granularity: (the velvet cage)
Sanderson Hawkins ([personal profile] granularity) wrote in [personal profile] stands_for_hope 2014-12-15 07:02 am (UTC)

He was quiet for a moment, obviously figuring out how to say what he wanted to say, until--

"I told you that I was transformed. That I became a monster."

Sandy turned and looked at Mike.

"That's... not exactly true."

He leaned back, let his head rest on the pillow and stared at the ceiling. The ceiling was easier to look at. He could pretend he was alone, he was talking to himself, that he wasn't doing the one thing he'd sworn he'd never do.

"I was transformed and my form was made unstable, inhuman... but I was always me. The... it... I wasn't enraged. I was just in pain, but my mentor-- Wes. Wesley thought I was mad. A monster. A danger. But the rage was gone after a few minutes. He just didn't give me time to calm down before he locked me away."

That was the easy part, the part that most of his friends knew by now. This was the hard part.

"I said I was in stasis all those years but... I..." he swallowed again, "I wasn't."

His eyes closed, because just hearing it out loud... the guilt and shame and relief was palpable and mixed all in one in a confusing wave that left him mildly nauseous even though he knew that was purely psychological.

"My body was frozen, but my mind... my mind was in tact. I was... awake and aware the entire time, unable to move, unable to speak, just-- just staring." And now the words were coming, like a torrent, like a storm. He couldn't stop them if he tried and even he was surprised at the waver to his voice, the frustration and the anger and the pain that he hid every day. "Just staring every day when he'd come to visit me, when he'd hold his hand to the glass. Staring as I watched him age, staring as I watched him pile in old machines, old experiments, like I was... like I was just another failed experiment. And that was only when he was there, when the lights were on. The rest of it, so much of it, was darkness. That dark room, so... beautifully made up to hold someone, something he stopped thinking of as his protege years before.

"Alone, in the dark. Alone and awake and trapped in the Velvet Cage. I couldn't sleep, I couldn't rest, I couldn't-- just there. Unmoving. Inhuman.

"Forgotten."

He swallowed and turned to look Mike in the face.

"And, in a way, that's... not the worst part."

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