back seat of his car.
"Holy shit, Jacquie! It's got a knife!" Dan spoke with an urgency in his voice.
Jacquie turned in her seat, fear taking full control of her actions.
She started towards the back-seat when Dan began to laugh mischievously.
"Fuck you, Dan." The doll was nowhere to be seen. But his little prank
had loosened her up a bit, and she let a small smile creep onto her
face. Maybe it was just paranoia after all, she thought. But maybe the
doll was hiding in the boot of the car, which she would have figured
out, had she looked hard enough to see the lock of hair jammed in the
uprights between two of the back seats.

Dan saw this ease of tension in Jacquie and milked it for all it's
worth. The thunder had stopped, for the meantime, and the rain had
certainly lightened up, so Dan got out of his car and started running
towards the warehouse.
"Dan, what are you doing now?" she asked, with a hint of annoyance in her voice.
"Come on, let's go inside, Jacquie!" he replied in a playful tease. He
ran towards the fence, planning to slip through one of the numerous
holes in the fence.
"No, Dan... stop it..." she stepped out of the car somewhat reluctantly, perhaps hoping to get Dan and bring him back.
Soon, Dan was through the fence and jogging towards the battered down
warehouse. Jacquie felt somewhat annoyed, and still slightly on edge.
Staring up at the massive building, with its faded and battered sign,
she couldn't help but imagine this place in its prime, full colour to
the clown's head that served as the store mascot. Plastered on the
sign, the clown's head was now lifeless and drained of all colour, a
vandal's work showed a rough hole through his nose.
Dan noticed her looking at the clown. "Haha, I remember Krinkels the
Clown. You know... my father used to work here when I was little." Dan
said, with a slight sentimentality in his voice.
"I-is that why you wanted to come here?" The forceful wind and rain
made standing outside the warehouse bitter cold beyond belief.
"Yeah. Do you mind if we go inside?" Dan was really milking the sympathy card for all it was worth.
"Or what, we run all the way back to the car... again? Yes, now we're
here it'd be pointless not to have a look around" Jacquie pulled her
jacket around herself tighter and made for the door.

She pushed open the age-old door, an expected creak whining out from
the rusted stiff hinges. There was a little light coming through
windows high up on the wall, cold grey moonlight spilled onto the shop
floor. There before them stood many empty shelves, some had fallen
over, others had been completely broken apart. There were still the
occasional pieces of junk lying around the place. The usual empty
buckets and bags, a few broken chairs, some bins tipped on their side.
There were still a few toys and dolls lying around, a lot of trolleys,
some were half filled, just sitting in the isles. They started to
wander through the isles, just looking at the state of the shop,it
looked like it had been deserted in mid-use, rather than shut down from
a manager's decision.
Dan ran over to one of the trolleys and said to Jacquie "hey, come here, hop in!". He had that mischievous look in his eyes.
She obeyed, a little cautious, a little excited and rebellious, but all
caution was erased from her mind when he started pushing her in the
trolley down the aisle faster and faster, going deeper and deeper into
the store. She let out a whoop of excitement, and laughed as if this
were the most wonderful night of her life. But it was a short lived
game.

They had reached the back of the store, and Dan had slowed down to
walking pace, a little short of breath. He wheeled Jacquie out into the
stock loading bay to find the back doors flung wide open, and a
delivery truck parked for a delivery. It took only a moment to see that
the truck had been abandoned too. It sat there, collecting rust, its
wheels stolen a long time ago. Jacquie pulled herself out of the
trolley and the pair of them walked down to the vehicle to check it
out. Dan wandered around to the driver's side of the truck's cabin and
wrenched the door open. He let out an agonising and fearful cry when
the half decayed body of the driver fell out of the seat onto Dan.

Jacquie, who had just opened the back doors of the truck, ran over
to him, and started anxiously talking and crying, once she realised
what was lying atop of Dan.
"Oh, God! I knew this was a bad idea. Dan, who is that? Who is that!?
We need to get out of here, Dan, we need to get the FUCK out of here!"
the tears were flowing freely, and she continued with her
uncontrollable blubbering, while Dan lay in shocked silence, with the
corpse atop of him. Near the back of the truck they heard a sound that
made their hair sit on end. The sound of a lone music box rang through
the night air, piercing their ears like knives. Dan heaved the body off
himself and got to his knees, looking towards the source of the sound.
It was a box with spider-like mechanical legs, and a spinning crank. It
was a jack-in-the-box. It was just a child's toy, but who put it there,
and why? It walked closer, and Dan and Jacquie moved farther away. It
continued to play its song, and it appeared to be... laughing? The song
came to an end, and the music box plucked its last note, before ceasing
movement. For a single moment, there was silence, only to be broken by
an eruption of fire and shrapnel. The box was a bomb. Dan was quick to
ball up and protect himself, only sustaining light scratches to his
back, but Jacquie was not so lucky. Down she fell, several sizeable
chunks of wood and metal protruding from her body.

Dan didn't hesitate, he got back to his feet and picked Jacquie up,
carrying her back towards the store, placing her gently back into the
trolley. The shrapnel appeared to penetrate deep. Blood dripped freely
from the large cuts, leaving a warm red trail as Dan pushed her towards
the front of the store. It was only now that he noticed that the rain
had stopped, and he walked fast, eyes darting around the store, in case
the bomber was still around. Nothing. He reached the front of the store
believing that he was alone with Jacquie, they had no idea of the man
sitting in the upstairs security office was watching their every move
on camera. Dan gave the door a tug, anxious to get Jacquie out of here,
and to a hospital safely, but the door stayed firmly shut.
"No..." He cried out, "NO! Get out of here, we need to GET OUT!" He
pushed and pulled the door with all his might, but nothing would move
the thick, heavy sleeper that had jammed the door closed from the
outside.

Footsteps. Dan heard some. Light, quiet, but definitely, there was
something else in the store. His feet were rooted to the ground, but he
twisted every which way, searching for the source of the sound. It
wasn't until he heard a spray paint can fall flat that he glimpsed the
silhouette of the offender he was after, duck behind a wall. He was
upstairs, and it looked like he had nowhere to go. The can of spray
paint had started rolling, down towards the checker plate steel
staircase. It fell down the first step to a loud clatter, which
reverberated throughout the building. Another step, and another, and it
somehow rotated around the corner step and down further still, to the
bottom, where it rolled to a stop at Dan's feet.

He left Jacquie at the front door and tore off up the stairs. It was
just around the corner. He took a few steps towards the edge. A few
more... a few more. And there it was, compressed into the corner, a
little doll like creature. Dan grabbed it by its neck, and felt a cold
shiver run down his spine, it was made of metal, a robot, simply
painted to resemble a doll. Knowing it might explode at any moment,
like the jack-in-the-box, he threw it over the second story balcony on
to the hard concrete shop floor, where it landed with a sickening
crunch. He made his way back down the stairs, to see that a group of
these "dolls" (he noticed there were bears, too) approaching in on
Jacquie, following the trail of blood to her, licking it up as they
went along. At this point, Jacquie had seen them too, and started
screaming. And then, with fear and madness emblazoned in her eyes, she
pointed wildly into the opposite corner of the store, at another second
floor room. There was a window in the room, overlooking the shop,
horizontal blinds tilted open, and there stood a man with the
appearance of the store mascot, Krinkels the Clown. He had in his hand
the PA system's microphone.
Watching the toys closing in on Jacquie, he leaned in to the microphone
and laughed menacingly. "Dear valued customers" he spoke with a milky
smooth tone. "I would like to thank you all for choosing to shop at the
Little Chickadee's Emporium of Wonders this evening, and I do hope
you're having a magical shopping experience."

The words rang in Dan's ears, so much so that he hadn't noticed that
Jacquie was still screaming, and now was being torn apart by the
vicious robotic toys. Bits of her flew through the air in a bloody
mess, showering the toys in her blood. It was too late, she couldn't be
saved. So Dan made the gut wrenching decision to leave her and make his
way towards Krinkels' office.
He spoke again, this time with some aggression. "There is no use,
Daniel. I control them. They can control you. If you try to control me,
you will end up like her." he cackled again. "Come on, I just wanted to
have a little... fun, why won't you play this game with me?"
Dan continued to run across the store to the office. He was climbing the stairs to the office.
"There's no use Daniel. There's no easy way out, here. You can try to
kick the door in, but then I'd have to kill you. But I don't want to
kill you, then there'd be no one to continue the game. Don't forget to
tell all your friends".

Dan was shaking with rage. He kicked at the door.
"I told you not to do that" Krinkels said in a sing-song voice. He
opened the door and threw a small spider toy at Dan's face. He
staggered back, grabbing at the thing on his face.
Racing down the stairs, he struggled with the mechanical spider. It
gouged into his face, and it was only with a deep tearing of his skin
that he pulled the thing loose and ditched it over the racking towards
the centre of the store. But now the dolls and bears had finished with
Jacquie and were now chasing after him. He raced through the loading
bay and out around the truck. Knowing that these small robots couldn't
possibly keep up with him, he accepted the cold wind as a small
victory, the fresh drops of rain cleansing his face of dirt, blood and
tears.

Cramming himself roughly through the fence and into the front seat
of his car, he sped off down the road, the rain picking up into a heavy
downpour. But he didn't care, he was safe. The half eaten body of
Jacquie was freshly implanted into his mind, and he drove to get away
from it all. He drove faster and faster, faster and faster.
"You will never escape me" The doll had crawled from the boot through
the back seat and shocked him into veering off the road, crashing into
a tree.

Episode 2: A Surgeon's Lament

Smoke was spewing out of the bonnet of the car. Lights were
flashing, and Dan started to stir back into consciousness as the men in
uniforms pried open the driver seat door and dragged him from the
wreck. He was bruised, surface deep cuts all over my body, and a few
deep cuts, but no broken or fractured bones, nothing they couldn't take
care of. It was somewhat with relief that Dan's cuts were bandaged up,
and his blood soaked clothes were cut from his body. The stretcher in
which he was tightly bound to was lined with a soft, even if only wafer
thin, sheet, it hugged his skin with affection and warmth, and he was
wheeled into the back of the ambulance and driven away.

There were two paramedics in the back of the ambulance, making sure that Dan remained in a stable condition.
"Hey there, mister! How many fingers am I holding up?" One of the
paramedics had something in his hand... a... doll? And he was doing a
very poor ventriloquism act with it.
Dan lifted his right arm and extended all digits on that hand. The doll
had one arm up, of which all the fingers were permanently pointed
outwards.
"Barry, don't be a tool, stop playing with this guy's doll..." the
other paramedic seemed like the senior of the two, snatching the doll
off him and placing it out of Barry's reach.
"The... doll..." Dan croaked. The two paramedics leaned in, and Dan
mustered up all the energy and contempt he could, and said "Throw it...
out the window..."
He was feeling short on energy, and sensed that he was drifting out of
consciousness. He witnessed the man that wasn't Barry fling the doll
out onto the side of the road, just moments before he closed his eyes.

Head pounding something chronic, Dan opened his blurry eyes, to see
a bright white ceiling, fluorescent light tubes rolling past, as he was
pushed through the hospital. He could just hear muffled voices of the
people surrounding him, their footsteps resonating through the hallway,
the wheels on the stretcher racking up a low rumbling in his skull.
Bang! The saloon style doors swung open as he passed through the
hospital, steering towards the operating theatre. Entering through
another set of double doors, it was obvious this was where doctors
would stitch Dan's wounds closed. The room was circular, concentric
circles lining the ceiling, and the bright white lights in the centre
of the room were almost blinding.

The operating table stood directly under the lights, and Dan was
struggling to keep his eyes open when the doctors carried him off the
stretcher to the table. A doctor leaned in over him, blocking the
light, and gently placed a gas mask over his mouth and nose. It took
only a few moments before Dan drifted off into a disturbing dream like
state. The image of the crash flashed through his mind, the toy
warehouse, the body in the van, the jack-in-the-box with the shrapnel
in Jaquie's body, the toys killing Jacque in the trolley, the clown...
It was all just one blurry nightmare, and it shifted and transformed,
Dan was watching his own surgery. Cutting away his clothes, one doctor
said something to the other doctors that Dan couldn't hear, and then he
did the unthinkable, with his index and medius fingers together, he
slipped the gloved digits into one of the many cuts on Dan's body. The
others laughed maliciously, and they started doing it too. Dan, in his
mind, was screaming in pain and agony, clenched teeth, breathing deep,
these doctors would be the death of him, and he couldn't do a fucking
thing. The first doctor, now with excessively bloody gloves and scrubs,
held up a razor sharp scalpel for inspection, before stabbing it deep
into Dan's chest. Another doctor was quick to follow suit, picking up a
surgical saw, and hacking Dan's ribcage to pieces, surgical hammers,
knives, drills and saws, they were all playing this violent little
game, mutilating Dan's body beyond repair, beyond recognition.

Thank God it was only a fucking dream. Dan awoke in a cold sweat,
wearing a flowered hospital gown, sitting upright in a wheelchair.
There was a lot of bandage all over his body, and he could feel where
the cuts and stitches were pulling at his skin. According to the clock,
Dan had awoken at near on 2 O'clock in the morning. Grasping the rubber
wheels with his cold hands, he rolled out of his dimly lit room into an
even more dim hallway. A fluorescent light flickered somewhere behind
him, becoming an annoyance in the back of his mind. At the forefront of
his mind was the ominous light calling to him from all the way down the
far end of the hall. It was the glow of a green exit sign. A fixation,
a goal. He had been taken in by the mother bird, and been nursed back
to a condition of independent living, and after the night's events, Dan
just wanted to be alone. More than alone, isolated. There were people
in this hospital, even if they were out of sight.

So Dan propelled himself down the hallway, rolling closer to the
exit, closer and closer. He saw the cold green glow of the exit sign
growing larger, but he also saw another form of life come into vision,
and stand between him and his goal. It was an elderly man, with
infinitesimally thin wisps of hair, marking their ways across the
otherwise sparse nothingness of his scalp. Skin sagging something
chronic, the man clung to the pole that supported the IV bag that ran
tubes into his body. What exactly this man wanted, it was impossible to
tell, but he stood squarely in front of the exit door, and signalled to
Dan to follow down the hallway perpendicular from whence he came. Dan,
as compromised by his wheelchair, was in no place to bargain, let alone
bargain at a tempo that doesn't wake the patrons of the hospital. The
estranged man hobbled clumsily down the hallway after Dan, his
footsteps echoing heavily throughout the hallways.

Through the deserted hospital, the stranger guided Dan, clueless as
to his whereabouts, it was only as they approached a foyer area that
the stranger placed a hand on Dan's shoulder, indicating him to stop.
Dan had figured out from the signage that they were in the emergency
corner of the hospital, and quite close to the operating theatre where
Dan had his operation.
The stranger leaned in and said "There's a woman at the information
desk over there" pointing through the wall, roughly where the
information desk would be. "Make sure you keep out of her sight".
Disregarding his own comment, he made no hesitation before moving
through the open foyer towards another hall on the other side of the
room.
Once there, the man signalled Dan when to make his dash across the
room. As Dan made his pass, he glimpsed the woman at the information
desk, who had her back turned on the room, as she poured herself
another coffee.

Down the hall they went, until they reached the double doors that
opened out into the emergency operating theatre. Dan pushed the doors
gently open and rolled inside. He shifted towards the middle of the
room, and took a long, heavy sigh, gazing at the flat rectangular table
that had seen many a death, and had brought Dan's brutal life back into
the foreground of reality. He turned around, looking for the stranger
that had brought him here. The man was nowhere to be seen. Dan told
himself that "he might just be waiting outside" but he knew that this
was not true. Next to the door stood a tall and narrow whiteboard, a
pin in the middle to spin it over. Dan pushed himself over to the
whiteboard, and spun it over. On the other side was a mirror, and Dan
stared into his reflection, the stitches crawling across his face, pale
grey skin gave him quite a zombified appearance. He touched his face
with disgust, running his fingers across the cuts. He held his arms up
to his eyes to see that they were in the same condition. Grasping the
arm-rests on his wheelchair, he pulled himself to his feet and
inspected his whole ghastly body. He threw his nightgown to the floor.
There was some bandaging over his chest, arms, legs and head, but there
was so much stitching across his skin, holding him together like an
ancient rag-doll that a little girl refused to part with. The stitches
held themselves together well, however, the wounds were still fresh,
and with all his movement, some blood seeped through Dan's bandages,
just another stain on his already tarnished appearance.

Dan threw a look of utter revulsion at the self in the mirror,
before determinedly searching through the room, rummaging in drawers,
hoarding significant items, like a bluebird would of shiny or blue
objects to decorate its nest. Dan took to the small underneath
compartment in his wheelchair; several scalpels if different shapes and
sizes, small drills and saws, some cloths, bandage, needles and thread,
along with other bizarre collectibles. With these safely tucked under
his wheelchair, concealed with his nightgown, he pushed his wheelchair
out of the operating theatre.

Dan walked down the hallway, retracing his steps back to his room.
Without thinking, without hesitation, he walked through the foyer area,
when a woman spoke out "excuse me sir, where did you just come from?"
Dan froze in his tracks, and turned to look at the source of the voice,
and there behind the information desk stood not the young woman of
before, but a man wearing clown make-up, and in his hand was a scalpel.
He spun it cleverly through his hands several times before throwing it
at full force at Dan. It scraped past Dan's scalp, shaving the stitches
on a deep cut on his head. Blood dripped to the floor. The clown pulled
another scalpel from his pocket, and Dan didn't need to be warned
twice, without hesitation, he tore through the passages, footsteps
echoing with all the weight of fear and anxiety, the wheelchair only
making things infinitely more difficult. Surely someone would wake up
and find Dan out of bed at night, running from a homicidal clown, and
they'd find all the surgical tools that Dan stole, hidden in his
wheelchair, and he'd be in the shitter.

But it was miraculous that no-one did find Dan. Several glances
across his shoulder, he had come to the conclusion that the clown's
initial threats had diminished, and it was safer now to resume stealth
mode, and creep carefully towards his room. He was a the door. Rattling
the doorknob, he pushed the door open, and stepped into his room. It
was a plummeting sensation that Dan felt when he realised that this
wasn't his room. It was somewhat of a staff lounge, and there on the
couch sat a doctor, and he was watching some low budget hospital
slasher flick. As Dan slithered closer, he noticed that it was his
friend, the clown, and in his hand was another scalpel, twirling
through his fingers like a teasing ballet of torture. Well, Dan
thought, two can play at that game...

And he quietly reached underneath his wheelchair and pulled out his
own scalpel, a vicious blade with serrated teeth. Dan crept up on the
man that had made his life a living hell, and gripped his head, slicing
the blade across the throat like cutting butter. The clown's scalpel
fell from his hand, and stuck straight up and down on the hard wooden
floor. Dan dropped his own scalpel, upon the realisation that it was
being coated in copious amounts of blood, not to mention the blood
gushing onto the couch was more than enough to make any normal being
queasy beyond belief. Dan didn't want to look, but it was by mere
accident that he caught the eyes of the dead man gazing soullessly up
at him, and it was only with that did he notice that this was not the
clown doctor at all. So Dan ran his wheelchair out of the room again,
intent on distancing himself from his murder. He was in such shock that
he failed to notice that the TV was not tuned to the cheesy hospital
horror he initially thought, but rather an infomercial on cooking
appliances, nor did he notice that the doctor's scalpel was nowhere to
be seen.

Breathing deeply, standing in an isolated hallway Dan pulled his
nightgown over his head, and wiped his bloody hands on the material.
Then, he sat himself down, and tried to wheel himself back to his room.
His palms were sweaty, and his hair was slicked to his forehead,
drenched in a similar cold sweat. He rolled along the hallway, thoughts
rushing through his head. The dim lights that illuminated the path
seemed to be burning white heat inside his skull, blurring his vision.
Pushing along the hall, confused, angry, scared, Dan knew not where he
was heading, he couldn't make out the writing on the signs he passed.
His head swelled, and the feeling of drowsiness and hopelessness
consumed him, it was almost with a sigh of relief that Dan could see
the vague blurred outline of a human being moving towards him.

"Excuse me, sir? Sir, are you okay?" The woman could have been a
dream, a figment of Dan's imagination, but he had an instinctual
feeling to trust her.
"Unnhh..." Dan said. His mouth was dry, and he felt that he was moments
away from passing out. Dan held a hand up and pointed it to his mouth.
The woman, whom Dan presumed to be a nurse wheeled him out into what
looked like a waiting room. She left his side, and returned
momentarily, lifting his chin to pour a cool clear liquid into his
mouth.
"Thanks" Dan said, with a hint of gratitude. "Can you take me back to my room, please?"
"What were you doing out of your room at this time of night, anyway?"
she sounded a little suspicious, but Dan could tell that she was just
following standard protocol, and really had no clue as to what he'd
done.
"I... I needed to use the bathroom. So I left my room, and... yeah. And
on my way back, I felt feverish, you know, hot... sweaty... and
tired... and then, you came along." Dan gave a wry smile, he was going
for an Oscar.
"Are you sure you're okay?" the nurse asked. She seemed afraid that Dan might almost die on her, or something of the sort.
"Haha, yeah, I'll be fine. Thanks, but I really just need to get back
to my bed and and get some sleep." Of course, Dan knew he'd never get
any more sleep tonight.
"Okay," she laughed nervously and started to push the wheelchair along.
Back in Dan's room, she tucked the sheets around him.
"Thanks again, miss" Dan said, leaning his head back into the soft pillows.
"You're welcome." she said, her cheeks turning slightly pink. "I should
leave you to get your rest, but can you tell me one more thing before I
go?"
"Hmm?" Dan lifted his head off the pillows slightly.
The nurse turned towards the door and asked "if you needed to use the
bathroom, why did I find you all the way over the opposite side of the
hospital?"
She turned to see him respond, but he had already fallen asleep. She
turned back around and left the room, and Dan's eyes snapped open
again. That was a close one.

The next morning, Dan's doctor came in to his room to see how he was
recovering from the surgery. Following him was the nurse he had met
last night, who was somewhat concerned about the patient, after last
night's peculiar encounter. The room was dark as night, the blinds on
the window were closed, and the curtains around Dan's bed were pulled
tight.
"Good morning Daniel" the doctor called through the curtains in a
simply cheerful voice. But the smile was wiped from his face when he
drew open the curtains to find an empty bed. He heard a sharp click
coming from behind him. Turning around, he saw Daniel, standing by the
door, as he took his hand off the lock on the door.
"Daniel... Daniel... Daniel... what are you doing?" the doctor spoke down to his patient as if he were a mere child.
"Something I badly need to do" Dan replied, with a malicious tone in
his voice, he had overcome the initial shock of last night's murder,
and he stood next to his wheelchair, revenge shining in his eyes.

"Stop, you're still in shock from the accident and the surgery. You
don't want to be making any rash decisions. Think it through, Daniel."
the doctor spoke with an urgency and panic in his voice, for once, life
and death and the fine line between the two fell outside his controlled
and well educated hands.
"Oh, I've thought it through, doc. I've thought it through very well."
He leaned into his wheelchair and pulled out a scalpel. "I'm sorry" he
said to the nurse, and he threw the instrument at her.
With the cry of a wounded animal, she fell to the ground, with the scalpel sticking out of her chest.
"Daniel, stop, you're being ridiculous!" the doctor yelled, and knelt down beside the nurse.
Dan rushed towards the doctor and took a hard kick at his face. The
doctor fell back, in agony. There were broken teeth. It was now Dan's
turn to kneel by the nurse. Her face was white, and blood was bubbling
from her mouth. Dan ripped the scalpel from her body, and she cringed
over, crying out in agony, squeezing her hands to her wound. Stab. He
plunged the scalpel back into her. Another cry. And again, and again.
Stab, stab, stab, stab, stab. Blood soaked the once sterile instrument,
and blood soaked the body, floor and Dan himself was covered in fresh
blood again, although now he was absolutely soaked, there was no way he
could hide this crime blaming the stains as leaking wounds of his own
blood, this time he wouldn't hold back, he wouldn't stop.

Turning towards the doctor, an even more sadistic, demonic grin
crept across his face. The doctor, after spitting out his teeth, had
not bothered to get to his feet, but rather allowed Dan to handle him
like a rag-doll, throwing him unceremoniously onto Dan's bed, tying him
to it and taping his mouth shut. Dan pushed his wheelchair up next to
the bed and retrieved all the implements he had stolen, placing each on
the bedside table, enjoying listening to the doctor's nonsensical
moans, muffled cries, pleading on deaf ears. He watched every singly
motion Dan made, sweat trickling off his brow and onto his wide eyed
face.
"Oh no, Daniel, look at all the cuts and lacerations on your skin" Dan
said to himself, as he ran a scalpel across the doctor's body,
listening to his deep, fearful breathing, and groans as the pain of the
scalpel tortured his body.
"Shh... shh... it's okay, it's okay, I'm looking after you" Dan had
replaced the scalpel with needle and thread, and began stitching the
cuts back together. "There, good as new."

Tears trickled down the doctor's eyes, and he struggled in his
bondage. The wounds freely leaked blood, and the poor stitching job did
nothing to prevent this, but Dan paid no attention.
"Yes, this needs quite a lot of work... the leg, it must come off, and
that arm!" Dan said, enthusiastically, as he picked up the surgical
saw, and cut through bone to sever the leg at the ankle and the arm at
the shoulder. The doctor was writhing terribly, tensing up, trying to
bear the pain, but crumbling into agonising cries like a helpless
child. And Dan laughed. He was psychopathic, a complete madman, this
boy is beyond therapy, and the doctor lay, taking the abuse, willing
the torture to end. But Dan was patient, savouring the moments of
"revenge". He brought out the needle and thread for a second time, and
crudely, yet with some affection, stitched the doctor's foot back to
his leg, and arm back to his body.

"We've got a problem, we've got a very big problem here" Dan picked
up the scalpel again, and dug it into the doctor's leg, then in his
other leg, and his arms. He then made a long thin incision down the
doctor's face, with a delicate and soft motion.
"You thought you were doing me a favour, saving my life. You thought
that, didn't you? Didn't you?!" The doctor nodded. "And you thought
that I, a youthful man with his life still ahead of him would want
nothing more than to breathe and think and live again. You thought that
you would be greatly rewarded for this selfless act of giving, when it
was never really selfless at all. You want praise, you want approval,
you want acceptance, well you're not getting that from me, you don't
even get my sympathy. I hate you, I hate you! Look what you've done to
me!" Dan yelled, on the verge of tears himself. He picked up a small
surgical drill and thrust it into the doctor's chest.
"Look at me!" he cried again, pushing the drill deeper into the chest. Dan picked up the scalpel again.

"Why? Why did you do this to me?!" He stabbed the blade into the
doctor's chest, and tore down, ripping it open. "Why do you punish me?
I've done nothing to deserve this! I've done nothing wrong!" And with
one last maniacal outcry, he took the saw, and ran it all through the
doctor's chest, arms, legs, the entire body. And that was when two
armed police officers broke the door down, and dragged the bloody
Daniel Freeman from the mutilated corpse, blood curdling screams
ringing in their ears.

And so Daniel wound up with life in prison, taking weekly
psychiatric sessions, and mostly keeping to his own confines. He never
talked to the other inmates, never had any visitors, nor did he send or
receive any mail, so it came as a surprise to Daniel when he received
his dinner, that a package also slid through the hatch. Dan looked at
the package, and started blankly at the guard that had made the
delivery.
"Who's it from?" Dan asked. The guard said nothing. "Hey, guard! I'm
talking to you! Who's this package from?!" But again, he was met with
bitter silence. And in that momentary silence, Dan heard a sound coming
from the box... a tune of some sort. So Dan lifted the lid on the box
and pulled the item out. The tune was growing louder and louder, and
Dan slid the package into the corner of the cell. It was too wide to
fit between the bars, and he knew damn well that was intentional. He
also knew whom had sent the parcel. It was a jack-in-the-box. Dan
pressed himself up against the bars on his cell.
"Guard! Guard! Help, let me out! Let me out, let me out, let me out,
let me out!" But the guard stood firm, dedicated to averting his eyes
from the notorious prisoner. The music played innocently through Dan's
desperate pleads for help, but as the jack-in-the-box played its final
notes, the clown had his last laugh, barely containing his malevolent
grin behind his guard uniform, the game was over; click, boom.