Ragdoll

[Xazz]

Part one:
Prison

Satisfaction washed over him like a wave. Strange and delusional thoughts invaded his mind. He shut his eyes tight trying to rid himself of them. But to no avail and he squirmed in the grip of his captor, as he did so rolling waves of happiness washed over him. Happiness cased by his pain.

Then from his left and right up and down the hall he felt the sorrow, desperation, agony, loneliness, anger, and loss. He felt as if he was going to cry as these strong negative emotions played on his mind. Demented thoughts and nightmarish scenarios about his captor burned into his eyelids as they passed each cell.

It was too much; he just wanted to die. And if he did he hoped it was over quick. “Make it stop,” he sobbed softly, tears welling in his eyes. “Please, make it stop.”

“Make what stop?” asked a sadistic voice in his ear. His easy twitched violently, then he shuttered as a particularly nasty scene about his captor invaded his mind from off to his right.

“Please. If your going to kill me, will you get it over with!” he ended with a yell from the quiet voice he had started with. “This is to much to bare,” he muttered to himself.

For that insolence he got a rifle butt to the side of his head. The horrid emotions drifted away, but now the cruel and unusual thoughts and scenes now played in his dreams. Turning then to nightmares.

---

He awoke on his back a pair of blue eyes gazing down at him. Worry filled the space in his head wasn’t from him but for him. Worry that radiated from the person in front of him.

“I’m okay,” he croaked. A needle of relief wedged itself its way through the worry. He offered his hand. He took it and was hauled to his feet by a kid about a year older then him. He was blue eyed with bi colored hair.

“Thanks,” he said. The person next to him said nothing but he simply looked into his eyes and the thought ‘your welcome,’ popped into his mind. The older boy smiled. One didn’t smile like that when one had lived in Haven their whole life; it unnerved him slightly.

“I’m-” but he didn’t finish. He truly didn’t have a name. He had never been given one, well he had but he knew it wasn’t his real name. A probe of curiosity came from the boy next to him. “Never mind,” he said glumly waving it off. The other boy nodded, understanding.

---

They spent the whole day saying and doing nothing else. Well he was trying not to gorge his eyes out from all the negative feelings he was feeling from the rest of the prisoners. Really everyone from a petty thief to murders seemed to be here. And with all those nightmarish thoughts directed at the Baron and his right hand man it was a wonder he didn’t go crazy the second he walked into the prison.

Then when he did sleep after an already horrible day the thoughts kept coming, only clearer, as they came in his dreams; his nightmares. But her have slept for more then a few hours when he was jostled awake. He opened his eyes to see the older boy hovering over him, once again more concern flooded over him, washing away the negativity around him. His stuffed mind felt lighter now that he had one solid emotion to deal with.

“What’s th’matter?” he asked his voice slightly slurred with sleep. The older boy opened then closed his mouth. Like he wanted to say something but couldn’t. “You okay?” he asked the older boy.

“The kids’ a mute,” came a gravely voice from across the hall.

“What did you say?” he asked.

“He’s a mute, as in he doesn’t speak,” said the man across the hall. Behind him something rumbled, he kicked it and it fell silent.

‘No wonder,’ he thought.

“And as a word of advice, kid, its better if you don’t talk in your sleep. It’ll give people the wrong impression.” He turned to them and flashed a toothy grin.

He flinched; he had talked in his sleep! Well if one saw the things that lurked in his mind when he slept then one would have seen why. “I- sorry. I didn’t know,” she said lamely.
The man chuckle gravely.

“Just try to be aware kid, as you never know what’ll happen if you start saying crazy stuff; like you were.”

He paled. Okay this was bad. A hand rested on his shoulder, he turned and say his mute cell mate. ‘You did say that weird of thigs,’ he thought and it came to his mind.

“Thanks. I was worried for a minute there,” he said breathing a sigh of relief, incredibly relived. The man across from them laughed.

“Don’t talk to yourself either. Then people will think you ARE crazy,’ he said. He started tapping the ground with his hand. Every now and then he would add a slap or a pause. From down the hall some tapping and slapping answered, they went back and forth for a minute or so. Then finally they stopped. “Sarge says that the KG is coming to check on us in a minute. You’d best go to sleep, or at least look like it.” And no sooner did the words leave his mouth then from down the hall a door opened. He immediately turned away from the boys and lay down.

He turned to his cellmate and saw he was already ‘sleeping’. He decided to do as they did, as he didn’t want to know what would happen if he didn’t. He didn’t sleep though and after about ten minutes something crashed into a cell door. The older boy sat up, as did the man across the way.

“What happens if you aren’t asleep when the KG comes?” he asked the man.

“You get beaten. Don’t ask me why, you just do.”

He shuttered. “I’m going back to sleep,” he announced. “Not that its any better in my dreams,” he muttered to himself.

[Xazz]

Part two:
Thy Doll be Born

“Wake up slime!” came the KG’s call as it ricochet up the corridor to his cell. He woke, still groggy to view the gray ceiling. His blank eyed stare searching for life. He sat next to the wall his back against it.

It had been a little over a week since he had come to the prison. At least he thought it had been a week. He had lost count of the never changing days. For indeed they truly never changed. The lights would dim and lighten when day and night came, and food came twice a day. But there was no real way to tell time. Only the gray steel and concrete of the cells. The occasional haggard breathing of an inmate, the banging on the hard walls or floor. The slaps of the inmate code as some of the older ones talked without the guards knowing. The tramping of the KG’s steel boots. The on rare occasions a shot was fired or a metal plated fist would connect with the bone of a skull; both either left the criminal crippled or dead.

But he was fine with it all. Really, it didn’t bother him in the least. All that he was worried or concerned about was the ever appartent throb in his mind of hate and despair that washed over him day and night from the inmates around him. Never abating even in his sleep as the thoughts and emotions turned his peaceful sleep into deathly nightmares. Which he woke from frequently taking a long time to get back to sleep; thus giving him little sleep.

It was almost unbearable.

Almost…

That was the key word. Those pains were almost unbearable. Almost enough to drive him crazy. Almost enough to make him smash his head into the walls trying to kill himself just to rid himself of it all so he could leave this coil of the living. Just to be free from it all!

What kept him sane? What kept him alive? What made him know like was still worth living?

His cellmate. That boy who had been worried about him when he first awoke. That was it. That was what kept him sane, alive, and knowing life was still worth it.

That was the almost.

Even though he was only a year older then himself he seemed to have this light about him. This aura that would shove the negative aside and just let a creeping sense of curiosity and goodness flood his mind now and then. He would bask in the boy’s emotions. Greeting them with open arms whenever they could be spared.

The overwhelming goodness from this boy was enough to make him smile. Something he never thought he would do again after seeing his guardian knifed down in front of his while shopping the Bazaar a bit over a week ago. Or after he had killed his first person. And seeing those horrible lifeless eyes staring at him through a thick hazy fog of death. A sight that made him retch and his insides quiver. But this kid made him smile. Nothing could explain these feelings. This light in a sea of darkness. A ray of hope in a black endless void of despair.

….

Or that’s what it had been.

Two days ago he had been taken away. Where to he didn’t know only that gone too. So that led him to one conclusion. One he hated even to think about; that he was dead. He didn’t let himself dwell on it though; he didn’t allow himself to. Not that; he would rather face his sadistic captor before he let himself fall into that abyss. One he know that if he fell in he would never escape, no matter how hard he tried to climb back out. He would stay in that horrible black hole where the foulest nightmares spawned.

So instead he kept to the nightmares, the dreams, the emotions of his fellow inmates. Feeding off them like a hungry beast. Keeping his mind on anything but that one thought. The thought that his savior from himself, that boy; was dead.

He let himself become absorbed by the emotions that had seeped into the very walls. In the week that had passed before his cellmate had been taken his heart and soul had barely hardened in this hellhole of a place. But in the two or so days after the fact his heart, soul, and mind had become an impassable block of ice. Letting out no warmth, and not letting any melt it or let anything crack it. And also in that time his mind started working. Going a hundred miles a minute. Running through thoughts and gobbling them up like candy.

It seemed as the forth day passed his scenes became sharper. Like he was pumped with adrenaline; thought he simply sat against the wall like a rag doll day and night (when he wasn’t sleeping). Only leaving for the two a day meal. And it was starting to scare some of the other inmates; he heard them. Whispering behind their hands, or in the inmate code (which he had learned). They said he looked deranged, like a mad man, a man willing to risk it all. And they were right.

On all accounts.

The KG must have noticed the glint in his eyes, for they passed by his cell more then they did before. But they were always met with that rag doll like position with him against the wall. Or they did until they stayed to long. They he would look up at them his face blank as paper, but his eyes gleaming with dark promises. That usually unnerved them so much that they simply left, not returning till their shift changed and a new guy made the same mistake. Then the next would see the dark promises and thoughts that no one shared willingly. They all came out in his eyes. Hundreds of death promises from all over the prison, a few his own. And countless beyond countless dark thoughts that kept to the back of one’s mind in their waking hours, coming to surface in their sleep as nightmare. That’s what his eyes shined with.

That was his blank man man’s stare.

That was what the KG learned to fear whenever they made their rounds by his cell.

[Xazz]

Part three:
Invasion

It wasn’t until another week after his cellmate had been taken did anything else happened. He was just sitting, his back to the wall his legs splayed out in front of him and his arms hanging limply at his side in his now trademark ‘rag doll’ pose, when he heard the cell door open. He didn’t look up, but he felt it in the floor and air that three KG had entered.

“What’s your name boy?” asked a certain man. One he knew very well. All of Haven knew him; all of Haven feared him. He was the dictionary definition of a psycho. He was the basket case of the KG. He was the one that enjoyed seeing others suffer and in pain. But did he care?

No.

To him it was just another day in the prison. Wasting away in the thoughts and emotions of the inmates.

“I said ‘what is your name’?” he almost snapped. A flash of annoyance swept over him like a bolt of lightning. He smiled grimly; making him seems more of a madman he had become. “Answer me!” snapped the Commander. Again he was met with silence.

“Rag doll,” said a voice across the hall; the man from his first day, the one with a friend named Sarge.

“What?” asked the psychopath.

“W-we call him Rag doll, ‘cause that’s what he has become,” the man stuttered.

“Really?” asked the Commander interested. “Do tell,” he said with a slight grin, an insane grin.

“Y-yes. Two weeks ago he started it. Not doing nothing but sitting there like a rag doll ‘cept to eat. So we named him that, we didn’t know his real one.”

Rag doll, how could he have forgotten that? It was true. The inmates now referred to him as Rag doll, for what he had become. Becoming a doll with no life of its own except to feed on the negative. Another reason, so he heard, was his eyes. They shined like black buttons of a rag doll’s eyes.

“Does he?” the Commander asked. With the slight strain of fabric he crouched down, lifting the boy’s chin up so he could look right into his face. What he got was a blank face with two gleaming eyes that shown a horrid black light. He didn’t flinch away from the Commanders contact. Instead he did what he had been designed for. What the late King and the KG corps had built him to do. This had been his plan from the start, and now it was finally being put into action.

Without a blink or any other movement he dived strait into the Commanders mind. It was easy enough to kick his conscience to the side while keeping him upright. Then he went through the older man’s memories, searching for the thing that had kept him sane.

He saw the Commander’s mother and father. His still born sister, who had never breathed her first breath, when he was ten; planting the first seeds of his madness. He saw his childhood, his teens, and now his adulthood. He saw his dreams. His ambitions, and his fears. His joys and his sorrows. His pains and his life.

It was all laid out for him. Inviting him to dive deeper.

And deeper he went. The Commander’s entire life was laid out for him. Everything from his first breath to this instant where he was kicked to the corner of his own mind. It was all here, waiting to be seen. And seen it would be. By him.

Then he came to what he sought; his old cellmate. The data flashed before his minds eyes quickly, but it was all seen. All understood.

With a blink on the Commander’s part he withdrew. The entire thing had taken a bit over five seconds or so. It had been quick, yes quick. But he had made it as painful as he could. He didn’t realize till the Commander fell over after looking at him the extent of the older man’s pain.

“Wha-what are you?” he asked horsy and clutched his head while the two KG came to assist him.

He didn’t respond right away. Instead he stood so he towered over the fallen man and KG helpers. “Just a rag doll,” he said coldly. Then before they could stop him he bolted for the door. He ran through it, closed, and barred it shut. “Thanks, Commander,” he said. Then with that he ran down the hall of cells. Some people called out to him, but they were ignored. He had a one-track mind.

And he wouldn’t stop until it was done!

[Xazz]

Part four:
Wished Freedom

He ran through the halls of the Prison. Completely unstoppable. He did meet some KG along the way but they were all knocked down unconscious before they could radio for aid.

The entire Prison’s blue prints and schematics were in his minds eyes. Courteous of the late King himself. He was the one that had told the engineers that all new subjects were to be made with that Prison, Palace, and city blueprints and maps hardwired into them. And now he was putting it to use. Easily dodging through the corridors. Where was he going? He knew. He had known the second the thought had passed through the Commanders mind.

The high security prison block. What was he doing there he didn’t know. He did know that he wasn’t going to stay there.

The hallways and corridors flashed by him melting into blurs. Just like his lost memories has two weeks ago. The memories that he had only remember in half forgotten dreams. His memories of ‘before’. The time before his memories were erased; well not really erased but stored in the black corner of his mind. The time from when he was younger. When he was nothing but a number, nothing but a weapon. Like the others, only he had been gifted with traits that few had been given. The traits of the mind.

He rounded a corner and came to a stop. He had arrived at the high security prison block. A huge room with a great pit in the middle, the walls lined with cells.

He walked in, his footsteps making as much noise as an owl in flight. He went up to the first cell and looked in.

Nothing.

Another…

Nothing.

Again and again he did, looking into almost a dozen different cells till he found what he sought. But it wasn’t what he wanted to see. He had found his cellmate, yes. or at least his body. What he found was the boy lying face up on the floor. His eyes closed and his bi colored hair splayed around his head like a halo.

He tried to sense the boy’s thoughts, his emotions, anything! But there was nothing. Only a black void of darkness greeted his quarry. The black void that came with death.

“No,” he whispered, unable to believe that the kid was dead. “No, you can’t be dead,” and tears pricked at his eyes before spilling over.

The one that had kept him sane, that had kept him alive, the one that had made him smile with his own innocence when he started to fall into his own mind. The one that had saved him from himself.

Was dead.

He had come to late. The boy was well into death. By now his eyes were nothing but hollow holes, thankfully they were closed. His skin colder then ice, growing colder by the second.

Tears continued to trickle down his face. Causing two lines on his dirty face. They fell to the floor with a silent splash and he let out a wet sob and wiped his nose on his hand.

How could this have happened? It wasn’t supposed to end like this. It just couldn’t.

And it wouldn’t.

He sniffed and wiped the last of his tears away. Crying wouldn’t get him anywhere.

“If we both can’t get out at least one should,” he said his voice as cold as ice. He shoved himself away fro the heavy cell door. “One of will get out of here,” he whispered.

He then turned and walked away. Out of the cell block and down the many halls and corridors of the Prison. Taking out any KG that got in his was. It was a simple matter of quickly going into their minds and kicking their conscience to the curb, so that they fell unconscious.

It was pitifully short how long it took him to escape. He didn’t know if they simply stayed out of his way because of an order, or if there weren’t that many patrols. He guessed it was the latter, as he doubted that they wanted him to escape. Even more if they guessed what he was.

After a short time he was once again walking the streets of Haven. And although he was free his heart and soul had had a chunk ripped away. He stilled looked at the world with a blank eyed ‘rag doll’ like stare. A stare that made the citizens of the city step away.

They feared that look…

The look of a mad man.

[Xazz]

This one is in Jak's view. And not Doll's. As since we all know Jak doesn't die!!

---

Part five:
The Void

Only one person was here in this hellhole within a hellhole; the high security prison block. And he was in the eighth cell along the right wall. He was nothing more then a boy.

If one were to look into his cell they would have seen him just lying on the ground on his back. Nothing moving, his eyes clamped shut.

One could have thought he was dead. If it wasn’t for the slight rise and fall of his chest. One that was so slight it couldn’t be seen even if you were looking for it.

All at once his eyes popped open, revealing sapphire blue eyes. He took a great gasp, filling his lungs with the life giving air.

He rolled to his side retching, trying with all his strength to regurgitate the stuff these vile men had pumped into him. The most horrible substance on Gaea, Dark eco. What he had to suffer this fate he didn’t know. He knew it must have been something. He just didn’t know what.

With a last retch he curled up. Bringing his knees up to his chest and wrapping his arms around them. He began to shake. The after effects of his ‘treatments’, as the called the horrible experiments they put him through everyday.

But he had a way of coping with it. By shutting everything but his vitals down. His heartbeat dropped to almost nothing and his breathing slowed, and his mind went into a sort of suspended animation. Making it seem like her was dead. When he never was. He was in a void in that state. A black void that was near death. He didn’t see here, didn’t feel here. The only sense he had was his hearing. Where it became sharper, so much so that he could hear the heart beat of a fellow elf across the thick door of his cell. He normally heard thing, but his own heartbeat and his shallow breathing.

But today he had heard something. Crying. He had heard crying; at first he could only guess who it was. But then as the person talked he recognized it. The younger boy who he had been with for only a few days, his old cellmate. But it was that kid who had been crying silent tears. He had thought he was dead, and he was crying for it.

How he had wished to move. To show that he was alive, and not dead. But his mind wouldn’t process that, wouldn’t let him. He was like a corps waiting to die. He stretched his legs out a bit before they started to cramp.

He felt horrible. He had made someone like that boy so sad he had cried. That made his heart tear apart. H couldn’t stand to make people sad or cry.

His pitying was cut short when the cell door opened. In walked the bane of his new existence. The thing that haunted his mind in the waking hours and stalked his nightmares in his sleep.

“Well, well. I see you’re awake. And you had a visitor, did you know that?” asked the Commander, his golden brown eyes drilling holes into the side of his head. He shook his head; he didn’t want him to know. “Really? Well then you should know that you did. That worthless little kid you were with,” he spat. “Didn’t you know that?” No answer but the shake of the head. “He was captured you know.”

Liar! His mind screamed. He knew he was lying. He had heard the promise in that kid’s voice when he said one of them would escape if both couldn’t. He knew he was free. So the man was lying!

He didn’t say anything still, not that he could, but he didn’t move his head at all. He simply looked downcast, like he believed him.

“Now there truly is no hope,” said the psycho and walked out, the door closing with a hollow thud behind him.

What did that mean? ‘Truly no hope’? Did that mean he had a chance before? How he wished he knew. But when he said that he had had a sinking feeling that his ‘treatments’ were about to get worse. How that could be he didn’t know. He wished he could have moved before to see something familiar; even if was only by a few days. He might have been free with that boy. Whose name he didn’t even know.

His ears twitched, he heard the psychopath talking beyond the barred door. “That man said his name was Rag doll, yes?” he asked.

“Yes, sir. He said that,” said a KG.

“Well, the I want this ‘Rag doll’ found. We know what he is now. The Baron wants him. Is that clear?”

“Yes, sir!” said three KG’s.

Rag doll? That was the kid’s name? Strange. And what was he? He didn’t know and it wasn’t important so he pushed it aside.

Well whatever his name was, he would find him again. Even if it took him years, he would find that kid.

At that moment he made three promises. One to break out of this hellhole and be free. Another to find his friends; the ones that had been ripped away from him in this hell of a city. And a third to find that kid. He promised that even if he died in the process he would try and do those three things. See them all again. His friends he had known all his life and that boy. The one he thought he knew from somewhere. Like from a lost memory. Or a half forgotten dream.

---

To see the other parts (as this is simply one part of a larger story). Go here
www.fanfiction.net/s/2767472/1/
Replies are loved and appricated, but not ressicary. On both of these.