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Madness is a Mask for the Guilty
He's screaming, his voice hoarse and wounded, as bruised and bloody fingertips scrape at the iron bars, ghostly blue eyes locked and shattering as he watches his world tumble over the edge and disappear without a sound; it's silent and deafening at the same time, and the bone-shattering boom that echoes across his skull the next moment is so powerful, he can't breath. He's sobbing, panting, hyperventilating because he can't breathe, because he cannot force his broken mind to focus on six-legged cats, and much less, the Reality; harsh, bitten Reality.
So calm, cool and collected, the man once was and now, crawling around on the filthy ground, slobbering, gasping and yelping, laughing about his demise. There's a glint in his eyes that sends even the crazies to their own isolated corners and he wails at the irony of it all; oh it had been too good, too good, too true!
His gold-tipped hat is splayed out under his tangle of black locks, crushed beyond reorganization. His hair, it was filthy, untamed and tangled as he keeps singing his little song, throwing his little pity party that sends even the banshees to shame; laughing, screaming, swearing, howling with the sensation of it all.
Twisted Fate was the name he chose for himself, and now he realizes, Fate does bite, and when it bites one who has avoided it for so long, it bites hard and leaves scars; but Twisted Fate, his scars, his pains, his betrayals, they lacerated his heart, and all he feels is the cut of a sweet butter knife, numbed beyond recognition until this very point. Cruel, cruel Fate, has given him more than a hundred scars, it has given him a few hundred unseen ones that will never be forgotten.
He dances, laughs! A lopsided grin and a forced smirk, trembling fingers which were usually so steady, ready to pickpocket and gamble at a moment's notice now shaking furiously. His heart drums a different beat to his body and they're not insane, full of dysfunction, so far gone that even Twisted Fate can taste it, and he doesn't even have the luxury to fool himself.
Broken fingernails and skin and blood drags along his prison walls, painting the canvas brownish red. Twisted Fate, with his disheveled clothes, bloodstained vest and blood soaked boots giggles frantically, eyes twitching as clawed hands grabbed at thin air, hooking around nothingness.
His expression is desperate, agony-seared and delirium-scarred as broken fingernails drag along his once well kept face, drawing blood, and he watched them pool into his fingernails, turning black as the time passes. The place was by cruel design that he saw no light, that he'd have no way to identify the difference between day and night, the only saving grace was the single guard that tosses food into his cell as he stumbled after it, crawling for it and greedily shoving it down his throat, like his life depended on it. Once a genius mind, once a high-functioning sociopath, broken by a single thing, so pathetic and yet so simple.
Twisted Fate knew he should not have loved, he had told himself that it was all a game, but he went all in, and he never pulled out. He fell in love with Malcolm Graves. Once partners in crime, now reduced to a dead body and a shell shocked griever.
Twisted Fate never cried pretty, and when he watched his partner get gunned down, watched as his partner's blood, sinew and bone marrow flew, watched as broken veins touched his flesh, he became an animal, a nightmare all on his own. He knew the rational thing was to leave, to lie in wait, to plot for their demise but the man, the thief had been possessed by one thing he could not control, locked away for so long. A human need, a base desire of emotion, and emotional impulse.
Before Malcolm Graves had hit the ground, he was already dead, blank eyes beseeching the God he did not believe in as Twisted Fate ran, his blood pounding, his heart attempting to fling itself out of his rib cage as he ran at their assailants, strangling one to death with his bare hands even after the bullets flew, ripping into his flesh, but he didn't scream, only wanting blood, tasting it on his lips when strangling the first one wasn't enough as he sank his teeth into the man's throat, watching in sick pleasure and soothed pain and crazed fury as the life poured from the man, and he just kept holding on. The “please,” “no,” “I'll do anything,” never made it into his mind, much less punctured his skull. Even while he was being dragged away from his partner's killer, he was still screaming for blood, teeth bared, teeth stained, eyes wide, unblinking; cold fury sent into a frenzy and a high boil as he began to laugh, each bit, a sharp lash against the clouding sky; the voice of a torturer inside of his mind echoed all around.
That was true terror, true pain. Vicious, pure, agonizing pain morphed into the worst psychotic break imaginable.
Twisted Fate barely felt the gun wounds, the only pounding in his heart, his own as he was dragged away, and even then, he fought every tooth and nail. Broken and bloody hands clawed at the ground, as they finally wore and broke and even then, he placed his palms against the rough terrain, screaming, flailing like a cornered animal, his wails a pitch not his own as three men, no five slammed his tear streaked face into the dirt as they held guns to his head, warning that he'd get it if he didn't come quietly.
He wanted to die and the desire was so strong, he did the exact opposite.
He didn't come quietly, but he was still alive; a cruel joke, it must have been. The motive of wanting Death, yet he didn't even have the right to receive it; he was a killer, so he deserved no remorse, no sympathy, the pain should be there to rot his mind, and punish his soul, or so he has been told over twenty-ones times, and over those twenty-one lies he once sung to Malcolm Graves.
Twisted Fate is smiling, as he claws around, slapping his expensive hat over his head, grinning as he keeps staring, staring at the blank wall, as he crooks his head, showing rows of gleaming teeth. If the wall could have shuttered and ran, it would have. Sadly, the wall did not fear him, and it did not fear his demons, nor his murderous intentions. Nothing could replace what he had lost, and Twisted Fate swore, none to silently as he promised that he would gun down every man, woman and child he saw once he broke free. He'd do it in Malcolm Graves' name.
He's mad, he's mad- and somehow, it keeps him from insanity, anchored to Reality; the thirst for vengeance keeping his alive and (Somewhat) sane. The man hiccups, once handsome features staring up at the darkness as he reaches out, bruised and bloody fingertips close over thin air, and he draws it over his heart; he exhales, and unresting blue eyes flickered shut, as he listened to his choked and staggering breathing over the deafening silence and eternal nightmare.
Maybe he was mad, and he doesn't deny it. What matters is that he's going to take back what was snatched from him, and he'd start here; every day, planning, waiting, waiting for that moment to break free of the chains and suffocating impact.
The man's heart contracted, squeezing on itself painfully, as one single tear rolled down his face, and he's rocking in on himself wondering about everything that went wrong.
It was his fault for loving, he decided. He went in too deep, went in all the way, and he never crawled back out. His broken heart was the consequence of his own foolish actions, and sighing and screaming won't make it any less true. It's pitiful, because only a part of his mind grieved for Malcolm Graves, and the rest screamed for his own foolishness, for loving in the first place; Graves was merely the consequence, loving had been the trigger pointed at his head. He had found his own rope, tied his own noose, found his own bench and then tipped it over with his own expensive boots.
~XxX~
The man's foaming at the mouth again, choked little whimpers forming and lodged down his raw throat as he keeps sniffling and twitching, spasming. Little gasps escape his tired body as his back arched in an undeniable motion of physical pain. He's stuttering as he waves his arms frantically in front of himself, having a most intense conversation with the cobblestone blocks.
“Yes, Wall, I am sane. Wait, what's that? No, of course not, who you think you fooling? No no, I assure you, Malcolm Graves isn't dead, he's just,” Twisted Fate coughed, before he exploded in a fit of giggles that sounded like strangled gurgles (Perhaps they were), as he petted the stone in a good natured manner, “he's just, ah, six feet under, but don't worry, I'll get him out. It'll be fine, I assure you. Maybe even a kiss, after all these years. Wait, how long has it been?”
On that note, Twisted Fate tilted his head upwards, counting the jagged lines he had carved into the stone, his expression unreadable, “only four months, don't worry, Wall. We'll get out, you and I, then we'll save Hotshot, aye? Maybe even grab a swig of Sunshine Whiskey?”
Burn wounds, lash wounds, deep bruises, broken veins and half-healed patches of skin litter his body and Twisted Fate doesn't know, and he doesn't care. The man hugs what's left of his hat happily, grinning stupidly as blabbers and sounds escape his tormented throat.
“Yes, yes, I find you charming too Wall, but if I told Graves, he'd jealous,” Twisted Fate pouted sadly, shaking his head.
With no lights and sane sounds, time is ultimately warped in his eternal Hell, and four months doesn't feel like four, it feels longer, then suddenly shorter, as Twisted Fate fights for control, his personality throwing a tantrum of his own and the flashing lights that made his sight a dance ground of neon lights and disco parties won't refuse to leave their dance grounds.
“One, two, three! Ha!” The man smiled happily, “Tag, you're it!”
Then, he's suddenly seeing light, and a heavy door swings open as a man snorts, jeering at the pathetic mess that is Twisted Fate, “singing loony tunes now, are you? Lost your will already, stupid thing?”
Twisted Fate giggled madly, as he beckoned for the man to come, a tiny flash of pink pokes through his rows of teeth, as his blue eyes are flickering, gleaming in an almost challenging manner. As the man swings open his cell door, Twisted Fate blows a raspberry at the man as he claps his hands together and the man advanced, clearly at ease with false rage on his features (Just another sad excuse to beat Twisted Fate to death for no reason other than sick amusement).
The man stops at a two feet distance, and Twisted Fate's eyes suddenly glint dangerously, and he lashes out, lightning fast, and with deadly accuracy, pulling the man's feet from under him. The brute yelps, clearly surprised at the sudden strength and gravity takes its toll, and he slams against the metal bars with a sickening crunch. He looks up in shock and confusion, as a wave of nausea seizes the man and in his stunned state, Twisted Fate grabs the man by the neck and his hands close over his neck, knees digging into his vulnerable stomach. The former prisoner's panting deliriously, giggling, the sounds of the Devil escaping him as he leers down at the man.
Twisted Fate glares down, blue eyes piercing, as the man gives an uneasy shutter, before his eyes are bulging, straining for breath, boots hitting against the ground uselessly.
Twisted Fate releases the man's neck after a few dozen tensed seconds where he gasps for breath, his face a nasty purple. The man's grace period is short lived as Twisted Fate kicks the man's nose in, where it breaks with a sickening snap.
“Tell you what,” Twisted Fate drops into a squatting position, “I want you to run, little bitch, it's no fun if you just died like this, but I want you to know, I'll be the shadow following you. You'll be begging for mercy, for Death every time you see my name, on those damn posters every, single, day. You're going to see my poster, see my face, and know that I'll hunt you down when you are no longer of amusement. Thought it was funny killing Graves? Will you still think it's funny when I pin a note to your wife with a knife?”
Twisted Fate patted the man's hair in mock concern, before he backhanded the man, the sharp crack heard against the echoing walls.
With one single, brutal and vicious right-hook, Twisted Fate's fist comes down, where it connects in a flash of silver lightning; his eyes roll up into his skull and he mutters something suspiciously like “god,” before he backs out into darkness, with Twisted Fate still grinning stupidly, but now there's a murderous glint in his eyes, sharp, and sharpened with years of pain and vengeance.
The thief gets up, exiting without another word, much less looking back.
“They think I'm mad,” the man mutters under his breath as shadows fall on his sharp features, “I'll show them panic, I'll show them madness.”