Mature themes warning. This story is full of violence. Contains suicidal ideation.
A hand covered my mouth, preventing me from crying out loudly, while the man looked down to give me an evil smile. His stronger arms and legs had me pinned down and he was thrusting in and out with enjoyment, occasionally glancing out through the window to where my professor was waiting for me to show up for our meeting. Tears trickled down my cheeks while I struggled futilely.
"You sure you want your beloved professor to see you like this, in this state?" my professor's rival smirked at me. "Tsk, tsk, tsk, what would he think of you after finding out that you've had indecent relationships. Even if he finds out that I forced you, he'll still be disgusted with you and never be able to trust you again. Your senior students out there. What would they think of such a frivolous whore like you being in the team? Of course, they'd clamour to kick you out. They might even take you out into this backroom themselves to teach you a lesson just like I have. This should teach you a lesson not to meddle in things you shouldn't. Or to show how far their regard for you has fallen."
I glared at the seemingly prim and proper older man who had always seemed such a stickler for rules. He was just a snake in disguise. He only chuckled.
"I've given you a drug that will release needy pheromones that attract the opposite sex for the next twenty-four hours. It's my newest secret concoction. I wonder how many men will have taken you down by this time tomorrow. Once I'm done with you, you'll remain mute, half blind and half deaf, until you return to grovel at my feet for mercy. Then when I've finished putting you through your paces to see what you've learned in the past twenty-four hours and have obtained all the data I need from you as a test subject, I'll allow you some reprieve before locking you in my basement to spend the rest of your miserable life either giving me somewhere to vent or to use as a test subject as needed."
My body, influenced by his ruthless drug, rutted together with him despite my screaming captive mind being dragged along into this cesspit. At the same time, I grappled weakly, still trying to push him away.
Not long later, I was pushed out of the back room in my dishevelled clothes. While I was fixing my clothes and appearance, a strange silence fell over the area. When I lifted my head, I found the senior students on my professor's team looking at me strangely while sniffing the air. Only my professor acted normal.
"Trua, are you alright? You look pale and as if you've been crying?" he approached me and took me by the hand, leading me on my unsteady feet, seeming to not notice my strange gait. He led me toward the usually empty classroom that was seldom used for anything more than meetings or team parties.
I didn't know how to tell him or confess and tears streamed down my face while I choked and coughed on my own mucous. I could barely see through my tears and swollen eyes. Sounds seemed muffled. As if coming from underwater.
The classroom door was locked and a box of tissues brought over to me. I noticed one of the seniors kindly closing the blinds on all the windows and covering up the door window with paper and sticky tape so that nobody would be able to witness me having a breakdown.
"Tell me what's wrong," my elderly professor said with gentle eyes, holding my hand and patting me on the back, while he sat me on the old wooden pew bench that might have come from a church, once upon a time. "Is there anything I can do to help?"
I allowed the grandfather like figure to envelope me in a gentle hug and didn't resist when my seniors helped me to remove my shoes and socks, thinking they were just trying to help me relax and feel comfortable. It wasn't until creeping hands inside my clothes gave me warning that I stiffened up and looked at my professor with betrayed alarm.
It felt as if I had been both stabbed in the back and in the heart.
"Darling, there's only one reason why any of us older professors accept pretty young women like you onto our teams. Research is difficult and the teams need some way to vent our frustrations. I take it someone did that to you just now? Since you've been inducted, it's only fair that you continue to gain experience. You're doing this for the team and the good of our research, understand? I wanted to induct you last month, but everyone was too busy. Now that we have a bit more time, it's about time you fulfilled your role."
"No. N-n-no. No, no, no, no," was all I could say, fighting the wizened hands and more robust hands of my seniors with my already fatigued body, while I was undressed and painfully smacked and spanked into obedience.
"You smell so nice today. So enticing. If you hadn't wanted us to touch you for a little longer, you should have been more careful."
I was careful. I had been careful. This wasn't my fault. How was any of this my fault? I normally wore knee length skirts and long sleeved blouses. Was this not careful enough? It had only been my curiosity and slight animosity that had led me to arrive early to see if I could take a peek at the oppositions project and been caught. Alright. So perhaps I hadn't been careful enough there, but that shouldn't have been enough for anyone to think I deserved to be harmed in this way.
My respected seniors and my honourable professor took turns with me, enjoying my body so much that they went for several round. All of them made sure that they finished inside me and then used something to plug my tunnel to keep the juices inside.
"It will be even better if you get pregnant," they told me."Then we will all take even better care of you and the baby."
Who would trust any of these perverts to take the responsibility to care for me or their baby when they hadn't even done their proper duty - which was to keep their rotten hands off me and let me work as an equal member of the research team.
The shadows had all merged into one big inky patch of darkness and wind whistled between the tree branches, singing a mourning dirge. All the smells of the world were whisked away, making me feel better, in that it was unlikely for anyone to smell me right now. Since it was dark, barely anyone would be able to see me either.
I left the campus in the biting wind of the late night, stumbling and staggering blindly, no longer able to see or hear clearly. My throat had gone stiff and I could barely make a sound anymore.
The rival professor's team had found me after my team had been done with me. I had been trying to leave the building surreptitiously , but after a sniff, they had come running. The girl on their team had been relieved to be able to escape their attentions and had watched with critical eyes, giving advice from the side on how they could stimulate me more and harder. The rival professor had been thrilled to have the opportunity to inject a new drug into my abused holes that would heighten my sensations and arousal, so that I would come harder.
Other teams that were working extra hours, having heard that there was a free 'comforter' in the empty classroom, had put aside their work to have some time with me. My body loved and accepted each man, boy and old fart who decided to use and abuse me. They even played a game to see how much accumulated fluids could be pumped into me until a scuffle broke out over how they should measure the volume in me. It was during the scuffle that I managed to grab my clothes and escape to a bathroom.
Outside in the cold wind, I tried to hug myself a little tighter in order to protect myself from the cold. This night, every person I came across would be designated an enemy. If I survived tonight, I was going to kill all those monsters.
Wait. Why not do it now?
Although I was half blind, half deaf and unable to speak, there was nothing wrong with my sense of touch and ability to move my body. Using my student ID with its additional security tag, I re-entered the building of my recently acquired nightmares in order to slip into the chemistry lab storage rooms. One normally needed special clearance and permission to take anything from here, but it wasn't like I was going to be coming back to this corrupt university ever again after tonight.
Collecting the bottles of chemicals I needed, peering through blurry eyes at labels, I found my way into the physics labs and the engineering labs in their respective buildings, collecting all the equipment I was going to need to tell the world what I thought of this place. I may not have any evidence to prove my innocence to the greater world, but that didn't matter.
It would be retribution. Hell fire and brimstone. It would rain debris and ruin.
The good thing about being a good student whose studies takes them through multiple disciplines and provides access to so many labs and their equipment, was that I could obtain everything and anything I needed. My professors had taught me how to make some rudimentary and very powerful incendiary devices with the simple chemicals and equipment available in the uni. All that knowledge was now going to come in handy.
In a seldom used disabled toilet, I assembled my devices. By the time I was done, the sun was coming back up, the air was frigid and my nose was cold. My fingers felt stiff.
I tilted my head and stretched all my tense and tight joints, causing popping sounds from various joints in my back. Having done the emergency fire training for all these departments, I knew where all the fire zones were and where all the main structural weaknesses of most of these buildings were. I wasn't about to miss any of them out.
Before the sun had fully emerged, I had distributed all my presents to all the relevant buildings, giving especial attention to the main study areas and labs of the various teams that had assaulted me last night. None of them were innocent. Those I hated more received additional potentially lethal shrapnel in their gift packages. Some of them were even linked to chained explosives in order to frighten the teams and give them some hope.
From a hidden location, I watched people arrive, fiddling with the switch in my pocket and wondering whether the timer on some of the devices would be too long or too short. With my fellow students being at least as smart as I was, some even smarter, I had made sure to hide the devices as best as I could. Even so, I couldn't guarantee that at least one device wouldn't be found by accident, causing the alarm to be set off and potentially sparing the miserable lives of some of the monsters. I would settle for maiming or killing most of them if I couldn't get them all. It would serve as a warning to the survivors.
Using aerolised knockout drops and gas, I managed to catch a few people unawares, securing them in that dreaded empty classroom using electrical cords and sticky tape. I needed to capture as many of the targets as possible so that they could be eliminated in one fell swoop. It wasn't easy avoiding the eyes of people who could potentially ruin the whole plan.
The old farts had said that most of the professors were in on the scamming and targeting of eager young female students. Therefore none of them would be spared. I didn't care how guilty or pseudo innocent they might be. They probably all knew about it but some just looked the other way. Either way, they were guilty.
I ran out of ways to capture students and professors as I ran out of chemicals and stamina. And then I was caught by one of my seniors, scolded for arriving late and dragged into the team room where people were waiting to deal with me. They laughed to see that I had not even been home to get changed or shower. Some used me on one side of the room while they worked in rotation to continue the experiments and research.
"You're awfully quiet today," one of my seniors commented. "You're not enjoying this anymore? You're pretty swollen and raw down there now."
In reality, the drugs were wearing off. On the other hand, I was biding my time. Either the timers would complete their countdown or I would somehow get back to my clothes and the switch in my pocket. Whatever came first.
Eventually, the team seeing that I was calm and seemed to have accepted my position, left me alone to do their work. I picked up my clothes, roughly got dressed, swaying like a drunken sailor, and left the room feeling sick. My professor had given me a gentle smile as I left.
"I knew I picked the best girl," he said. "You're so smart."
Giving him a wan not-smile, I had exited the lab and out of sight from anyone in the lab, pressed myself up against the wall in an attempt not to have another meltdown right there and then. There were more important things to do.
The switch in my pocket was only a short range radio transmitter. Only the devices within range would be triggered. That was unless I used a more powerful transmitter. I didn't mind. Travelling around the campus in order to ensure targeted revenge felt better than a massive blowing up before it was my turn.
From around the corner of the lab, I flipped the switch. There was a pregnant second and then a powerful explosion rocked the building. It made me smile.
Next.
The emergency evacuation siren sounded, punctured by other explosions as I visited all the places where I had left my presents. Nevermind the timers. I couldn't wait any longer. The explosions, chaotic screaming and sirens were like music to my ears.
Seeing some teams had already escaped and evacuated, I collected their gifts and slipped them into a wide lab coat pocket of one culprit around whom his team was standing in the emergency assembly area. Other people seemed far away enough. While they were doing a head count, I walked away and flipped the switch.
A sizzling bang from behind me made me stumble while a fine spray of blood coupled with screams filled the area. A sharp pain stabbed into my side. With a shaky hand, I pulled out a bloody nail with a grimace. The pain reminded me that I was still alive and still had work to do.
I continued to visit the other emergency assembly areas, finding that I had managed to take out over half the targets. The thought made me grimace with disgust at my poor planning. I should have just used the more powerful radio transmitter after all.
I slipped back indoors to where a younger professor that was usually bullied by the older professors was carrying one of my slapdash devices with a frown, trying to figure out what it was.
"I saw you acting sneaky and putting this in that lab over there earlier," the professor frowned at me.
I didn't know the man exactly, but he was known as a strict but fair man who disdained foul play. Which meant, he wasn't on the kill list. He was likely innocent. Not that I believed he was completely innocent but that for some irrational reason, I strongly felt the need to believe that at least one professor hadn't been corrupted.
Much as I now hated this world and was sceptical about the innocence of anyone I met, I wanted to give the man whom I had seen quietly deal with cheats and bullies before the benefit of doubt. I wanted to believe yhat he truly was a fair and just man.
The device was leaking. I could see it. Fluids were dripping on the floor.
"I don't care what game or prank you are playing, but this kind of behaviour is absolutely unacceptable. It is not on," he told me, looking at me in disgust. Disgust was correct. I was a dirty, corrupted, disgusting being. Had been since yesterday.
And because he was a good man, I didn't have the heart to see him die with me here today.
"It's leaking," I shouted in a hoarse voice, lunging forwards and knocking the device out of his hand, batting it flying down the corridor before he could get burnt by the acid.
Before the man could react, I tackled him into the nearest lab room just as the explosion rushed through the corridor, focussed by the walls into a long fire snake. The glass windows of the corridor and along the corridor wall of the lab all shattered onwards away from the explosion, some shards falling to stab me. Plumes of flames sucked out the air, stifling us for a moment, while the radiant heat lashed out at us through the still open door, followed by the tongue of fire.
I felt the cheap synthetic clothes on my back and legs melt into my skin and gritted my teeth at the pain. It was alright. I deserved this pain. Killing people, after all, was a crime. Whether they deserved to die or not. No matter whether I was a victim or not. People would probably only ever see me as a mass murderer.
"Bomb," hissed the professor beneath me, after a very long, stunned silence. I only heard him because we were so close. He stared at me with disbelieving horror and I could only give him a grimacing, lopsided grin.
Getting off him, I felt skin and flesh tearing off me with my melted clothes, some of it remaining stuck to him. It looked like me being on top of him had protected most of him, except for his legs. His trousers had been surprisingly fire resistant. They had only gotten singed. He probably still had burns though, but not as bad as the ones I had.
With the melting of most of my clothes and resultant remaining cloth falling away, the man could now see most of my bare body. The front, anyway. Along with all of the marks and bruises that had been left on me.
He was shocked and horrified again. Speechless. I covered myself with an awkward arm and began to shuffle toward the door, dripping blood and possibly skin that I didn't care about.
"What happened to you?" he gasped just as I reached the door. "You made that bomb? Why?"
"Why do you think?" I turned and snarled at him, coughing and feeling dizzy and sick, gesturing at myself. The turning and suddenly movement opened and tore burnt flesh, making me tear up and whimper in pain. Gritting my teeth and looking up, I tried to bear with it.
The strict professor slowly got up, clearly in some pain himself. Even so, he disregarded most of his injuries in order to reach out toward me with some concern.
"Surely no student or teacher here would have done that," he hesitated and I drew back, away from him.
I snorted.
"Keep dreaming," I said, slowly moving out of the room. "Most of the research teams headed by male professors in three departments had me pinned beneath them last night. The girls were just happy to be spared and not be used as a cum dumpster for a night. They egged the males on. My professor's rival drugged me with his new experimental drugs. My own professor betrayed me and told me that the only reason girls were accepted into the teams was to help relieve the frustrations and stress of the men. I trusted him and my seniors. I loved them as if they were my own family and they betrayed me. They used me and then gave me to the other teams to play with," I ranted in a barely audible voice that the man had to lean in to hear, panting in pain while the professor stared at me in disbelief. Glancing at the broken clock on the wall, I cocked my head at him. "You should leave and warn anyone in the building to back away to a safe building. Not just this one but the other two as well," I pointed out the directions of the other buildings. "The rest of the bombs are about to go off. The buildings may collapse. Anyone left inside is not guaranteed to survive."
"What time?" the professor asked me. "What time will the bombs go off?"
"Roughly on the o'clock," I shrugged and then lowered myself down onto the ground. I wasn't going to be able to go anywhere. Not in this condition.
Seeing that, the man tackled me and then bundled me up in his arms, racing with me to the nearest exit.
"Stop it! Put me down!" I shouted hoarsely. "What are you doing? If I'm going to die, I may as well go out with a bang. It won't hurt as much as dying of wide surface area burns and bleeding."
"You're not going to die," the man glanced at me and said shortly. "I won't allow it. Not until you have been brought before a court of law for your crimes."
"That's why you should just leave me and let me die," I cried. "It would be better to end it all. At least I'll get the justice I would never receive otherwise. Who would believe me anyway?"
"Me! I would believe you," the young male professor growled, not bothering to wipe the tears dripping from his grimy face. "I believe you. If you had come to me, I would have made sure you received justice, no matter what."
"Yeah. Right," I scoffed in a faint voice. Having skin burnt off you felt very strange. I was sure I was also dripping blood everywhere.
"It's true," the strict professor insisted. "I would have believed you. I believe you. But you should never have gone and done this."
"Too late," I whispered.
"It's never too late for justice to prevail," he told me, carrying me out of the building and out to one of the emergency evacuation grounds.
Sirens could be heard in the distance but they hadn't arrived yet. He made sure my front was properly covered with his jacket and laid me tummy down on the grass.
"Keep an eye on her and don't let her move," he said to one of the other university staff in a low voice who exclaimed over the sight of me. I heard other students gagging. "She's suicidal. I'm going back in to finish checking the building."
"No, Mattie. What if there are other bombs? You're injured. It's dangerous."
"I saw what the bombs look like. I'll know how to deal with them if I see them."
"No. Stay here and wait for the experts. You know the drill. They should be here any moment now."
There was a scuffle as the young professor tried to go back in but was held back by other university staff members.
While they were distracted, I hugged the jacket to my chest and ran back toward the building, not minding that I left behind more skin and melted clothes behind. Who needed their skin when they were about to die? It hurts, but not as much as I had expected. I must have received full thickness burns.
Moments later, a heavy weight knocked me down, slamming me into the grass.
"No," said the young professor's voice in my ear. "You are not going back in there to die."
I could only grunt in reply, feeling blood and fluids rolling off me, what remained of my intact skin stinging and burning. I was pretty sure I had been well burnt across my back and the back of my legs. I didn't even want to think of what state my hair might be in, but it was likely gone. If I survived, I'd probably have a permanent bald spot on the back of my head.
And while I kept people busy trying to keep me down, multiple explosions went off. The ground shook and dust puffed up into the air in huge clouds that made everybody cough and cringe. Students and staff were screaming and crying on the ground.
The young male professor on me was sheltering and protecting my raw back from as much dust as he could, but I could feel him shaking while I softly laughed and cried into the grass beneath me.
The place of my dreams and where all my dreams had died had literally gone up in dust. Millions and millions of the university's money gone, just like that. The university hadn't managed their staff properly and allowed the rot to set in. They had even tried to hide the rot.
Although I hadn't tried to complain through proper channels, I knew that other girls had. I hadn't believed them, believing my professor and seniors that they were just disgruntled gold diggers. I had been wrong. So wrong to dismiss the warnings those girls had tried to give me. The university had responded to their complaints by suspending or expelling them. That was why I had not even bothered to try. The entire system was rotten. There was not even any point in trying.
By the time the police, bomb squads, ambulances and fire departments had all arrived, I was barely conscious. I was only still partially aware of what was going on because of the strict professor doing his best to keep me alive while he tries not to let his tears fall.
"Just let me go," I breathed at the professor.
"Stay with me," he said, frowning but not seeming to even be able to hear me.
"What did she say?" a paramedic asked.
When I woke up, I was annoyed. Irritated. I was still alive. Alive, sore and wrapped in weird bandages. Why wasn't I dead yet?
A doctor was talking to the disheveled professor while a pair of police officers listened to the severity of my wounds with serious expressions. I peered at them through what felt like swollen and bleary eyes, half listening as the doctor talked about the results of the rape kit and bruise injuries they had found on my body. The blood test results still showed traces of that drug I had been forced to take. My most serious injuries, unsurprisingly were the burns and loss of skin that I had shed and dropped. That and signs of infection that were already starting to set in. Apparently my body was still in a critical state and I was dehydrated despite the IV fluids going into my arms.
Did I hurt? Oh yes. It hurts like hell but the pain made me feel better. I deserved it after all. Mass murderers, even if they were only taking retribution on evildoers were still criminals. I deserved all the pain I was suffering, just as my targets had deserved the deaths I had given them.
From the discussions happening over in the corner, it sounded like I had managed to kill the majority of my targets. My targeted buildings were also going to have to be demolished. I'd already done a large part of the demolition work for them. Look how helpful I was.
Only a handful of innocent people had been injured by accident. How the judge and jury might judge it, it was clear that I had tried to minimise the danger to unrelated people, although I would definitely be charged for destroying university property.
"But she was a victim too," the young professor spoke up for me. Bless his heart. He sounded wistful.
"Being a victim doesn't change the fact that she performed criminal acts," somebody said, making the professor sigh deeply. "But the fact that she saved your life does speak a lot about her motives."
"The public outrage over this matter is snowballing. They want us to expose the culprit."
"Say nothing. The investigations are incomplete."
"When do you think she will wake up? What's her prognosis? Will she be able to be taken to court?"
I laughed into my pillow but the laughter shook my body and made the stinging and burning pains flare up.
"You're awake?" somebody came over to my bedside and I only caught a glimpse of them before my body decided to convulse and they needed to call for help.
I couldn't help laughing more. If only the laughter would kill me.
When a person wants to die, sometimes, dying becomes impossible. But for the ones trying to live, somehow life becomes so fragile.
I lived. Others died.
The medical staff had me on suicide watch. No matter how I schemed to try and kill myself when they were paying the least amount of attention, somebody always somehow managed to arrive in time to stop me. Ah. What a tragedy it all was.
What was a skinless, hairless person to do?
I couldn't keep racking up increasing medical bills, could I? Who was paying for all of this anyway?
Angry parents and attempted assassination attempts were somehow stopped. It made me cry in as much frustration when they were taken away. I scared one parent when I tried to hurry to my death.
"Kill me. Hurry up and just kill me," I had shouted hoarsely, somehow propelling myself out of the bed so that they could see all the injuries and marks left on my body from both the burns and bruises. "Didn't you want to avenge your child's death. Here. Come and get it done before anyone comes."
The parent hesitated and in that moment, uniformed people burst through the door to knock them down and knock the knife from their hand. I threw myself out of the bed to scramble after the knife, needles ripping from my arms and causing me to drip blood everywhere.
The knife was kicked out of my hand and upon seeing my hope of death thwarted once more, I cried myself unconscious in a fit of temper and was sent to the ICU for a few nights.
What a fuss over nothing. Why couldn't I die? It was only right for those parents to take my life in retribution. Just why wouldn't they let me die?
When I returned to the ward, the medical staff finally felt I was stable enough to be questioned by the police. The police and some extra people whom I didn't quite catch the names and titles of. The young professor was there too, looking haggard.
The first thing they did was remind me of my poor standing in my family.
My family had cut me off and disowned me. Fair enough. They had never really loved me and I had never really felt much for them either. They weren't about to pay for any of the damages I had caused.
I shrugged and winced at that movement pulling at scarring skin tissue and the new skin grafts that were struggling to take.
"I had to work to pay for my own tuition from the moment I was old enough to go out to work. Nothing new," I told the gathered people trying to give me a supportive environment where I would talk. Supportive environment. It was pressuring and stressful to have so many eyes staring intensely at me and questioning me.
They talked about mundane things and asked about my relationship with my family in more detail. Likely to help me relax a little or something. I could see through their questioning but I wasn't about to knock their style. They could ask what they wanted. I'd tell everything they wanted and more. I'd give them all the gory little details they wanted.
They all looked pale and queasy by the time I finished my story. Night had set in too and my dinner was cold and uneaten in front of me.
"You should eat," the professorsaid into the silence.
"No appetite," I said dully.
The food looked plastic and unappetising. Not like anybody cared. I didn't even care. Why would they?
"I'll ask the nurses to get it warmed up for you again," the professor said.
"No need," I poured. "Don't want it."
"It's a waste of food."
"I don't care. It's wasted on me. I should be dead anyway. There's no point wasting all this medicine, food and money for me. I committed several crimes. It's only right that I pay for them. Just shoot me."
Ah. I shouldn't have said that. That got me a two hour lecture that only stopped because I started nodding off. It sounded like even they were conflicted over whether I was a victim or a criminal. They didn't know how to treat me.
I didn't know how to treat me. I didn't know how I was going to live either.
Couldn't live. Couldn't die. Living would result in permanent disfigurement and daily torture from all the scarring resulting from the burns and grafting. I wouldn't be able to finish my studies and likely never return to normal society. During - they wouldn't let me die. What was a desperate girl to do?
I was supposed to die amongst the explosions when the buildings collapsed. I hadn't planned on surviving at all. It was all the young professor's fault. If he hadn't broken protocol and found me, I would have been able to achieve oblivion.
But now I had survived. After everything that had happened and everything I had done, how did they want me to live with myself?
And this professor. What did he want from me? His colleagues told him to stop visiting. His family didn't like me. Everyone told him to give up on me, why wouldn't he? He was not at fault and had nothing to do with anything, so why was he still hanging around? Why did he still care?
"You've fought so hard to get into uni and continue your studies. Are you giving up now?" he asked me one day, trying to find another motivation for me to keep living.
"Yes," I snapped. "I'm giving up. Nobody wants or cares about me anymore now. What's the point?"
In answer to that, for the next few days, he brought me the other survivors of that traumatic nightmare. They came to thank me for meeting out the retribution that hadn't had the courage to fight for. The university and police had investigated, they had come forward and they had been compensated.
"Stop it," I croaked.
My chest felt tight, my head hurt and my eyes felt hot.
"You don't have to do this to me. There's no need to keep torturing me," I told him.
My health, while stable at the moment, was not that great. The pulling scar tissue hurt and large fluctuations in emotions still sent me back to ICU at least once a week.
"Miss Millwright, I'm not trying to torture you. I'm on your side. You know that. I want you to know that you don't need to give up on yourself. Don't give up on the world."
"So what if I do? Nobody will miss me."
"I will."
"I'm just a stain on your guilty conscience. You might pity me and wonder what you could have done better, but you'd never really miss me and the hole I'll leave in this world. I never really ever had much presence anyway. I'm not even one of a kind. I'm the easily replaceable, easily missable, easily gullible kind."
"That's not true."
"Is too."
"Is not."
"Is too."
What was with this professor? He might be young, but he was still willing to make stupid jokes and play childish games with me. Why did he not seem to blame me for ruining his career?
When I was able to be discharged, he took me back to his home against the better judgment of other people. When I went to court, he was the one who drove me there and helped support me, pointing out the handful of people who had turned up in support of me, while the rest where agitated, angry parents. When those angry parents surged and became aggressive, he was the first to protect me while I sat in my wheelchair, unable to escape on my own.
And when the judge brought his gavel down, he was also the one who accompanied me to the mental asylum.
"Miss Millwright, there are still people who care about you. You as a person. Not what you have done or seem to have become. Don't give up."
And when I came out years later, still ugly and scarred, he was the one who picked me up and brought me to his home. He supported me in my daily life despite my poor health and was patient with me.
What was wrong with him?
I was given compensation, but I also had to pay compensation. The money I received was sent back out before it could even accumulate interest, leaving me with nothing. I had no way to work. No way to earn money. And I was not eligible for government handouts due to my criminal history.
Why would he want to have to deal with an ex-criminal? It wasn't like he loved me. He definitely didn't. Was it some misguided sense of duty? A twisted sense of compassion? What did this professor want from me? Who knew?
So now, living in his house, eating his food, becoming his housekeeper, what was I doing? I still wanted to die but the urge wasn't as strong as before. I was still going with the flow, but I couldn't remain passive forever, could I?
Why would anyone still care for and about me? It didn't make sense. The medical staff and the Psychologist had also told me that it was only right for me to be taken care of. That didn't make sense either. Who was I to them? They were only helping me because they were being paid to. Otherwise why would they care?
I don't understand.
Can anyone tell me what's going on? How to live again?
Unfinished. Everything felt unfinished.