Chapter Three
THERE WAS A clatter of swinging doors, and a tall man in white with salt-and-pepper hair walked out and pulled the mask down from his face. He looked solemn. Too solemn.
"Mr. Stoker?" He inquired briskly. I could see him fidgeting with his fingers, absently rubbing the whitish string circling his finger where his wedding ring should have been.
For some reason, I couldn't take my eyes off his hands. There was a tiny splash of blood on the cuff of his white coat where the plastic covering had failed to protect it.
"You are Judas Stoker?"
I nodded dumbly, unable to bring myself to answer him. He put a heavy hand on my shoulder and gave me what I'm sure was supposed to be a sincere look of deep apology.
"I'm very sorry, Judas. I'm afraid there was nothing we could do for your mother."
"What?"
"She didn't make it. I'm very sorry." The doctor gave my shoulder a squeeze and I resisted the urge to attack him like a wild animal. What language was he speaking? The words had no meaning to me.
"She can't have." I insisted stoutly. "My mother has to be okay."
"I'm sorry," Dr. Sickening Sympathy rearranged his features to a more professional, no-nonsense look. "I'm afraid she's gone."
No. No, no, no.
His voice was drowned by the panic in my ears. The world spun and dipped, making it impossible for my feet to find the floor as earth and sky reversed their roles. I couldn't get the image of red out of my mind, and when I looked down at my hands, I was horrified to see them coated from fingers to elbow in thick, glistening blood.
My mother's beaten face stared up at me from the street and I saw her ruined body on the pavement, a broken doll.
"Why Judas?" her voice echoed boomingly through my mind. "Why did you let this happen to me? You were supposed to look out for me! You promised! You're such a bad son!"
"Stop it!" I could hardly recognize my own voice in its terror. I was vaguely aware of being restrained, my arms being pinned to my sides as I struggled, but the horror branded on my eyelids was all I could see. Before I could regain control, the melancholic blackness had taken me.
The following weeks slid by to make one long, heartbreaking day. I found myself institutionalized for the first time in my life without my mother helping me. Every time I opened my eyes, I saw her battered, bloody corpse at my bedside, accusing me of murder.
Instead of her unshakable support, I had now earned her wrath and hate. She hounded me relentlessly with her unanswerable question: why?
I could never reply to her. I didn't even try. I had no idea how long I was destined to be locked away in this white box with only the silent orderlies for company. For all I knew, this was how the rest of my life was going to be.
Now, looking back, I long for those four white walls! They are a distant, unattainable heaven to me now. I would give anything to be back, safe and isolated.