The Madness of Mania (Frerard AU)

Chapter 2

You would think after all this time, deprived of sunlight, I would miss the outside breeze - but no. Not one bit. I've always enjoyed lurking in the shadows, like a vampire you might say. Not that I have had much experience with the outside world.

As the guards' conversation grew slightly more audible, they pulled my from the dialogue of my mind.

"Hey! Can you hear that?" I giggled absentmindedly.

Michael paused, showing his 'I'm not in the mood' expression. "What? What is it Gerard?"

A smirk spread across my face.

"Tick...tock..." I began slowly, "tick, tock, ticktockticktock TICKTOCKTICK-" I screamed excitedly, acknowledging the new sounds my mind had created, until I was rudely interrupted by my beloved Michael.

"That's enough!" He screeched.

"Awh, come on, I was sharing the funny noises with you..." I pouted, bowing my head in shame. "They're like my best friends!" I continued, keeping up my childish game, "Just like you are!"

"I am not your friend."

He was stern. Not even I could sense a falter in his tone. The other guard stared at me, looking me up and down.

I was, however, definitely not afraid of him. If anything, I was proud of him for thinking he could phase me, or was that a feeling of amusement?

"You know, my brother was called Michael" I said, almost absentmindedly. Despite the high concentration of benzodiazepines in my system, I felt a pang of sadness. "He would have been nineteen last week."

"Well it's a shame you killed him," Michael stated apathetically.

"Hmm, a shame indeed," I retorted.

I spent the next few weeks in that cell in silence. I didn't speak a word. Not once.

For my plan to have any chance of success, I needed to prove to the asylum that I was 'cured' of whatever they thought I had, or at least showing signs of improvement. Of course many of the guards, including my dearest Michael, became rather skeptical of my recent behaviour; their paranoid hushed conversations, implying I might suddenly snap.

Well, they're not entirely incorrect.

Those weeks of silence allowed me to evaluate the past few years in a blissful state of solitude. Not once have I mourned my mother and father's tragic demise.

I have always had a morbid fascination with death; so much so that I would scribble somber phrases such as 'death' and its synonyms on the basement walls, commonly known to me as my bedroom walls. To this day, the walls are still covered.

I would sit in the centre of the room, knees to my chest rocking back and forth, eyes wide, emotionless. No windows. No sunlight. No interaction with the outside world. Well, almost no interaction - on the odd occasion, my brother Michael would pay me a visit, I however called him Mikey, the shortened name was better suited to him.

In all honesty, he was the only preferred person whom I shared blood with, despite him being the sole reason I was left and neglected by my parents...but he couldn't entirely help that could he now? We don't choose to be born, to be raised on a planet, in a world that brings us pain and suffering. Our lives, our futures are already dictated before we are even birthed.

Mikey, however, saw how my parents treated me, or didn't treat me for that matter - before the day I murdered them, I hadn't seen them in over two years. They wanted to forget about me. To forget my existence on this wretched Earth.

My survival often depended on the butler whom delivered me food, he wasn't much older than myself, perhaps a year or two older. I'd be lying if I said I didn't find him interesting, or most importantly, attractive.

Mikey's visits, however, often involved a comment on my pale, vampiric complexion, but that was the least of my worries.

His attempts of keeping me company were short lived; once my megalomaniac parents discovered I had the presence of Mikey, they went berserk. They threatened to ship Mikey off to boarding school in England. Poor kid. So I snapped. I slit the butler's throat with the knife from my steak dinner (it was a shame really), stabbed my father in the chest and pushed my thumbs into his eyes until they bled, then snapped his neck, and once collecting my fathers hand pistol I knew he had from over 10 years ago, I blew my mother's brains against the ceiling, then stabbed her freshly dead corpse in the arms, legs and torso multiple times.

Still crouched over the corpses like a bloodthirsty, rabid animal, I turned to face Mikey with a wide grin.

He stood there petrified, like a deer in headlights. It wasn't my fault, they drove me to this.

"D...d-dont do this," he stuttered. "Please."

I pulled a mockingly shocked expression, knife in one hand, gun in the other. "Do what Mikey? You mean kill you, don't you?"

His eyes glanced from one of my hands to the other with a nervous frown spread across his face. He backed up to the wall.

"What? Oh I would never!" I exclaimed, slowly approaching him. I wasn't entirely mad with Mikey, mostly I was mad with my parents.

He was only fifteen, and so naive. I stood a few inches away from his face, slightly surprised that he hadn't made any attempt of running. He was physically trembling, not believing a word I said.

"You know, you're a start kid Mikey." I smiled, genuinely. "It'd be a shame to see that intelligence go to waste."

I impaled his leg with the steak knife, waiting for the tortured scream that followed.

I removed the knife from his leg, witnessing the blood spurt from the artery I apparently hit - he wouldn't last more than a few minutes in that state. I left the scene, walking away from the sound of Mikey's body slumping to the floor with a thud as he grabbed his thigh in agony.

Licking the blood off of the knife, I continued my stroll out of my house, greeted by the wonderful sight of flashing blue and red lights, to which a mighty voice demanded me to drop my weapons.

My recollection of how I ended up in this asylum almost brought a tear to my eye; a story with such beauty should surely be published!

My attention was pulled away from my mind as the door to my homely cell clanged open. My guard Michael walked in along with a few psychiatrists.

"Good morning, Gerard." Michael greeted, a slightly happier tone to his voice. "How are you today?" He continued.

"Hello! I'm rather well thank you." I exclaimed in the most enthusiastic voice I could muster, even though I hadn't used my voice in quite a while.

"The psychiatrists here will be asking you a few questions today, in the hope that we can move you to minimum security!"

It was perfect. An even easier escape.

"Of course." I smiled sweetly.

After a few hours, I was walking through the hallways to the minimum security area - I apparently showed signs of dramatic improvement and no longer proved a threat to anyone. People will believe anything when you tell them what they want to hear.