| abstract | - I’m crazy, or so they all say. My mother says I’m crazy. My father says I’m crazy. (I nearly killed him once. But it wasn’t my fault.) My ex-friends say I’m crazy. But I am NOT crazy. It’s all my brother’s fault. It’s ALL Vern’s fault. I can’t show that I hate him. I literally can’t. As in, something happened to me and I am physically unable to display any negative expressions towards my brother. Whew. But at least my embittered heart can feel the hate. I think about the beginning, my naïve, stupid, asinine beginning. I wrote it down on a piece of paper, with my own blood, while I was asleep. It would be an impressive feat if I wasn’t “mentally ill and prone to such behaviour”, quote courtesy of my brother. Before I react, he plunges the needle into the back of my neck. The doctors love saying that I’m crazy. They are my brother’s slaves. They love nothing more than sticking pills down my throat, and theirs. Pills that my brother made. He wanted to be a pharmacist, in order to make pills. So he could be much more. The president of the United Countries of Earth, that’s what he wants to be. My brother has always been always an ambitious experimenter. He hated animal testing, and he thought humans weren’t animals, so I was the victim, the guinea pig. Just because I had the misfortune to live in the same house with him. I’d rather be a real guinea pig than his sister. You know how I said he wanted to be president/king/Great Dictator? I wasn’t joking. His plans for world domination included creating an obedient, conforming army of some sort. Using a rose extract he developed. Ah, so that’s what I was writing about when I was asleep. That bast- ... Sorry, the life support machine implanted in me decided to pump in tranquilizers just then. Was I talking about the rose extract? Yeah? Long story short, it screwed me over. Here’s more of my intriguing past that I wrote out of boredom while I was (half) awake, which apparently doesn’t make me any more sane than if I had been writing while asleep: “We always played games?” “They were fun?” If you count my brother trying to liquify and reshape my cheekbones while injecting lab-grown hair into my scalp fun, well, it’s still not much of a game. I HATE that I look so much like my admittedly beautiful brother. Hate isn’t a strong enough word. Actually, reading that was nearly enough to make me think I was insane. No, no, that’s my brother’s ultimate goal, to make me doubt my sanity. I blame my past on the rose extract. There must be no other factor. Oh, the next part’s even more interesting: 'I knew there was nothing wrong with Vern. Or me, now that I think of it. No, there is definitely nothing wrong with me. 'I have my usual nightmare, of Vern trying to maim my (our?) loved ones, except it’s not a nightmare. It’s more of a pleasant dream. I let him do what he wants this time. ' 'A part of me shudders. At what I’m becoming. But my heart’s getting numb, and I’m getting bored...I itch to do something. A smile makes it way onto my new face. (Did I mention that I look like a girl version of Vern now?) ' Ignore the last paragraph, ignore the last paragraph, ignore the last paragraph. Do you want me to stop ripping my writing up into pieces? Ok, here’s the rest in one chunk: 'I arrive at school early. Everyone gapes at me, including my (well, former) best friend, Lana. ................. “A teenage boy, Louis Mallory, was found brutally murdered in Ashton Grove yesterday night. When he did not show up for a meeting at a friend’s house, the friend and her brother walked over and saw the dead body. (Comment: I didn’t even know him. Of course I wasn’t actually his friend.)... A recording of the 911 call: Some loud sobbing can be heard. When the tears pour out of my eyes, my mom immediately turns the TV off. She comforts me, “It’s alright, baby, shush,” while I try to cry hysterically. What kind of girl doesn’t cry when her best friend dies? (Me.) 'Then she notices me smiling at Vern. Oh dear. 'I think Mom will be seeing roses tonight. Mom never did see the roses. Instead, right after, Vern blurted out that I had been on a killing spree. Apparently I had threatened him to not tell anyone about it. Vern’s little performance was convincing enough for my mother to call the cops. Strangely enough, merely getting arrested for murder wasn’t enough to land me where I am, this hell operated by Vern’s most trusted cronies. No, what did it was a suicide attempt. An ironically useful one at that, because the medications used to keep me alive (and suffering) ended up reversing the effects of the rose extract. Which caused me to attempt suicide in the first place. But I suppose I’m lucky to be immune from the roses that plague the rest of the world. A nurse enters my room. She injects something in my arm. Has she been affected by Vern’s pills yet? Yes, she has: her eyes are dark, her hair is brown, her cheekbones are razor sharp. But her eyes still hold a remnant of sanity, the sanity that will soon belong only to me...I can’t scream. The injection seems to have dissolved my vocal cords. Oh well, I haven’t spoken in a while anyway. 5, 6, 7 years? A doctor enters my room. He injects something in my arm. Has he been affected by Vern’s pills yet? Yes, he has: his eyes are dark, his hair is brown, his cheekbones are razor sharp. I try to look for glimmers of sanity....but now I can’t see. The injection seems to have blinded me. Oh well, there was nothing to look at in my room anyway. Vern himself enters my room. His voice alerts me.He murmurs, in a disappointed tone, that I’m quite mad. I cover my ears so he can’t torture me that way, calling me abnormal and a load of other shameful things. But Vern’s smart, he injects a chip into my arm. It transfers audio signals twice as loud as they actually are, directly into the brain. Blah blah blah, I don’t care anymore. At my worst, I’ll still be more sane than the mindless zombies he has somehow managed to create. Noticing that I’m still not paying attention, he injects another chip. What’s going to happen this time? Oh no. Not that. Flashbacks. I don’t love my brother and he’s not my master. This is proving to be very irksome. False. Of course he hurts me. He’s hurt me so many times, it’s not even funny. If it weren’t for my vaporized vocal cords, Vern would be deaf... Wow. It’s like I’m actually saying it. I’d rather die in peace than in pieces, but Vern was, and is, cruel enough to withhold that mercy. He dares to give me a kiss, knowing I can’t squirm or cry out. I’m wishing I could cut all my nerve endings out. That would be better than just losing my voice and sight. Vern’s real voice echoes along with the flashback chip. “Brotherly love, yes?” I will not nod, despite the fact that Vern’s hands are trying to push and pull my neck. In fact, I’m hoping that he’s infuriated enough to hold on, but just when my neck is about to snap, he lets go. “Not now, Eliza. You know I don’t want you to die.”
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