paper love | edward nygma

Chapter 37 ○ Strange

Narrator's POV

Edward had been transferred to the Asylum three weeks ago. He was beginning to feel at home with the crazies next to him. He loved the activities at the asylum where you could play chess with the fellow inmates. Sure, most of them were too delusional to even play chess, but at least Edward won every single time. It got his mind off of Grace, so that was the best part. He started to forget the crime he committed. Most of all, he was dedicated to getting out of the asylum.

Grace's story was different. She was brought to the asylum, but as a dead body. Hugo Strange had told the police that he would take care of everything. He was indeed a strange man. Hugo had been in trouble with the police before for practicing medicine without an official license. He also was caught mistreating patients, but since he was wealthy, he bought a lawyer to get him out of it and called it an "extreme type of therapy."

There were rumors of experiments being done at Arkham. Well, this had been true. Below the rickety floors of the asylum and the patchy paint on the walls, there were cells, each containing different specimens. Of course, these things weren't specimens, but instead people. Hugo would try to perfect a hybrid of an animal and a human, but most of the time it just failed. These people would be left to die if they weren't up to his criteria. 

His next experiment would naturally be Grace. He wanted to do something different. Hugo wanted to bring someone back to life. It had never been done before, but he wanted to change that. He called his assistant nurse, Ethel Peabody, into his office. "Miss Peabody, is the subject ready for testing?" She looked at her clipboard and sighed. "Well, unfortunately no. We still need to prepare the proper living conditions and we need the proper tools for the experiment." 

Hugo Strange was not pleased with this. "I don't care. We will do it anyway. Prepare the room." She walked out of his office quickly and Hugo was left by himself. "This will be the start of the new age. I will create beings that defy all known laws of science. I will be God himself!" He took off to the room where they would be testing.

** TIME SKIP -  3 Hours Later**

"Is it done, Miss Peabody?" Hugo strange squinted at Ethel, hoping the answer was yes, and indeed it was. "Yes professor, shall we proceed?" He pushed past her and went into the room. On the chair was Grace. Her skin was pale and cold, and there was no sign of life. "This will do just fine. Hand me the wires." She grabbed the electrical wires which had openings at the end to be attached to small adhesive stickers. He grabbed them greedily.

"Turn the machine on to one million volts." Ethel looked at him with wide eyes. "Professor, that will disintegrate the body!" Strange stared at the body and squinted. "DO IT." With that, Ethel turned on the machine, and energy surged through it. Hugo one by one stuck the wires on the adhesive stickers and watched. It was a grueling wait. He was excited to know if he could play God and bring people back from life. He could certainly kill people, but this was different.

There was slight movement. Her fingers and eyelids started to twitch. Hugo's eyes grew wide with excitement. This could be it! The world could be at his fingertips. People would be on their knees begging that they could be reborn by him.  It would be glorious. "Miss Peabody, turn the voltage up." She cranked the knob of the machine towards the right so that there would be more watts of electricity flowing throughout it. 

Grace's body started to shake. It was almost like a seizure, but he was certain it wasn't. Then, without warning, the body sprung up to a sitting position and Grace's eyes opened. The sight was astonishing. They had never seen anything like this. Her eyes glowed bright green and stared directly at the wall. 

She started to take deep breaths of air. Her skin slowly started to gain pigment in areas that were previously pale. "Hello, my daughter. I think it's time we met. You may notice some changes soon, but don't worry, these are good things. Good things happen to good people." Hugo smiled slightly and thought about the power he would soon have. He was lying about the daughter part, but she wouldn't know that, right?