Shattered Dream's Aren't All They Seem

Fracture here. So, Devil decided to go ahead with a post while I was still a little out of it. If she want's to post half incoherent crap, I suppose that her prerogative. Most of what she managed to press out of me was true enough anyways. My greater concern there was actually that she treated my concussion with alcohol, morphine, and ice cream and let me take naps. It shouldn't have taken this long to rebound from an injury in a loop... wouldn't have if she hadn't been exasperating my condition...

Oh well, that's enough foreshadowing for now.

Lets finish explaining what happened.

Run Devil... run.






Last time on explaining the thing what had happened was:
'Should we make her believe Trent never died?' he wrote off to the side with his other hand.

'No. We don't need her questioning where he is when she wakes up. Asking why he never visits. Make him make her promise to forgive and help Duckie. Hes sick and needs help, not to be put down. Make him send her to meet me. Have him tell her to listen to me. Have him tell her I'm someone she can trust. If she trusts me, forgives Duckie, and has this closure with her Brother, I think she'll be manageable again.'

Should have worked... should have...



And now the exciting conclusion of explaining the thing what had happened:
'Picasso," Whisper said tightening his grip on her shoulder, 'I need you to listen to me. Do not-,' he started before he coughed again, taking a moment to wipe away what I can only assume was being interpreted as blood in Picasso's head, 'Do not pursue Duckie over this. Th-This,' he said pausing for another cough that he didn't bother to wipe away this time, 'This was an accident. If nothing else... the son of a bitch needs your help right now. You're losing your brother... hes losing his best friend. Look out for each other.' He takes a moment to shake that shoulder. 'Promise me'

'I-I promise!' she said, sounding not to convinced of what he was saying but the confirmation was reassuring.

'Good!' said whisper before coughing harder and louder than before and then wheezing to really sell it. 'You and him... need to meet up with this man,' he said pulling one of my business cards out of his pocket and putting it in front of her for her to see before putting it in her hand.

'Wh-Who is... Fra-... Fracture?' she said squinting. I'm guessing Picasso couldn't read very well at this point in her life.

'Hes a friend. Hes been helping finance us... helping me work legal loop holes in the bureau's system so they couldn't take you away from me... he'll make sure you're taken care of.'

'T-Take me away from you?! Wh-Who-... Wh-Why?! Why would someone want to-' she started, beginning  to get angry again. She was gonna want answers to a lot of questions that would have just convoluted the narrative at this point. So I gave whisper the wrap it up motion.

Whisper took the cue to start coughing uncontrollably and loosen his grip on her shoulder. Both signs that he was getting ready to pass away. 'I'm sorry S-Sweety... I love you... M-Make me prou-' he said before suddenly stopping, letting his head drop, and closing his eyes.

After that, Picasso started struggling and screaming like crazy again.

'NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!'

Whisper moved away from on top of her and we gave her space to scream, pant, and exhausted herself. After a while she started violenting siezing and shaking and shit. Foaming at the mouth. Her eyes even rolled back. When she stopped she started screaming again. She was starting to hyperventilate by the time she finally started to do what we like to call, de-fragment.

Given a bunch of forced overriding memories, the mind tends to rewrite events to make sense of the new information. And once it's cognitively finished the process, it spews all that information out loud to get its own story straight.

Fascinating to watch, if not vomittous.

'My name is Picasso. We were attacked by a proxy that broke into the wrong home. My brother killed him in self defense... the Bureau decided my brother would replace the life he took or die... he took me with him. We killed our neighbor... So much blood... pretty, shiny blood... share the beauty Trish... he left... so sad... hes back... so strong... beautiful blood stained sword... N-No... They're dying... STOP DYING... Promise me... Good.... NO, YOU PROMISED... I promise... Y-Yes... Y-You where a friend of my Brother's right?... I get this entire room?  ... Moth, stop! They'll hear... Where are we going? ....,' and at this point she broke into incoherent screaming again.

'IF YOU GO DOWN TO THE WOODS TODAY, YOU BETTER CLOSE YOUR EYES. IF YOU GO DOWN TO THE WOODS TODAY YOU'RE PROBABLY GONNA DIE. ITS FEEDING DOWN IN THE WOODS TODAY. THEY BLEED AND CRY BEFORE PUS FILLED EYES.... if you go down to the woods today, THE SCREAMING NEVER DIES!'

And with that she started hyperventilating again before she finally calmed down.

'Master killed Duckie today... guess we can't all be forgiven... NONE OF US CAN BE FORGIVEN... PURGE THE UNWORTHY... N-No way... Duckies alive... Have to... help him... Fracture says this will help but... Duckie seems to be getting worse for it... Wh-Why are we hurting him like this...? WHY?!... He's... Hes gone again... husk... Fracture broke him...' she said getting extremely mad again. 'AND HES KEEPING THE HUSK AS A TROPHY!' 

And with that, she managed to rip through bars of solid iron to sit up. Whisper started talking at her but she didn't even respond. She sprang up, ripping iron into her flesh as she finished breaking through the last of her restraints to leap at Whisper.

With one swift motion she slammed his neck against the wall, crushing his throat.

I shot her with an elephant tranquilizer. She swiftly responded by leaping over with inhuman speed to bash my head into the table she had sprung free from. I responded by unloading the other 5 rounds of tranquilizers I had in the gun into her. Which did stop her... after she bashed my head against the table to more times.

'Have to... help duckie... set him... free...' she mumbled out as she passed out.

At that point... I called Ivan and Helrick in. Had them drag her back to a cell. I was screaming orders at them when things suddenly went black. I woke up in my bed about a week later to find I was being overly medicated in a lot of ways that likely made things worse than they might otherwise have been by my assistant Devil...

Visited whisper. Hes doing fine... the loop healed him but hes having a hard time forming words right now... sometimes when you take a blow like that it hits you on a mental level. Hes having trouble coming to terms with the memory of his throat being crushed. Something he could cure others of with his words ironically enough.

Picasso is worse than ever. 

"I'M GONNA SAVE DUCKIE YOU SON OF A BITCH. What you did to him was wrong and I'M GONNA FUCKING KILL YOU FOR IT. Set his poor TORTURED soul free NOW and I'll make your death QUICK! OTHERWISE I'M GONNA KILL YOU ALL."

It just... doesn't matter does it. Regardless of what I do to fix her... shes gonna keep coming after him... keep coming after me.

She's not gonna stop until she tears the whole fucking Free Market apart from the sound of it.

And those restraints... that was reinforced iron... Just fucking ripped right through it. Tore right through her own flesh and didn't even fucking flinch... in human...

Like something keeps pushing her on this path... something impossibly strong... something firmly planted deep in her mind...

Could she... be a double agent. I smell Fear meddling. But... who?

Dear God My Aching concussion.

Having Devil go over this as I write it. Need to make sure its cogent. Shes real good with uh... word stuff.

Things uh.... could have uh...uh ummm...the uh... could have gone better... right. Fuck. Sorry. Need a minute..

Blue lights are not your friend.




Okay. So like... uh.

She was screaming. Right.

"Nooo!"

So fucking loud. Bloody fucking murder. She was bolted down pretty good. Nails digging into the table's wood. Dug in so hard she had managed to rip a few of them off... probably still embedded into the table. Rabid thing.

Couldn't flail but my god if she could. Be kicking and flopping all over the place. Right up the wall maybe. Like some Freddy Crouger shit. Fucking... Christmas sweater shit.

"Shhhh," I whispered. Shushed. Calmed. Soothed. Didn't work. Kept trying to squirm.

Helrick... think he had to look away. The way she had ripped open her own finger tips, uh scratching at the table... got to him. 

I was stroking her hair. Sooooooothing. Think at some point between the screaming I remember her tilting her head up as high as she could manage to try to bite my fingers.

Rabid thing.

"Right..." I said when she wouldn't sooth. "Lets just get started then."

Whisper stood up and moved over to her. Leaned in close. Pushed her face head against the table so he could get at her ear without him biting her and shit. 
At this point Helrick and Ivan had to leave the room. I can resist whisper's voice but... nerds can't. Needed to be out of ear shot. Made them meander down the hall... tweedle thumbs.

Picasso's fighting got more desperate. More panicked. "NO! NO! NO! NO! N-"
And then suddenly she stopped.

"Stop it."

Was all he said. That simple. He says it. It gets done. No if and or buts. If you aren't immune... gonna swoon for Whisper woon.

Woooon.

Heh.

"How do are we gonna do it this time?"

"We need to nip this whole insanity spiral in the butt. Push her away from his whole line of thinking. Make her stop chasing Duckie. Push this... abomination down. Pull Patricia back up. Force Picasso way way down. Make like... like new. Like when she first arrived."

"Impossible. We already know through extensive trials there is no way to make her stop screaming at random when she talks."

"Well, you know. Besides that. I don't know that we can remove her... quirks. There are always going to be ghosts of past efforts. Scars mapping tragedies across her mind. But I think we can bring back that core behavior pattern. Make her behavior like Patricia on an internal level. And that'll carry on into everything she does... theoretically."

"Well, Lord Albino, where would I even start with that?"

"Lets take her back to the night her brother died. This is all supposed to be for him. Revenge against Duckie for accidentally running her brother through with his own sword. The documented report says she spent hours trying to talk to his corpse when it happened. Wouldn't leave his side. I think its high time she had a talk with her 'Bother'. I'm thinking it would be easiest to set her straight working off of that moment."

As we talked Picasso slowly got louder. Slowly started again. It started soft and it slowly grew.

"no... no.... noo..... No....Noo.... Nooooo.... NOOO..... NOOOOOOO!"

"Yes," I told her. I could feel my grin. I was getting no small amount of satisfaction from her suffering. I getting a big amount. For all the trouble she had caused these last two years... felt good to see her back on the beating end of the stick.

Whisper pulled out the file we had and started discribing the night to her. Describe the incident. Put her through it. Put her back in there. Pushed her back into the moment. Make her live inside the memory. Made it her world once more. Made her world back into the moment when the universe came crashing down on her.

Pushed her back into the start of the nightmare. Source of the suffering...

She was begging...

"No... common... open your eyes... this isn't funny Feral... you're gonna be okay... just... just wake up... Feral... I need you... I NEED you... I SAID wake UP... WAKE THE FUCK UP TRENT... CAN YOU HEAR ME?! WAKE THE FUCK UP YOU USELESS PIECE OF SHIT. YOU PROMISED! MAKE GOOD ON IT OR I WON'T FORGIVE YOU!"

I could see her hands jerking. Clenching onto something that wasn't there and thrusting them forward.

According to the report, Feral A.K.A Trent, Picasso's brother died of a fatal sword impalement... but he was found with a crushed skull. The way shes trying to thrust her hands forward. The shape her hands are trying to grasp... I think she crushed her brother's skull... screaming at him to wake up...

I motioned at whisper. If he wasn't dead before, her crushing his skull would make him very dead. Whisper needed to step in now before the situation became too surreal to stick. If that happened all this little incident would serve to do is traumatize her further.

Had to act... had to... Fucking ow... more... ibuprofen... morphine.... scotch...

scotch scotch scotch... scotchy scotch scotch... good ice cream...

hahaha... free market... brought to you by scotch!

[He went on to write a whole paragraph that went on like that before he went back to the tape recorder and replayed the next instance of dialogue before turning back to me to try to give it context through slurred broken speech]

"This is Trent Picasso. This voice is Trent's voice. When you hear me its him. I'm him. I'm alive... god this hurts... stop hurting me..."

"Tr-Trent...? A-Are r-... ommaggoiwwassosskeeeeaaarrriiid!" she cried out as she broke into tears. She was sobbing. Sniffling. Snorting to try to keep her nose from running. "I thought I lost YOU..."

I could see from her tense grasp and posture... think in her head... hugging him. Hugging whisper... mental to herself... so tight she would have hurt an injured person.

"P-Picasso!" he cried out in pain, miming the motion of pushing her off of him. "Ca-Calm down... hurting me," he said miming another motion like he was nursing a wound around his chest.

"Oh god! I'm sorry!" she declares. Her body shifted against he restraints, like she had just shifted away in her head. So I assumed.

"Picasso... Patricia sweety... I uh..." bstarted whisper before he randomly broke out coughing, putting his hand infront of his mouth and then looking in disguest and agony as if he had just coughed up a whole bunch of blood, "... Think I'm about to break that promise..." When he said that her eyes went wide.  "Pretty sure... I'm not gonna make it."

When he said that... she started begging again... pleading... such pain... given what she wanted... slipping away from her again...

"No! Y-You can pull through this! Don't speak like that. Don't you FUCKING give up on me. I F-"

Whisper grabbed Picasso's shoulder with one hand to shut her up. Stop her. Settle her down with an authoritative gesture from what is likely the only authority she has ever respected.

We had her right where we wanted her.

'Should we make her believe Trent never died?' he wrote off to the side with his other hand.

'No. We don't need her questioning where he is when she wakes up. Asking why he never visits. Make him make her promise to forgive and help Duckie. Hes sick and needs help, not to be put down. Make him send her to meet me. Have him tell her to listen to me. Have him tell her I'm someone she can trust. If she trusts me, forgives Duckie, and has this closure with her Brother, I think she'll be manageable again.'

Should have worked... should have...

[And then he fell out of his chair and passed out on the floor. Hit the ground pretty hard. Hes real fucking lucky he lives in a loop and was injured in a loop or I'm pretty sure this would have killed him. Spoilers. Hes better now. But after we spent all that time coxing explanations out of him when he was really out of it, it felt like a waste to just throw it all out and let him explain it again with a clearer head. So this is what we got before he got more cogent again. I'm sure he'll post the rest when hes done fuming over this.

Dictated but not read by Fracture,
Heavily edited by yours truly,
Devil Out]

You're Okay to Leave it all Behind.

Great news everyone. Whispers back.

He was out on an away mission for a long, long time. We had him down in Black Lake working with Maggot and Jack to brainwash the populous and rewrite recent history. Specifically that the small town of Black Lake was swarmed with all manner of fear cults in a desperate effort by various fears to take over the town.

While much of the information surrounding the incident is still highly classified I feel its safe to disclose that the effort to cover up the incident has been highly successful. There is not a single survivor who can remember what they actually survived. As best they can remember it, those lost where consumed in a massive fire that nearly burnt the whole town to the ground. To complete that illusion, we set fire to every structure in Black Lake before these mind fucking efforts began to make the damage more consistent with the cover up.

With the cover up in full effect and the populous free once more to go about their shattered lives, a reconstruction effort as been started by the town to rebuild itself from the ground up. Seems before too terribly long Black Lake will be a real town again. Here is hoping it's still there next week...




So, with Whisper back we have everything we need to fix Picasso. I had her restrained by Helrick and Ivan and dragged off to the white room this morning. Shes currently tied down to the operating table with the strongest restraints money can buy. Something I've found to be incredibly necessary in past procedures. You'd be surprised just how stupid strong people get when they try to resist forcible mind fucking procedures. Its like putting someone on PCP. Their brain gives up all mental inhibitions in the struggle and as a result the body uses its full strength as it flails to try to get away.

We actually had a guy punch right through someones chest in a very early try run of this sort of thing. It wasn't pretty.

I can hear Picasso screaming profanities and begging to be let out right now. She must have just woke up.

"NO! I'm sorry, I'll be good. I'LL BE GOOD! I'll kill you QUICK! PLEASE! Not this, NOT THE WHITE ROOM. NOOOO. NOOOOOOOOOO"

Rather annoying.

We should really get started I guess.

We'll let you know how it goes.

The Lord Guardian Fracture Out.