Overcast, page 1

The flourescent lights in the hospital flickered, dimmed for a few seconds then returned. Christine hit the wall with such a sickening force that the nearby cabinet nearly lost it's little plastic cup of dreams. Her black hair was wet with tears; it did nothing to detract from the feral appearence which her behaviour only enhanced, dragging to the fore of their mind memories of cases past. Cases where such patients, previous patients, had been... left.

Forsaken.

A cold rain hit against the window. Throwing his memory back two years Christine's doctor remembered the last time she was allowed out to feel any real weather upon her face. With a wry smile brushing the corner of his mouth he recalled the briskness of that winters morning. The crisp, dry leaves. The pleasure that she was coming on so well. He remembered. He remembered how cold her nails and fingers felt as she sunk them deep into his stomach by the trees; the orderlies rushing, restraining her. Grabbing him up and bearing him back to the ward. He remembered weeping not for the pain, but the fact he should have been smiling and grinning and feeling so fine... and that had been taken from him. He was brought back to the present with a start as Christine again slammed herself into the wall with force enough to make the doctor wince at what this would be doing to her body. Though only a vessel there was nevertheless a risk that, should her behaviour be allowed to continue in such a manner, it would provide only temporary defence to such abuse. His project would be damaged and he had become quite fond of it. His project... and not only quite but very, very fond. Not in the way it showed itself to the outside world. Not through it's actions expressed so distastefully in Christine. A smile flashed across his face at the absurdity of the thought. No, no. Not that, but the way it reacted to him. The way she, it, responded to the stimulus so well. It was almost... almost a ballet to deliver the various concoctions and watch as they worked there magic. Seeing the pattern change as he had predicted. He was what.. predator... stalking and using her mind so? Demanding? Maybe. The master? Definately. To see one of his children sing and dance so to his whim, unfettered by such clumsyness as physical movement. His was to be romanced by this most beautiful of arrangements. His eyes saw a love truer than any other. He was, after all, only the same; trying best to let himself be known to the rest of the world via this inept shell - offensive as it was. Here was all so pure, so clean. More eloquent that any verbal communication could ever aspire to. This was his then - his one, his jewel, his dearest Juliet. And he was lover, disciple and junkie, all true and wrapped into one. He was special, he knew his love with the cold intimacy of intellect and looked down with contemptuous disdain at the hands of others fumbling for expression.

The noise of the crash team rushing in jerked him back to the hospital with a force almost physical. He swore, feeling something in his neck twinge as he turned to view the commotion. He instantly swore again, this time at the sight that returned his gaze. Christine lay on her back one leg contorted up and behind her. Her twisted mat of black hair looked so thick as it could of almost acted as a cushion. It hadn't. There was a small, scarlet ribbon meandering it's way away from her head through the geometric valleys of the tiled floor as it's previous container lay cracked and open. The doctor frowned disbeliving and turned to an ashen faced man who, when finding himself upon the recieving end of such detatched confusion, tried to push himself further into the wall as if in attempt to escape before a great and terrible destiny awoke for him. He knew such confusion was only temporary. The orderly dropped the tray as the doctor spoke, 'Oaks...' Amidst such chaos appeared to settle a total and complete silence, between the two men. 'Oaks isn't it?' Oaks face lost what small colour it had managed to retain up until now. His two colleagues backed away, as if suddenly recalling how brief a time they had known him and how little his friendship, or wellbeing come to that, actually mattered to them. Especially when it came to any kind of comparison to their own. The anger within Dr. Court was so far beyond rage that not one flicker of emotion dared leak itself to the outside world. This was the reason fear was ever his journeying companion; already disgusted with the premature corpse he had to shuffle about in, he would not let it betray him. 'Are - you - Oaks?' Although asked softly there was such intent as to demand an answer rather than merely request one, delivered with punctuation just enough to allow each word ring out as the death knell it undoubtedly was. "Yes... yes sir. I am..." Cut short both excuse and reason died in the orderly's throat. Not even bothering to explain himself, to even offer the slightest defence against the inevitable Oaks left his sentence in mid air. His words abandoned him mid flow as if the instant they were free they wanted nothing more to do with him. And he nigh spat them out as if in some vain hope that the words themselves would become the subject of the doctor's attention and that he, unnoticed, might slip away. Far away. Tears swelled with both fear and rage rolled down his face by now, he had never wanted this damn job anyway. That's all it was to him, he couldn't care less about the perks he just needed the wage.

'Oaks..' The doctor let the letters of the name fall into the darkest recesses of his mind. Let them, with hatred, burn themselves into his memory; those that went to make up the name of that who had left his beloved so. His focus fell from the orderly's expression, now holding nothing excepting man's oldest fear, to Christine's glazed, worse than that lightless eyes then back to the orderly. 'You hit her?' he first asked with an air of incredulity. Then it came again, this time as a statement heavy with foul promise, 'You hit her.' Oaks closed his eyes. As he sobbed silently, bodily, the warm trickle that started in his pants gained momentum.

Jak