The Vagrant (Onyxtrumpet x Apocallama)

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Whimsykiller

Edgepeasant
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“Midway upon the journey of life, I found myself within a forest dark, for the straightforward pathway had been lost.”
Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy



'Tranquil Springs Mental Health Facility: Where hope can be found!'

Or so the sign at the front of the paved driveway stated. Sitting left of the mile long stretch of road to the main facility, the sign for Tranquil Springs had seen better days. Dirt and grime caked on the old wooden slab, while the thick, golden painted letters had lost all sense of their intended luster. The paint had begun to chip and dry out, the outline of forest green and white base coating now revealing a good portion of the dry rotted wood underneath. Much to the chagrin of Superintendent John Simms, who oversees the daily operations of the facility, the sign is also lopsided. After a screw had come loose, a valiant few had tried in vain to return the wooden eye-sore to a level position. After a while it was decided that to alleviate the signs sideways nature, there would need to be a replacement slab of wood. But the budget was running thin as it was.

And so, the sign remained an eyes-sore.

That is not to say, the rest of the actual facility was much better than its sign. After traversing the mile of uneven concrete roadway, which was slowly becoming broken and cracked and bumpy by the mass of roots from the trees in the surrounding forest trying to retake its natural appearance, the main facility could be seen next to a man made lake. Its off-white and green coloring appeared to try and match the forest around it. It didn't succeed in the least. The only building that didn't seem like the original architects tried to camouflage it from the wildlife was, oddly enough, the only building that appeared natural in the area.

A large security tower, to be exact. Its steel grey coloring, and larger, obnoxious antenna who's very tip flashed red over and over, pulsating like a fading heartbeat that refused to cease. It was the control center for the facility, and with a brief radio transmission any number of functions could be accessed. From power, to lights, to even the doors and the main gate itself. If the tower didn't want you to leave...well, you weren't leaving.

The yard was in bloom, but that wasn't much of anything to speak about. Most of the plants were dead. The grass was a pretty green, though, which struck everyone who passed through the yard a little odd. What was worse, the residents of Tranquil Springs seemed to like the grass the way it was. So much so, there was an extra amount of mentally ill wailing from the grounds if any of the live-ins caught sight of so much as one blade of dead grass. This prompted staff to create a rule that during winter, all window shudders were to be closed. No exceptions.

The rooms of Tranquil springs were actually quite nice. Aside the obnoxious shade of baby blue and bubblegum pink to split the genders of the facility up, they had all the amenities of a bachelor pad without the kitchen. Or bachelorette, as the case is for our tale.

Today is an odd day. Even for a crazy house in the middle of nowhere.

In a particular room, on the top level of Tranquil springs, sits a girl who's life may not be normal. But who's life will become all the stranger still.
 
Please stop.

... We can get through this....

... HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA...

... Pathetic...

... I HATE YOU!!!...

... I like daffodils...

... THE PAIN!!!...

... Kill...
... HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA...

... Hate the meds...

... hello?...

... Kill NOW!...

... No more! PLEASE!...

... Hate it! Hate HATE HATE!!!...

... Demon...

... HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA...

... Just hold on...

... MAKE IT STOP!!!...

... so cold... so alone...

... They'll never believe you...

... MURDER...

... SO MUCH ANGER!...

... Where's my mommy?...

... AAAAAAAAHHHH!!!...
... HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA...

... Stop... please just... stop...


Morgan curled up in her bed, her hands clasping either side of her pounding head. The voices were so loud tonight. The meds were definitely not working. Why don't those idiots give her something that works?

The room was colder than usual. If she had been in the proper mindset, she would've noticed that it was probably nearing the cold seasons. Her bed smelled of traces of detergent, vomit, urine, and blood, to which the sheets were so frequently exposed that no amount of sterilizing could get rid of the scent. The rest of the room was a boring white: such a familiar monotony that it served no purpose in distracting her as it used to. Lying in the small space inside her fetal position, leaning against her stomach, Felicity kept her in the dull room, instead of getting lost inside the crowd of people in her head.

Just think about Felicity. She needs me. I have to care for her...

That incessant laughing in her head was drowning out her own thoughts. It seems that the more malevolent voices started getting louder as of late. One hand left the bruised and scarred skin of her scalp, and moved down to claw at the scabs on her throat, trying hard to break the skin and reach that critical vein that would end it all...

Then her head went silent.

Her eyes opened, face set in an expression of extreme puzzlement. She sat up in her bed.

"Hello?" she called out loud, as if the voices were people who stood just outside the room.
 
It was pure silence. Something Morgan hadn't experienced in a while, to be sure. The dull moonlight seeped through the closed shutters, cascading over the sheets, reaching to the lonely corners of the room. It was odd, this peaceful and abundant amount of quiet. It was as if the entire building were completely still, as if someone hit the pause button on a bad T.V. show to complain about it.

It was this, that caused enough distraction for Morgan to be unaware of the small shadow seeping into the crack of her window. It was a smokey, ink-black substance that flowed gingerly from the window sill to the floor. It stuck to the shadows, just out of the corner of her eye, pulsating and throbbing it's way across the floor until finally it sat in the corner. Swirling and curling in on itself, the black substance suddenly began to take form. It was, at this time, it broke its silence.

"Hello!" was its response. Upon saying this, the black cloud burst out, becoming nothing but grey vapor that billowed and churned upward as though it were embers of a fire.

Before Morgan, sitting back in the chair situated in the corner of her room, sat probably the most unusual man Morgan had ever seen. His hair was long, coal black, and unkept, sitting down over his face this way and that. His skin was pale. VERY pale...almost sickeningly so, with bright yellow eyes that seemed to have a hint of a playful sparkle in the dim moonlight. The playfulness of his eyes was in direct conflict with his face, which had an elongated look to it and seemed quite glum in comparison. He wore a puffy, well worn tan jacket with a hood that was currently down, along with a t shirt and jeans. A pair of converse sneakers completed the ensemble, which only added to the odd nature of this man.

In fact, you could say he almost had the stature of an aloof cat.
 
Morgan knew he wasn't real. It made no sense for him to be real. By now she was so used to questioning her senses that it was easy to brush something off when the probability of its actual occurrence was minute. However, in this gloomy, almost maddeningly persistent quiet, the most comfortable thing to do was to engage this non-person.

"Who are you supposed to be then?" she asked with a tone of contemptuous patronizing. Hallucinations have hurt her before, but pain is quite a familiar companion to her these days. She treated him the way an adult would treat a scraggly young street urchin.

To be honest, she looked more like the one who was dirty and worn. Her straight black hair fell in messy locks across her pale face and all over her shoulders, draping around the bandages that hid the worst of her cuts. Her skin was scabbed and bruised from her trying to keep her mind from exploding with the voices. Her nails were bloody, chipped, and caked with pieces of skin and hair. Her medicine gave her a relatively rosy complexion, but the slight darkening under her bloodshot eyes told the true story of her hardships. This bundle of pitiful blood and drugs clung ever-tightly to a child's doll. She was definitely the scragglier of the pair.

For a moment, she actually felt jealous of his nice, unstained clothing.
 
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