Going Mad (Once Upon a Time)

Chapter VII - The Proposal

Author’s Note

Happy Monday! I’m already excited to post tomorrow’s chapter, I hope you guys like this chapter and if you do please vote and comment. Today has been a good day for me because it’s a snow day, so no school. :) That’s why I’m posting at noon instead of around 5/6:00. Also, listen to the song I put in multimedia... it came on Pandora while I was editing this chapter and I thought the lyrics kind of fit this story... thanks for reading!

Chapter VII

“Elizabeth, will you marry me?” asks Victor, holding up a ring with a large sparkling diamond attached to the band by gleaming silver fingers. Marriage? It feels like I’ve only met this man a few months ago! I can feel my face getting redder by the second. I can’t believe it has already been ten years since I arrived here at the castle. I can still remember the moment that I saw the elder Mr. Frankenstein for the first time, while everything before that is still a blur. But marriage! Something in my heart aches at the word, as if some forgotten memory is trying to burst out. I stand there in front of the man on his knees, trying to find the right words to say. I’m not sure I even know what the right words are. Justine has been hinting at this all week, only I was too scattered to even put the pieces together. I hear a crack of thunder outside.

Then it hits me, whoever my heart keeps aching for is gone, nonexistent for all I know. Victor is an extremely nice man who really does care for me, and he is handsome I must admit.

“Yes,” I answer, hearing the word come out of my mouth makes everything seem so final. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. He replies with a huge smile and a sigh of relief.

“Then since you have made me the happiest man in the world, I have something to show you,” he tells me, gesturing for me to follow him.

“What is it?” I ask curiously as we make our way downstairs to his lab. I haven’t been down there since the first time we met.

“Remember that thing I was working on the day you arrived?” he asks, cracking a small smile.

“Yeah,” I answer, raising my eyebrow.

“I think it’s almost done, but I want you to be here if it succeeds,” he says.

We walk through the door and immediately I notice something covered up on the table. “Is that it?” I ask.

“Yes,” he says, his smile growing larger with every step we take. I notice that it’s big, a lot bigger than the thing I saw when I arrived. It looks almost in the shape of a… human? He takes the long white sheet and uncovers the thing on the table to reveal a large being, its skin an earthy hue. It has long scars everywhere and looks like every appendage was once from a different place, each coming from a different person. The thought is disturbing, but it in itself is absolutely fascinating. The oddest part though, is the large metal bolts sticking out of his neck.

“What are those for?” I ask, pointing to them.

“Those,” he explains, “are what will bring this creature to life!” Right as he says this, one of the other scientists hooks something onto the bolts which connects up through the floor by a machine. I watch as he flips some of the switches and waits for the machine to get to full power. There is a small dinging sound coming from the machine every second or so.

“What’s the noise for?” I ask.

“To tell us that it’s still taking in electricity. When it stops dinging, it will be ready,” he explains.

“Where is it getting the electricity from?” I ask.

He points up to the ceiling, “The lightning outside,” he smiles. As if on cue, another strike of thunder rattles through the lab. Then the machine dings a long ten second ding before it silences. Victor and the other men in the lab crowd around the man on the table and around Victor’s machine.