Insanity Stains Red

ten

It was several minutes before I was able to regain control of myself, taking deep breaths to compose my features into more appropriated expressions. It wouldn’t do to let the girls feel as if I were mocking them, even if I was. I honestly wasn’t sure if I should set them straight or let them keep their delusions, if it gave them hope. False hope maybe, but any hope was better than none at all, in such desperate situations, wasn’t it? ‘Not if people are dying because of it. They’re putting their trust in the wrong people.’

I guessed that meant I was going to go with the truth; it seemed like that was becoming a theme with me these days. “Have any of you actually seen Katie since Aizen carried her out of here yesterday? I mean, you say that he was kind and that he protected her from little old me, but do any of you actually have any proof to back that up?” I decided to start with an easy question, that way I could work my way up to the harsher realities.

“No” it was the girl who had first mentioned Aizen that answered me; ‘I really wish we knew some more of their names, it’s getting hard to keep track of all these different ones.’ Does it really matter if we know their names or not? They come and go as easy as an evening meal. Knowing their names is a waste of time – I’d never get the chance to even use most of them. The girl continued, unaware of the path my thoughts had taken.

“There’s no reason that we should have seen her though, it’s only been twenty-four hours, she’s probably laying down in a bed somewhere, recovering. You don’t heal broken bones that fast, you know.” I did know, having had several broken bones myself in the past.

“You really think they’d let her just lay around, wasting their valuable time, considering how they treat you? They don’t actually care about you; you know that, right?”

“Aizen cares; we saw that yesterday.” She sounded defensive in her words, and I could understand that. But they were basing this opinion of Aizen off of a few small actions he had made in their presence – actions that he had no doubt planned out to give them that exact sense of security. He had a knack for these things. I didn’t think he’d like me spoiling his secrets, as it would ruin a lot of his fun, but I didn’t like lies. These girls deserved to know the truth. I conveniently overlooked the fact that I had just been considering lying to them myself only minutes before.

“Or he’s just pretending. Didn’t your parent’s ever warn you about not accepting candy from strangers?”

“What has that got to do with anything – what are you trying to say? Do you know something we don’t?”

“I know a lot of things that you don’t. This is my world you’re in now; you should trust that I understand it better than you do. After all, nothing in this place is as simple as it pretends to be, and Aizen most of all.” The blank looks on their faces was almost insulting. Didn’t they understand what I was trying to say to them? It seemed I was going to have to spell things out for them to get it. I began talking slowly and clearly, making sure that there was no way they couldn’t get what I was saying this time.

“People like Aizen act nice to lull you into a false sense of security. They’re twisted enough that they like the extra horror that comes to their victims when they realise they’ve been trapped by someone they thought was just another friendly person trying to help. He’ll lure you in much like an old man will lure a child to his car with candy, and then once he’s got you, he’ll do much worse to you than any of the ones who are straight forward and brutal would have, because that’s what he’s like. The nicer they are the worse kind of monster they make.”

“Why are you telling us this?” She sounded disgusted. “And how do you know anyway? Have you seen Aizen do something horrible to Katie? No – I can’t believe he would do anything like that, he’s just not the type.” I smacked a palm to my forehead in exasperation. People believed what they wanted to believe, and sometimes it took a lifetime to convince them otherwise, if you even succeeded at all.