Two Hells by Nicole Wagner: The Deadly Gambit - REVIEW THIS STORY

Written by Nicole Wagner
Last updated: 01/02/2007 02:01:11 AM

Chapter 1

Through long locks of brown hair, I look towards the only door in my room. It has a small window on the top of it, with a wire netting inside of the glass, making it look like tiny X’s all over the glass. X’s … God, looking at them make me think of… no, I don’t want to think about that… I don’t want to think about them. Those hypocrites… leaving me to die, alone… No… I don’t want to think about that… Please, stop!

I claw at my head, trying to get the thoughts of Antarctica out of my mind. The cold snow… the harsh winds… the loneliness… Why can’t I forget it!? Why won’t it go away!? I soon hear a noise, making me look back up at the door. I can see a face in the window, as the door opens. A nurse with a clipboard walks into my room, her hair is brown, with a few grey strands. She gives me a sad smile, as she walks over to my bed.

“Good morning, Mister LeBeau.” She speaks very softly to me, her voice bringing me back to reality, some. I move my hands away from my head, very slowly. “Are the voices bothering you, again?”

I nod my head. I don’t feel like talking, today… not with all the thoughts and pain swimming around in my head. She places her hand on the side of my face, almost in a motherly fashion. Mother… my own mother didn’t want me… she abandoned me because… because I’m a freak. I suddenly move my head away from the nurse, as though her touch was painful.

“I’m sorry, Mister LeBeau. I didn’t mean to upset you!” The nurse is very apologetic, thinking it’s her fault for my pain. But it’s not… my pain… my misery… it is from my own mind… or the people who made me lose it. Why won’t it let me stop thinking about what happened in my life!? Why can’t I have some peace!? She soon speaks to me, once more, bringing me back to reality, once again. “It’s time for your medication, Mister LeBeau…”

On the top of her clipboard, there is a small paper cup, filled with six pills, of various colors or sizes. The pills keep the memories away, as well as all those bad feelings… for a few hours, and then, the cycle continues. My hand is shaking, as I take the cup of pills from her clipboard, and popping them in my mouth. The nurse then pours me a cup of water, in a paper cup, from a pitcher on the side of my bed. I take the water and drink it down, the whole glass.

“Very good… now open your mouth.” I open my mouth, showing the nurse I took my medication, and was not hording it, like some people in this place. Satisfied, she taps my chin, making me close my mouth. “Very good, Mister LeBeau. Now, would you like to go take a shower? Remember, your father is coming to visit you, today… I am sure you would like to look presentable to him.”

Jean Luc… after… after I was abandoned by the X-Men… he let me come home. But I was so sick, not just physically, but mentally. He said I needed help, that something was wrong with me… so he brought me to the hospital, not knowing what else to do with me. He said he wasn’t mad with me… he just wanted me better… but I didn’t know… what if he was like, like the X-Men… those monsters…

“Mister LeBeau?” The nurse’s voice brings me back to the present, her gaze still sad as she looks at me. I simply shake my head no, and curl back up in my bed, laying on my side, in a fetal position. She pats my head and sighs, leaving the room, and me to my demons. Already, I feel sleepy… one of those pills always seems to work quickly. I just close my eyes, and seem to drift off.

With the medication, I have no dreams, I don’t think of the bad things in my life… it’s just darkness. Nothing to harm me, nothing to make me feel bad… just nothing. I find this to be nothing short of bliss, to be free of those horrible memories, those voices, those thoughts… just to be free. However, my bliss is cut short, when I feel a hand resting upon the side of my face, bringing me back to the reality I hate.

As my eyes begin to open, I see my father kneeling down beside my bed, his hand moving over the side of my face, affectionately. I’m the only child he has now, even if I am not by blood, so I guess he dotes on me, now. He smiles, noticing I am awake, and begins to stand up.

“M’sorry, chile… I didn’ mean at wake you up.” When he talks to me, it’s in a tone of voice that sounds compassionate and caring. Fatherly, I guess. He grabs a chair from the other side of the room, and sits by my bed. “De nurse said you wasn’ feelin’ so good, today. Dat you ain’ talkin’ …”

I just nod my head. I still don’t feel like talking… I fear that the sound of my own voice, will make the other voices come back in my head, or those painful memories. My hands ball up a section of blanket, clinging to it, until my knuckles turn white. I won’t think of anything bad… the medicine won’t let me… I won’t think of anything bad…

“It’s okay, son. You don’ gotta talk today if you don’ wanna. I ain’ gonna force yah.” Jean Luc’s hand moves to my own, trying to get me to loosen the grip on my blankets. I guess he worries I might break my hand or something. “De doctors say you doin’ alot better den when you came in, dat’s real good, chile. I’m glad you makin’ some good process. Maybe dey let you come home for a visit, soon.”

Home… I miss home. I miss my own bed, the smells of Mattie’s cooking coming from the kitchen, even the damn willow tree I fell out of as a kid, and broke my leg on. I don’t have any bad memories of that place… and Jean Luc is… he’s… always had so good to me. My lips quiver some, as I begin to speak, praying that none of the voices will attack me, once I do so.

“I miss home…”

“Oui, I know you do, chile.” Jean Luc gives me a sad smile. Why does everyone look at me with such sad eyes? Do they know what I did? What happened? I cringe at this, and it doesn’t go un-noticed by my father. “Remy… are you okay?”

“Don’ … don’ wan’ anyone at know… wan’ de voices to stop…” I mutter under my breath. “De medication will make’em stop…. De medication will make’em stop…”

Jean Luc took me into his arms, hugging me, and just allowing me to rest my head up against his chest as I keep muttering on and on. “It’s okay… you’ll get better, I know you will. You a fighter, Remy… you won’ give up so easily. You won’ let dis illness win.”

I’m shaking in his arms, shaking like a leaf. I know what’s wrong with me… why I have the voices, those horrible thoughts, those memories… It’s how I met Mister Sinister in the first place. When my powers started to develop… something else developed as well… schizophrenia. My brother Henri and Jean Luc… they knew something was wrong with me, but they didn’t know what to do. Back then, the voices would bring up my rotten childhood, and I thought people were always talking behind my back… that the walls had eyes.

My family was desperate for a quick “cure”. Using underworld connections, Jean Luc found Nathaniel Essex, who promised not only to make the voices go away, but help control my powers, as well. His payment… all I had to do was work with him a few times, and that would be all. If only it were that simple.

The tasks ranged from me gathering “experiments” for his lab, to my downfall… gathering the Maurders, to help in the slaughter of hundreds of innocent mutants. I could not live with what I had done, and fled Sinister’s services. It wasn’t until after Rogue absorbed my memories and ran away to Seattle that I saw him, again. There, he told me that the treatment he gave me… was going to wear off, and soon. That I would have to work for him, once again. I quickly refused, thinking it was a bluff… oh, how I wished it were.

Right after… after the X-Men left me to die in Antarctica, I returned home, back to New Orleans. Within a week of coming back to my adopted family, the voices started, again. For awhile, I managed them, I was able to not show any signs I was loosing it, that I needed help… I couldn’t ask Jean Luc and Mattie for help… not after coming home in disgrace, as a traitor, a murderer. I didn’t want to trouble them anymore… They had done so much for me, I couldn’t cause anymore problems in their lives!

Finally, I completely lost it. I thought I saw people looking at me, in my room… Voices… telling me how horrible I was. How… how I deserved everything that happened to me. I couldn’t take it, I wanted it to stop. I wanted them to stop looking at me, to stop telling me such horrible things! All I could do was scream and smash the mirror in my bedroom, watching it shatter into a million pieces, and a few drops of my own blood fall to the wooden floor below.

I vaguely remember my father and Mattie rushing into the room. They found me pacing back and forth, my right have covered in cuts, streaks of blood, even a few pieces of mirror still in my hand. From what they saw, I knew I couldn’t hide my condition any longer. I fell down to the ground, sobbing, begging for it all to stop… but it never did… it never stopped.

Jean Luc and Mattie quickly brought me to the hospital, getting my hand patched up, and meeting up with a shrink. The doctors told my father I need help… that I needed to go to a more “stable environment” … and here I am. Here I am in my father’s arms, as he comes to visit, as he often did.

“I… I wanna go home… jus’ tell de voices to stop… so I can go home…” I couldn’t stop whimpering, clinging to my father, tears falling from my eyes, down my face. I can’t stop shaking from my medication… from the sadness I feel. “Please… Pere…”

“Mais… Remy.” He holds me tighter as I cry, running his hand through my hair, as he used to do when I was younger. I feel so much better when Jean Luc’s around… I don’t want him to leave me here… “You gotta keep takin’ yah meds, so dat you get bettah… an’ when de doctors say you well enough, you can come home, an’ we’ll be a family, again, I promise.”

All I can do is nod my head. I know he cannot bring me home, yet… not until I am completely stable.. But part of me… part of me wants to go home, so bad. I hate hospitals… I hate doctors… I hate labs…. It’s like I’m in my own physical hell. But if I do not get help, I’d be in my own mental hell… it’s a no win situation. My mind… I’m thinking a bit more clearly, now… I think the medication is finally kicking in… I place my hand on my head, still feeling so tired.

“Here, chile… let me help you.” My father lays me back down in bed, tucking me back in. He knows I’m getting tired, again… wonder if he knows that the medication finally started to work. He leans over me, kissing my forehead, making it itch some, thanks to the goatee he has. “I have to go, now, Remy. Please… listen to yah doctors, an’ keep takin’ yah medication. If you keep it up, you’ll be able to come home fer awhile, an’ when you do, we’ll have a big party, I promise.”

“I know, Pere…” I manage to give him a smile. Despite being in this dreadful place… in two hells at once, I know he’ll always be there to take care of me, and love me unconditionally… unlike some people… no… I won’t think of them… I won’t let my sickness win… I’m strong, like my Papa said. “I… I love you, Pere…”

“I love you , too, son.” Jean Luc smiles down at me, just as the nurse comes in to lead him out. I close my eyes, trying to drift back to sleep. What my father says keeps ringing in my ears. I won’t let this disease destroy me… I’m a strong man, I’ve survived so much… I can beat this… I will beat this.