once again i own nothing
Warning: The following contains coarse language, violence, and excessive amounts of awesomeness. Please prepare your mind for blowing.
Chapter Two
Todd nudges his food slop with his spork. He licks his lips and looks away with disgust. He hasn’t had actual food in so long, and he’s too terrified to eat this slop. He’s scared of what will happen.
It’s been over a year since his parents abandoned him at the Defective Head Meat Institute, otherwise known as the Crazy House. It took him a while, but he finally realized that is the case: he’s stuck here and he’s never getting out.
It’s not all bad though. Todd has learned to fit in without actually fitting in. He realized on his first week here that the meds the doctors give the child patients don’t actually fix their problems; they just cover the problem up by making the child half-comatose so he doesn’t notice his problem.
Todd doesn’t like that, he likes being completely conscious. So he taught himself to act like a zombie whenever the doctors are around. That way they’ll think he’s taking his meds, and not force him to.
Best of all, Todd still has his best- and only- friend, his teddy bear Shmee.
The doctors have often tried to take Shmee away from Todd, but he never lets him. He’ll never let Shmee go. Fortunately, the doctors decided to let him keep the bear, since it doesn’t seem like much of a threat.
Shows what they know.
“Hungry, Todd?” Shmee asks.
Todd nods silently, not wanting to draw attention to himself. The guards always protect the doors in the cafeteria, cattle prods at the ready. He’s never been hit by one yet, but he’s seen what happens to those who have.
“I can sneak out and get you some food tonight if you want. What would you like? Cheese burger and fries?”
Todd licks his lips, drool already producing in his mouth, and nods again, this time more enthusiastically. Shmee is the whole reason Todd has been able to survive in the Crazy House. Nobody but him sees it, but Shmee can move and talk. He can even sneak out of this building completely undetected and bring back food for the starving boy.
Even though it seems completely impossible that a teddy bear can move, talk, and pick stuff up, and even more implausible that only Todd can perceive, he’s never once thought of Shmee as fake or a hallucination. Though he’s never asked why only he can see Shmee move, it’s still completely real to him.
An announcement rings over the intercom. Todd is the only patient who listens, or even hears it. And it surprises him.
“Todd Casil, please report to the visitor’s room.”
“Me?” Todd questions. For the first time in a long time, he forgets about his zombie illusion as well as all the guards and focuses on the slight bit of hope now rising within him.
“Who could be visiting me?” he asks Shmee, “my parents? Maybe someone has decided to adopt me? But how would they know about me?”
“I have a bad feeling about this,” Shmee comments from the boy’s hand.
Todd doesn’t reply as he enters the visitor’s room. It’s a small room with a couch, a chair, a table, and two armed guards at the only door. The first thing Todd notices are the open windows. He didn’t think any windows opened in this place.
The second thing he notices is his visitor. The messy hair, the dark eyes, the lanky figure, that smirk.
His knees start shaking, mostly out of surprise, and he steps back. Shmee growls and quickly runs up Todd’s arm to sit on his shoulder.
