1642 words (6 minute read)

Introduction: The Trauma

The sound of birds chirping wakes me from a deep sleep. I stretch as I sit up and look out the window, the sun is just barely peeking over the horizon. I yawn and run my hand through my hair before standing up. I smile to myself as I walk out to the bathroom. After relieving myself I walk over in front of the mirror and just take a second to look at myself. My brown hair is just starting to grey, my dark green eyes always emotionless, my mouth permanently turned up in a smirk. There are scars on my chest from the abuse that I experienced as a child. My father used to beat me, I never figured out why but it doesn’t bother me much now, the only thing I remember of it is my mother’s soft touch as she was treating me. My parents died in a tragic house fire when I was 19, I don’t know what caused it but it made me happy to finally have them gone.

I live by myself here, I have ever since my parents died. I found this quiet little place out in the country and it’s about an hour away from any civilization. The house is a ranch style with an old cellar that’s not visible from the outside. Everything in my house is kept neat, I have all of my books sorted alphabetically by author name, and I never leave any dishes out in the sink. I walk out in the hall and look over my neat living room before walking through toward the kitchen. I glance toward the cellar door as I walk past. No sound, I guess he’s not awake yet. Oh right, I forgot to mention that I don’t really live alone here, I did until two years ago. I found a homeless boy on one of my very few trips out to the town to pick up groceries and books. I took him in and now he lives in my cellar. He doesn’t eat much and he prefers to live down there rather than to bother me up here. My smirk gets bigger as I make my way into the kitchen to get a small bowl of cereal.

A few minutes after I sit to eat I hear the sound of chains clinking together. The smile spreads back across my face and I get up and rinse my bowl out before walking back over to the door to the cellar. I grab the key off the chest that sits opposite the door and unlock the door. The door creaks as I open it and look into an endless black hole. There is no natural light reaching this area, I did install lights a long time ago and now they are just really dim. I flip the switch and hear scraping against the cement floor as the kid moves away from the light. The lights lining the stairs slowly flicker on as I make my way down stopping at the rack that’s hanging on the wall half way down the stairs. I grab the belt off of it and walk down the rest of the stairs to see the kid cowering away from me, moving as far away as the chains would let him.

“Good morning, brat.” I greet him with a wicked smirk on my face and his eyes widen. He tries to scoot further but the chains are short so there isn’t anywhere for him to go. I step up so that I’m towering over him and he stares down at the ground visibly shaking. “You should look at me when I’m talking to you.” I say as I kick him onto his side. He doesn’t make a sound just lays there still staring at the ground, refusing to make eye contact. “Look at me dammit!” I yell as I bring the belt down on his side, he gasps and squeezes his eyes shut trying not to scream out at the pain. I reach down and grab his curly brown hair dragging him up to a sitting position before kneeling to his eye level. “Weren’t you ever taught to show respect to your elders?” I ask him. He looks back at me with dark eyes and a smirk on his face. I grab his hair again and slam his face into the ground before standing up and grabbing the belt that I had laid across one of the barrels. I raise it before he can recover and bring it down across his back. I bring it down five more times before I look at his face to see tears streaming through the blood. “You’re still such a crybaby. After all this time!” I yell while lashing the boy ten more times before he falls limp. I walk around in front of him and pick his face up again, passed out. I let out a short laugh, this brat was so happy when I first saw him, a smile on his face skipping down the streets of town going to run errands for his parents probably. It pissed me off to see someone looking like that, so I had to end it and it’s a great way for me to let off steam as long as I don’t kill him.

“Why don’t you just kill me? Isn’t that what you want?” I hear his tiny voice say. I look down at him to see that his eyes are still glazed over and he’s staring into the distance. I let out a sigh of relief and his eyes suddenly snap to mine. “Can’t you kill me?” He asks looking at me hopefully.

“No. I will not kill you. I want to keep you here for a long time.” I tell him with a smile on my face. He looks directly into my eyes with his very dark brown eyes and a smirk spreads across his face as his eyes widen just a bit making him look almost insane.

“I can.” He mumbles out. I feel a frown form on my face as I scoot away from him a bit.

“What can you do?” I question him. He looks at me and a few breathy laughs escape him before he answers.

“I can kill you.” He whispers before the vacant look comes back in his eyes and he slumps forward again. I quickly get off the floor and watch him for a few seconds to make sure that he’s really passed out this time before releasing him from the chains and taking him out to the bed of my truck. I throw him in and run back inside to grab my keys. I check to make sure he’s still in the bed of the truck before getting in the cab and driving off. I broke him, and now I have to take him where all broken people go.

 

 

The drive takes an hour but thankfully the asylum is the first thing once you enter civilization. It’s gated but the hospital is so run down that they don’t bother to keep the tight security. They tried to shut down a few years ago but they suddenly got a flood of patients from high class families so they kept it open but refused to clean it up. I pull my truck through the gate and around to the front of the old building. There are vines growing up the sides but they are all dead, there are a few broken windows in the front of the building, I smile at the thought of leaving this kid here. I park the truck and jump out grabbing the boy and quickly taking him inside. On the way in I work up the worried parent look and walk up to some dirt covered windows. I can barely see the nurse that’s sitting in the room on the other side.

“We don’t treat fainting victims.” Her voice sounds nasally coming through the glass. I sigh and look down at the boy in my arms.

“He’s not a fainting victim. Well, he did faint this time but he has been having psychotic episodes for a while now and today was his worst. He threatened to kill me.” I explain hoping that she will take him from me. I see her look down at the boy and then back up to me.

“What is your relationship to this boy? And what’s his name?” She asks.

“I’m his father,” I answer her quickly, “and his name is…Xavier.” I come up with a name and hope the pause isn’t too long but she doesn’t seem to notice that I paused at all. I smile to myself as she takes down the notes before quickly putting the mask of concern back on my face. She looks at me and then down at the boy.

“You can just leave him here. I’ll call the nurses to come pick him up. He will be headed straight to Isolation so that we can keep a closer eye on him.” She explains. I keep a hold of the boy and look at her.

“Will he get help there?” I ask. She sighs and looks down at the boy.

“Probably not. He’ll be there for the rest of his life if he has already gotten to the point of threatening to kill someone. You don’t need to worry, he will be comfortable during his stay here.” She tries to comfort me and I nod before turning away and letting a huge smirk spread across my face. I hope this boy doesn’t get help, he can rot in here, far away from me. I set him down on the dirt covered ground and walk out of the building with a skip in my step. I will not die today!


Next Chapter: First Meeting With The Doctor