And Then The Murders Began

Chapter Twenty-Nine: Shut Up Or Put Up

Once again, my brain decides that the best way to deal with getting overwhelmed is to wake me up with one hell of a pounding headache, and ah fuck they've still got me muzzled. I don't know how smart these people are though, they haven't bothered to cuff me, not to my self, not to the bed, nothing. Is this a trick? The walls aren't padded in here, and the sooner that I can get my sorry hide out of here, the better so that way I don't end up like Robin, involuntarily committed up to and surpassing the point where it's definitely something needed because the woman went and lost it- and you know, I don't mean to be cheeky or cheesy or anything, but she had seriously gone nuts by the time that she landed with both of us- not that it was permanent or anything okay I need to stop before I manage to let myself say something else that's completely ableist as all get out-

-and I need to just freaking get to work but no, there's a muzzle on my face and my head is still spinning and everything is still swimming and anything that I try to do makes my stomach hurt more and more and more...

I just need to lay back and think about everything, think think think as hard as I can manage without making my now slightly even more addled than normal brain hurt from the pressure of trying to think too hard. It doesn't happen to me very often, and I can hear my stepfather's voice cackling back there that the reason for that is because I don't think at all most of the time so of freaking course it would hurt, Electra, you're stretching muscles that don't get all that much use.

Translation, Electra, you're a fucking idiot- and of course that's not true, Lex Stehlen is no idiot. They may be a fool most days but they're not an idiot- and somehow I've gotten into the groove of referring to myself in the third person? What the hell's with that?

I just need this headache to go away, that's what I need... am I allergic to fur, is that part of it? Was I mostly sans fur for so long that I've become allergic to myself? That would freaking suck, but ya know what, I'd deal- I'm just glad, I guess, that when it really comes down to things, I've managed to stay alive for as long as I have. That's an accomplishment, I guess, considering everything that I've been through?

Or maybe it's not and I'm just patting myself on the back for nothing?

Oh hey, here's a nurse, freaking finally, and they take the muzzle off- I could've, I totally could've, but I know all too well by now how the system works and I'm not too keen on getting myself thrown into one of those places because I know for sure that I'd never manage to get myself out, and the best way to stay completely safe in this sort of situation is to play dumb.... or at least that's what my mother would have told me.

Despite all the people like me on this planet, barely any humans have bothered to learn Jerenteka, and even those who have aren't the greatest at picking out words when they're not spoken in an accent that they're used to... the best way that I can describe mine when I speak like that is a bastard child of German and Russian? Not like it really freaking matters, brain please focus on what's in front of you in the real world instead of living inside, alright?

"You're Electra, right?" they ask me, and I nod.

"I prefer Lex, but yeah, that's me," I say, just willing the pain to go away, go away, go the fucking hell away because I don't want to deal with it right now...

-but no, see here's the thing, growth only happens because of pressure and strain and stress that then has to be overcome, not avoided. Why it's taken me nineteen years- maybe it's only eighteen and some but whatever, I'm nineteen- freaking hell, nineteen years to figure this shit out, what the hell took me so freaking long? I should have figured most of this out by now, right? You would think that, hey, I'm a responsible adult, I know my shit, but is that proving itself to be true more often than not? These days, not really?