“The one to kill me you fucking idiot! I have spent my life in a miserably endless cycle– Receive the taint, purge the taint, regret the purge, and try to die. Over and over and over– do you know how mad that can make a person? To spread destruction only to wake up and live with what you’ve done? And then to not be able to die?”
She turned her stare to the ceiling, grounded her breathing and shifted subtly to the side. A metal tinkering stopped sounded before she sat upright with an instrument in her hands. It resembled a syringe, but was much larger. And, where there were usually two thumb holes for anesthetic syringes, the one in Lytta’s hand contained three.
“Lytta, what are you doing?” His ragged breathing was the only sound penetrating the sterile room.
“I’m going to give you your truth, and then you will give me my revenge.”
His brows furrowed, words forming and dying on his lips as he attempted to translate her madness. His eyes never left the syringe she prepped, fitting her three fingers in them just so.
“Do you know what this is, Brooks?”
He couldn’t think, couldn’t see, couldn’tbreathe.
“I’ll tell you. It’s called a leucotome,” she said matter-of-factly. Like she didn’t hold his death in her hands. “This little beauty is used to rid the mind of all diseases. It’s like a reboot, you understand?”
“Lytta, please,” he begged.
She dropped the hand holding the syringe to the side, brows dipped as if she were capable of compassion. “I didn’t want it to be this way, Brooks. But that’s what we’ve been missing. It has to. We cannot break this cycle unless we breakyou.”
She lifted the syringe back to her face and tinkered with the thumb holes until comfortable with the grip. Light glinted off of the pointed probe, sharper than any needle Brooks encountered in the asylum. Except where most were small and hollow, this one was as thick as a screwdriver with a hollow tipped point sharper than a scalpel.
“I always thought this instrument to be rather cruel. So archaic, the lobotomy. But it will get the job done, I suppose,” she huffed to herself.
Lytta depressed the syringe to test its glide and a thin, wire metal loop came out at the end.
“Once the tip is in the right position, I’ll use the loop to fix you, Brooks. To make you whole again.”
“Lyt, look at me. Please.” Tears fell freely down his cheeks as he begged for his life.
She turned those petaled eyes to his and, for a moment, he thought he’d swayed her. A fine line wrinkled her forehead as her brows dipped and lips set in concentration.
As quickly as the moment came, it was dismissed. She turned back to the syringed and made her final adjustments.
His friend. His only friend. And she would be the one to take his life.
“You were dropped into this cage and have been content to live in its lies, but it is time to wake. I am tired of waiting.”
“Lytta please, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
More tears.
More sorrow.
“I know,” she soothed, her hand making a slow path from his temple down to his jawline. “But you will.”
The silence between them was heavy as his harsh breaths rang through the room. She lowered the leucotome and lined it up with his eye so perfectly that it was like looking down a long hallway instead of facing his death.
“I lied to you,” she whispered, syringe shaking in her hand. “I lied to you about my name.”
Brooks thrashed against his restraints, but the straight jacket restricted any hope of moving his arms. Straps kept the rest of him held steadfast. Tremors racked his body as wetness warmed the front of his pants.
“Lytta, please!” His scream was raw, and the sobs inevitable.
She moved, and a sharp prick lanced between his brow and eyelid.
“I am Lytta, Goddess of Madness, bred by the taint within Zeus himself.”
She pushed until blood welled in the corner of his eye and mixed with his tears.
