Slimy tentacles wrapped around the man’s neck, slowly squeezing it until the man’s eyes began to close; he smiled and accepted his fate. “I no longer fear what you do, whatever comes next will be a better place than here.” A deafening scream came from the monster followed by a loud…snap.
“Wake up already, you useless s**t!” yelled a guard, who banged his baton on the cell door. The prisoner’s eyes shot open and he looked around, expecting the monster to still be there and was relieved to see he wasn’t. Then, his current situation came back to him..prison.
He lived in a prison for many years now, ten to be exact. He did terrible things and it wore on him; it was all on his face. The man stood at over six feet tall; his beard and bald head made him appear as if he were a crazed lumberjack. The interesting part about him was the scar over his left eye, which had completely taken his vision from that eye. He earned it during the crime which did him in: the murder of two people, a man and a woman, right in her own bedroom. The man in the bed reached for a lamp and cracked the attacker in the face.
This of course wasn’t why he was in this prison, no he was here because the last one couldn’t hold him. He used to be held out in Wyoming but, one thing lead to another and a riot began, all lead by a man named Mirg. A former cult leader, possibly even still is, but these weren’t problems that concerned 218. He used to be known by a different name, one that floated in and out of his shattered mind, sometimes inserting its memories and sometimes disappearing, silenced by the creature that made him kill his wife. “Come on 218, you want your w***e of a wife to see you…oh wait that’s right….”
The guard began to laugh after this comment, knowing he struck a chord. He thought himself high and mighty until a sudden…crack was heard. The guard laid almost motionless, his eyes tried to stay open despite a slow stream of blood that flowed from his temple. 218 struck him; that woman was his wife and the man, her boss, were the ones he killed while they made love. He never blamed his wife, only himself for not being there to help her and her slimy pig of a boss for corrupting her. He stood over the guard, smiling and red faced.
He picked him up and whispered in his ear, with a slow, deep welsh accent, “That man squealed, like the pig he was, when I ripped open his throat for insulting me. Guess what you’ll get. Come on, guess!” he screamed as he shook the man’s body violently.
218 smiled and spoke with gravel in his voice, “I’ll give you a hint, I like wearing new coats.” That would have been that, if it weren’t for the hundreds of volts now coursing through his back. He went into a rage, charging the guard who attacked him, but another round of shock therapy sent him to the ground, like a sack of potatoes.
He woke up in a hospital bed..could it be over, was he out, he thought…and then the prison psychologist, Dr. Valler walked in, damn. A whisper worked its way up, kill him, strangle him, start a riot again. ESCAPE! He tried to fight back, but to no avail.
He went to reach for the man, only to find himself restrained to the bed. The psychologist merely watched as the man tried to rip his hands out from the restraints. He knew not to get too close to him, rubbing the still recent discoloration around his neck. The last time John was in here Valler diagnosed him with schizophrenia; he never brought this forward to the court as evidence of his mental illness, which is what the lawyer pleaded for. Not like it would matter much, he’d only be put in a different prison, with a doctor who could care less for his mental health.
The psychologist inched closer; “John”, he spoke softly with his faint French accent, “This is not who you are. You can fight this.” 218’s eyes widened and he growled back at the psychologist with tears in his eyes
“John doesn’t exist anymore. He died long ago. He began to die when he killed his wife, then that cult leader out in Wyoming only encouraged me, kept calling me a wolf. Then when that zealot was killed He wanted to save him, so he asked me to help. I helped him to kill the man that killed his friend. See? I’m not always selfish, especially since I wanted that pastor dead. He listened to me that night and the one before that, the one that awakened me. In the end I did what was needed, I regret nothing I did that night.”
The psychologist watched the man cry as if he didn’t know he was at all. A conflict was happening in his head and John was losing.
Valler sighed, “So would you like to fill me in on what happened after the jailbreak finally?”
“Well we were on the run for awhile, a long while, then we met the zealot…”
“NO!”, The Dr. exasperated, “I want to know from John.”
“You don’t get that pleasantry Doc, he’s shut out the majority of it, not much left. He knows it’s sad but doesn’t know why, so you get me or you get nothing, you pseudo-science hippy.” 218 shot back.
“Fine then…what happened?”
“Summary: Lots of running, zealot loser took us in, believed in us, big mistake,” It laughed, “Houses and then lots of blood, from before and after, dunno really. There’s only so much I can recover.”
“How about before the pastor?” Valler asked, leaning closer.
“You’re asking too much doctor, that was a long while ago. Roughly two years of it, lean close and I can tell you.” It smiled.
Valler leaned in closer but still outside the reach of his mouth, one of the nurses now can’t put in earrings in her left ear anymore because of it.
“You can’t fool me monster, I know you too well.” His smile was replaced with a frown as 218 snapped up, headbutting Valler in the bridge of his nose. His head snapped back as blood began to flow.
“Sure you do doc, sure you do…” It lost it’s wicked smile, a deep frown replacing it and fear in his eyes. “Bryan…G******N IT!” he screamed as if to break the earth.
Valler rushed to his side, blood still flowing, “Calm down John, it’s me Valler, not Bryan…ssshhhh.” John slowly began to calm, tears flowing down his cheeks.
“I’m so sorry Doctor Valler, you know I didn’t mean to.” He said, regaining his composure.
“I know you are John and I know it wasn’t you that did it, it’s okay now.” A guard blew through the door with two more trailing behind him.
“What in the f**k is going on around here!” The leading guard named Lawrence, or more commonly known as The Law due to his iron fist over the prison, came marching up to Valler and John with his baton already out and ready.
“Lawrence..please don’t do this, it was an accident.” The doctor pleaded
“Shut your mouth hippy.” 218 began to laugh, a wicked smile spreading.
“Yes, there you go, I knew I wasn’t the only one.”
“Who said you could f*****g talk!” Lawrence cracked 218 across the face with his baton.
“Oh now that’s how I like it Lawerence, hit me like you hit your wife! Hit me until I want to leave too!” His cackling grew louder.
“Lawrence ignore him, it’s not him.” Valler said before being thrown to the ground. Lawrence, his face red as a beet, began to beat 218. His nose began to bleed and cuts formed, but the laughing didn’t stop. Lawrence reared back and slammed him straight in the face with the end of his baton, putting all his weight behind it. 218’s eyes snapped shut and head pulling hard to the right. Valler jumped up checking for breathing…nothing. A pulse…faint, very faint.
“Dammit Lawrence! You could have killed him, still might in this state.” Valler screamed, his accent becoming more apparent.
“Screw off Frenchy, he crossed a line, he deserves it.” Lawrence quipped. He was destroyed that night, the psychologist thought, anger rising, His psyche is completely shattered. He doesn’t know who he is anymore.
The psychologist stroked his greying musketeer-esque beard, leaving the room and muttering to the ground, swearing at Lawrence as he left.
The Law and his guards unbound John from the table and pulled him off. They dragged him, still nearly unconscious, back to his cell. As they passed Valler pacing further down the hallway, John’s head lolled towards him.
“I’m so sorry, Valler.” Valler came rushing up to hear his faint voice. “You were my only friend, I won’t let this happen ever again.” His head dropped again, and tears began to run down both of their faces, they both knew what the only way to assure that would be.
John tossed and turned all night, haunted by his memories: the monster whispering in his ear, the gun finding it’s target, the cracks of the gun and the blood, the blood that covered the bed. He would have done anything to rid himself of the monster. He shot awake to hisses and whispers, scared that the monster had come back for him. He knew it was close and didn’t want it to hurt him again, so..he tied a noose.
He tied it to the light swinging above him, stepped off his bed and ventured to hang himself. Unfortunately for John, the monster emerged and broke the fixture with a slimy black tentacle. The monster was an oily mass of tentacles with two eyes, one with a scar, the other filled with pure unadulterated anger. It picked him up and wrapped it’s tentacles around the man’s neck, squeezing the life out of him.
John’s eyes closed, he smiled and said, “I no longer fear what you do, whatever comes next will be a better place than here. Valler will be safe and Bryan avenged.” A deafening scream came from the monster followed by a loud…snap.
The next day the guards found John dead in his cell with a noose on his neck. They watched the footage and watched in curiosity as 218 awoke, whispering and muttering to himself. The video depicted his attempt to hang himself, but his weight brought the fixture down. His face grew angry, then peaceful as he strangled himself to death. However, to the guards’ horror, 218 screamed ear-piercingly loud before snapping his own neck.
It doesn’t matter though, what happened that night as 218 had killed himself. In prison he wasn’t John; he was 218, a number, a statistic. Like all the others who die in prison, he too will soon be forgotten, even his friend Valler will one day forget. His name forever lost to time.
