PART FOUR
Ichor was right. I did come around sooner or later. Just like the urge that lungs feel to breathe even if you’re drowning. Only water surrounds you and you know that to breathe it in will be your death, still you open your mouth; still you inhale.
Over my hundreds of years with him we grew so attached that I would be physically ill if he were not near me. I came to understand that he had complete control of me, of my life, and, as sick as this sounds, I liked that; I wanted it that way. I also understood my murders and other shows of violence, or theft, or deceit were the dues I paid to him to keep him always close and closer still. And he would exact those dues either by force – when I locked eyes with him in the tavern as he spilled forth into me unhinged insanity. Or when my arm grew hot beneath his touch as he coaxed the heat of my hate into existence – or by my yield. I yield more often now; I still don’t have the stomach or heart for killing innocent’s. Yielding gives me some semblance of control over what happens, what I will have to live with. In the context of the 21st century, hindsight is 20/20 and, trust me, I know I’m bad. I know my brain is messed up.
From all these decades Ichor has kept me young, perhaps biding his time for a new conquest; perhaps feeling I am a vessel with whom he could spend forever. Either way, I look every bit the same as I did on my 17th birthday when the barricades arose.
In the first part of these, my experiences, I am afraid I lied to you by omission. I had previously told you I was in my apartment. While this wasn’t wildly off course, it wasn’t entirely the truth either. Technically I do live in an apartment, but said lodgings are a private room at the Fairwynd Female Adolescent Institution for Mental Health.
They don’t believe me, you see? They think I am insane. I am not insane! But you know that, right? Of course you know that. They tell me that I am 17, that the French Revolution is two hundred years old, that being immortal is simply impossible, and that I am assuredly not 223 years old. But they’re stupid as a mayfly in June and if anyone should be trying to fix anyone, it should be me trying to fix them. Such ignorant, closed minds. One day they’ll see. One day when Ichor is king and has taken me as his queen. On that day they’ll think to themselves, ‘We should have believed her!’.
There was a soft knock on my door and the doctor with two nurses entered.
“Good morning, Mademoiselle Fleur de Lys,” the doctor intoned gently.
“Good morning,” I replied, refusing to meet his unbelieving eyes.
“How are you feeling today?”
I didn’t answer. They ask me the same idiot questions every day. I let the silence drag on like clothes hung out on the line just before a storm.
“He’s standing right there,” I pointed to the foot of my bed.
“Who is? Ichor?” the doctor asked. I nodded. “Wonderful news! I was hoping this morning we might be able to begin working on some strategies to address the hallucinations you have experienced.” he offered. I whipped my head around and looked at him.
“He is not a hallucination.”
“Of course. Allow me to rephrase –”
“He is not a hallucination!
“I underst–”
“He is Not. A. Hallucination. He’s right there. HE IS STANDING RIGHT THERE.”
“Perhaps we’ll try this at a diff –”
“HE’S RIGHT THERE. HE’S RIGHT THERE. HE IS STANDING RIGHT THERE.”
Before I knew it I felt a prick at the base of my neck and saw one of the nurses holding an empty syringe. A tranquilizer, I thought as my mind became clumsy and my heavy head fell back onto the pillow.
“… just a sedative. Try to relax. I’ll try to come back this afternoon.”
“Vive Ichor. Oui, Vive Ichor,” I whispered as I fought unconsciousness.
Just before I blacked out, I saw the doctor shake his head pityingly and say,
“My God, meth is one nightmare of a drug.