Haunted by the Past

Haunted by the Past

I stared up at the ceiling blankly, breathing slowly and gently as I relaxed with a blank mind. The calm air was a little chilly, but it’s nothing I could bear.

The room I was in was dark, but the moon light coming from the high, small, barbed window somewhat lit up to room. I would say I was alone, but I didn’t feel that way, I knew better than to think like that after my guilt consuming day.

“Monty…?” the faint, gentle voice of my friend whispered, barely audible but it echoed around my concrete room.

Maybe I should explain my situation.

Oo~~O~~oO

The room was quiet… well, save for the occasional shouts and maniacal laughter right outside the thick, metal doors. Nothing too surprising, though, I’ve gotten used to the insane peoples’ shenanigans that go around the buildings’ interior. Few are criminally insane, some went through traumatic experience, and the rest are just plain crazy. As for me? Well, I witnessed the death of a good friend, cracked and was immediately sent right to the madhouse when I was discovered by my good friend, Dawn.

It’s always a little dim here, but the sunlight coming from the small, barbed window near the ceiling provided enough light on its own. And when at night, (when I’m awake at least) I ask the nurse to leave me with a light to brighten up my plain, old wooden desk so I could write out my thoughts with a pencil, and make letters to my loved ones of how I was doing. A good advice I got from my very smart, kindest of friends when she came by to greet and check on me a while back.

At first when they threw me here, I was in a small room, surrounded by cushiony floor and walls with no lights and window, but I barely remember that part of time. I was too distressed and broken to acknowledge anything at the time. As time passed, I slowly started picking up the shattered pieces of myself, and convinced myself to be the good girl so I can get out.

A whole year and a half passed and I was beginning to feel better, but after what I witnessed, my mind slowed down than what it used to be. In shorter meaning, I turned into a regular, disturbed young woman, a feat I never thought I would ever reach in my life time. I was always out going; an extremist, searching for any danger that presented itself to me to be concord. I was alive! But… like everyone else like me… my luck ended when I fell and shattered the bones in both my legs while I slipped on a pile of gravel and fell down a rocky cliff and bounced off the jagged stone like a falling ragdoll. I was out for a whole month and a half, but finally woke up hooked up to a life support system in a Hospital of some city I’ve never been in, and to this day I can’t remember what the city or the Hospital itself were called but I never really cared about that.

A year later, I was back home in misery, remembering the Doctors saying that I needed to stop being adventurous because the bones in my legs and a little bit of my pelvis couldn’t bare and handle the stresses of such activities anymore. Some parts of my body had been casted as well, but my legs were the most important to me. I could still be a mother, they said I had a good chance of baring a baby but that didn’t stop me from mourning over my loss-My Life… The Doctors talked with my parents and friends in privet right outside the room, I heard them saying something about my head injury and whatnot but nothing more. I didn’t really care at that point.

Back home, I was in utter depression for a good half a year, barely speaking with my parents whenever they try to speak with me, but I was more comfortable talking with my best friend, June. I talked to her about my feelings and so on, and I even talked about the barely audible whispering voices that haunted my mind. She was there when I needed her; she distracted me from the voices that told me to do things, even though I never could understand them, but they gradually started disappearing as time went by.

Soon after, I was back on my two feet, now determined on making a new life for myself. So with baby steps and a little help from my friends and family, I got myself a nice little job at a kids’ restraint as an entertainer and a cashier. It was fun to say the least, I even found myself a nice guy, whom I started dating after a week of seeing one another.

Life was going great till I started blacking out and waking up in my own room a day later. My friends, family and boyfriend were worried about me and my strange behavior during the times I’m supposed to be unconscious. Soon enough, I connected the dots and found out something else takes over my body when I blackout. I started taking medicine, it helped for a few weeks, but this second conscience-this Parasite fought it back with great force, it made me blackout.

A month later, missing people reports started gradually pouring in through the news. I was worried to death that I thought I was the cause of these reports, but then again, these people never really lived ‘close by’ as to say. So, I prayed that I wasn’t the cause.

But then the day came… the day when my boyfriend went missing. The Police interviewed me and my friends, and his own friends to learn about his whereabouts but nothing proved useful. I was heartbroken, but… at the same time… at the very back of my mind… I felt the feeling of… achievement when the Police left. They never did find his body.

One day, when I was walking to work, I was crestfallen about the loss of my special somebody, but then I, once again, blacked out in the middle of the street… and when I woke… I shrieked to the top of my lungs at the sight in front of me. My best friend June was dead, tightly tied down onto an old wooden table, but that wasn’t the first thing I noticed about her. When I woke, all I saw and smelled was crimson blood staining every inch of my clothes, floor-everywhere! Her chest and stomach were ripped open for everyone to see, she was nude from head to toe, full of small and large cuts on her body and face and had rope burns on her wrists and ankles. The thing that set me off the most was her tear stained face, blood oozing out of her mouth and nose, her hair was a mess and her dead, lifeless, bloodshot eyes were as wide as they could get.

Soon after, I was discovered by my friend Dawn in my parents’ basement, my body curled up in a small ball in a darkened corner of the dark room, rocking myself back and forth as I slowly, gradually went crazy. I hardly remember what happened next, but I do remember being thrown into a small room in a straightjacket.

I can barely remember anything during my first… days? Weeks? Months even? I don’t know but when I started recovering, all I could remember was the dead body of my friend on a table and nothing else after that, but I did remember hiking up into the cliffs but I couldn’t remember what happened after. All I knew was that someone killed my close friend and that I went crazy after that. The nice Nurses and Doctors here were taking good care of me and told me that I could start making letters for my friends and family.

When they noticed I was beginning to mend myself together, they moved me in this nice little room, so much better than the bouncy one, although, sometimes I missed bouncing around the room when I was bored at times. I would roll up into a ball and just idly roll around happily and bounce off the cushioned walls.

As I sat on the edge of my bed, looking down at my hands, and blew away my hanging messy hair, I wondered about the friends and loved ones that I’ve left. Then the rusty lock in the door screeches and clicks. The mass of metal and bolts creaks open to show a new, uniformed nurse coming in, with a straitjacket hanging loosely from her hand.

She tosses the jacket over to me, “Court day, Monty.” She said coldly and walks out. I knew the routine; put on the jacket, face towards the high window, let the guard tie me up properly, put on a mask, and get lifted out the room by a wheel chair. I never knew why they always put the mask on me, but when I was in good behavior, they always take the tight jacket and mask off me and take me to the ‘Play Room’ as they called it.

As the guardsman pushes the chair along the hall with the nurse casually walking beside him, I looked around and nodded at the new friends I’ve made in the Hospital. I was friends with nearly every mad and somewhat sane person in the building, but I kept away from the criminally insane. They scare me a little.

When we reached a locked double door with a booth, the nurse gave the papers to another guard sitting within the booth, nodded at her and the double door unlocked in front of me as a buzzing green bulb lighted up right above.

I looked to my left as we started passing by windows, looking into the Play Room. The room was a big open room with a few desks and chairs and plushy toys to play with. Although, there weren’t many people in there at the moment; well, I mean it is early in the morning, who would be up at this hour? Well, I did, when I was outside that is, to work out and get some jogging done with a good friend… I miss her.

As we reached the end of the hall, I was placed against a wall, beside another strapped patient, whom was strapped on a chair just like I did, facing the floor with closed eyes like she was asleep.

I look to my left to look at her more closely and my eyes got wide when I saw it was one of the criminally insane patients I saw at the Play Room and around the building a couple times. I quickly looked away, in the hopes of her not noticing me, but luck was not with me today, it seemed.

“Good m-morning, Monty.”

Her voice carried a tone of malice and pure insanity and quickly followed by a humming chuckle that caused me to send a shiver up my spine. Her image alone caused a light, painful, needle like stinging to immerge within my head. She had a pale skin with dark brown hair tinted with crimson red like blood, permanently stained into it, like she takes tubs of blood and coats and bathe herself with it. She also had a few scares peppering her face like she went through a storm of razor blades before she got here. And lastly, her eyes. Those strange, sickly green eyes only carried hate, malice, misfortune and bubbles up undesirable hallucinations of my dead friend towards me and me alone, but to others; it always looked like she was trying to tell them something, pleading to them like a starved, homeless bum asking for some change.

“How are yoouu? Hmm?~” she asked in a singsong tone and I could feel her eyes piercing through my very soul.

I slowly and shakily looked at her with a forced chuckle and a smile, “Oh… y-you know… fine and happy… l-like always… he-heh…” I answered nervously and quickly looked away once more as the lights flickered above me, a slight chill now filling the mostly empty hall as barely audible sounds of people working echoed into the short hall.

“Oh, really?” she snickered, “Wanna hear why I got here? I hear you like stories.”

I shook my head fearfully and answered, “N-no thanks.”

“Oh come on, Monty. You used to Love stories.” She pressed on with baby-talk. I was pretty sure behind that mask of hers, she had her lips pursed up like a pouting, begging puppy.

“Ye-yes… b-but, I rather be waiting ri-”

“LOOK AT ME!!!”

I yelped and looked back at her, my whole body shaking and whimpering in fear, her eyes glaring daggers at me.

“Good, girl.~” She hissed with a malicious chuckle, “So… one day, in my little home… I hatched a plan to get back at my friend for embarrassing me with a prank in front of so many, Many kids and other adults in my own work place… So, I invited her to try out my new ‘candies’ I bought! When she finished at least a dozen or so, she collapsed on the floor like a discarded ragdoll…” she snickered as she saw my eyes getting wide. “So, I dragged her down to my dark basement and strapped her down onto a table. I brought out my tools that I… ‘barrowed’ from my neighbors, and when she woke, I-”

I looked away from her, tears started to flow down my cheeks as images started flashing in my head, “Stop!” I cried out, sniffling, “P-please… stop.” I pleaded as the old memories started bombarding me of my friend.

“I drew out my kitchen knife, and started telling her how I brought her there and why… oh, she amused me. Pleading to me like we were regular old friends, close buddies… pff… who needs friends, when you have a great specimen to dissect, hmm?”

“Please… just… p-please stop…” I continued to sob and plead as the memories switched to a lost memory of a gruesome seen of my friend, strapped to a table with her chest open for all to see. My tears beginning to flow freely as the memories burned, and the image of me holding onto a bloody knife flashed, my face grinning like a mad woman. I started to struggle against my jacket.

An insane, quiet laughter rang out all around us, at the same time the lights started to flicker more frequently. “Ooh… her pretty hands and scalp were so soft and perfect. I turned on some music and started dancing with my new and improved, manikin friend.” She started humming with a raspy voice and moved her head with the tune and started snickering. “Oh, I wish I could get out of this place and continue my new hobby… Oh! How about you, hmm? Do yah wanna help with my little project?” she chuckled sickly.

“STO-” I tried to yell back to silence the mad woman, but stopped as I saw her standing right in front of me, staring at me with her deep black holes to where her eyes used to be with blood leaking out of her eyelids. She towered over me like a menacing giant.

“Or what…” she hissed, her voice carrying another tone of a demonic creature.

“S-stay away from me!” I started to desperately struggle even more as she stepped closer, her hair now dripping with small drops of blood and her bloody feet scrapping across the floor like a worn out, clumpy paint brush. Her once healed scares were now open with blood and pus leaking out and bits of decaying bone and flesh showing off for the world to see. “Help! Someone! H-help!” I screamed for dear life as I struggled desperately against my straitjacket, my vision starting to blur slightly with my un-wiped tears.

She stepped closer with a dark expression, “Running away won’t help, Montela.” She said, her two-toned demonic voice causing more painful memories to immerge from the grave. “Running from your mistakes will definitely won’t help.” She placed a skinless, rotting hand my leg and stopped it dead cold from struggling with her deathly freezing digits. “I’m never going away, Monty…” she suddenly and forcefully pressed her cold shinned hands on me, to stop me from struggling entirely. “I’m going to keep you here until the day you die, in a deep… Dark… HOLE!” She suddenly opened her mouth, ripping apart her lips and cheeks with splatters of blood and pus, showing off her sharp, jagged, broken teeth, and her long tongue slithered out of her mouth, wrapping itself around my neck tightly like a snake, ready to swallow me whole.

“AAAAAAAAAAHH!!!” I screamed out my lungs, hopping for someone to hear me. The last of my buried memories poured in like a raging torrent. The images of me holding the knife, my struggling terrified friend, and what I did to everyone I pulled from society and their families. My realization hit me like I got a kick from a full grown Stallion; I was guilty of Manslaughter.

“Miss Tooler!” I opened my teary eyes to see the decaying corpse replaced by a nurse, her warm, firm hands placed on me to prevent me from moving any further.

I quickly started darting my head from side to side, to try and find some evidence of the bloody woman. The blood on the floor was gone, the tightness around my neck was nonexistent and an empty wheel chair was resting to my side. “Where… where’d she’d go!?” I asked desperately, fearing she might come back to torment me.

“What? No other person was here, but you.” she with a shake of her head; she got off of me and started pushing me through another set of doors.

She wheeled me into a little room filled with different people. Behind the middle podium sat the Judge, a small gathering of people sat in front of him, looking at me with different expressions, leaving many seats untouched.

Most of all, I saw my friends and family. My three remaining friends wore pained and sad expressions, but Rose looked like she was going to break down right there, while Shelly continued to wipe her friends’ eyes and cheeks with tissue papers tenderly with a solemn expression.

As the nurse wheeled me beside the second, smaller podium, an officer took me off the chair and sat me down forcefully onto the chair. To my horror, all the chairs and the once free spaces all over the room were now being occupied with decaying bodies of countless people, glaring at me and me alone with dead eyes, but one stood out, and that was the bloody, green eyed demon, hovering over my… her friends, glaring daggers at me, her ripped cheeks still dripping out blood, as well as from her eyes and open wounds.

Like a ton of bricks falling onto me, my suppressed memories once more flooded in with a single look of that ghostly woman, reminding me why I was here. I couldn’t wipe my eyes with the mask and straightjacket on, as the horrid thing I have done to one of my best friends… and the feeling of accomplishment that came with it. I hated it all. I wanted to throw myself in a deep dark hole and just wither away in despair like what she said. A small smile formed on the womans’ pale face, knowing exactly how I felt and what I did to deserve to be here.

Why am I here anyways!? They already know what I have done! Who in their right mind; want me Out!?

When Dawn stepped forward in a formal clothing, I instantly knew and glared at her as she started to speak, “As the reports and letters show, Montela Tooler, or otherwise known as Monty, has recovered substantially, and-” I cut her off before she went on.

“No I Have Not!” my outburst caught every living being in the room off guard, but the decaying corpses didn’t flinch one bit, but seemed to smile and smirk. “You Saw What I’ve Done To June, Dawn! You Should Know What I’ve Done To Countless Other People With Just Junes’ Body Alone!” everything was quiet as I finished my confession and started taking deep breaths to calm myself as best as I could. I looked at the nurse and nudged my head towards my stunned friend, “Go on ahead! Tell them what I did just outside.” I demanded.

“B-but your letters.” Dawn stuttered.

I looked at her as she started taking out my countless letters from her satchel, “Look at my letters! Look what I did to myself! I was telling myself lies so I wouldn’t remember! A moment ago, I realized what I’ve done and I deserve to be here-I Want to be here…” I hung my head as my tears started pouring down, “Why bother taking me back… I’m sick beyond repair…” I whispered.

When the court ended, I was taken back to my room and left there sitting on my bed. The judge declared that, ‘I was to be here in the Hospital for the rest of my natural life’… his final judgement couldn’t make me happier.

The room was quiet and a little dim because of the cloud covered sky, but I heard countless screams of agony and pain within my head, reminding me why I was sent here and who I was used to be. I look to my side with my eyes and saw the bloody haired woman sitting beside me, noticing the blood have stopped leaking out of her. I looked at her as she just stared at the wall before us for a few moments before I looked back down at my hands and feet. It didn’t matter anymore if she was just in my imagination caused by my broken mind or not, it just felt good to see her again.

“So… what are you going to do to me?” I whispered.

“I will haunt you, Monty, as well as many other lives you’ve ended. But… we will merely remind you, nothing more… You confessed your wrong doing.” She answered as a bit of her natural color started to show, her cuts healed somewhat and her split mouth returned to normal.

I smiled sadly, “Thank you, June… p-please… stay with me?” I asked as fresh tears started to form, fearing I might be alone in my new home.

She nodded, “I will, Monty.” She looked at me and made a small smile of her own. “We are best friends after all. I never leave a friend behind.” She said as many other floating bodies watched us within the small room like curious cameras.

This might not be the best new start to my life here, but… at least I had my friend to keep me company.