The Violation in 314 ✔️

***14***

A week later, Mickey awoke in the hospital. His appendix had been removed, his left leg was in a cast, and his left arm in a sling. He had lost one finger from his left hand and what the doctors had stitched back together of the rest seemed only vaguely human. Eighteen stitches closed the laceration in his right ankle, and a six-inches-across chunk of muscle was gone from his right calf. Four ribs were mending with various breaks from hairline to compound fractures and his nose was broken. He was in intense pain, and, from what the doctors were saying, much of that pain would linger for the rest of his life. Even so, the next month would be the best month of Mickey's life.

He had reason to be happy now, even if the nightmare of that thing still plagued at the distant corners of his mind, where he dared not look. After the story spread of how he nearly died trying to save Abbie Weber, Mickey was being lavished with attention, and even hailed as a hero. With all the attention, his dark thoughts had diminished, and for the first time since his father died, Mickey felt loved. For that shining month life was good.

He had not told anyone of the abomination in that apartment. The thing had not been seen by anyone other than Mickey and Abigail, or if it had been spotted, the witnesses weren't speaking; and neither was Mickey. People already suspected that he was crazy, and this was not the time to add fuel to that fire. Instead, Mickey had said that upon checking out a noise violation he had found Mr. Robert Weber (his name had been Robert, and why Mickey had thought it may have been Jerry, he could never say) assaulting his wife. Mickey had stepped in and a fight had ensued between the two. Things got rough - as had to be the case to leave Mickey as broken as he was – and Mickey had been forced to kill Mr. Weber in self-defense.

He knew that in time the story could easily fall apart, but how do you tell the cops and your employer that you found a ten foot beast conjured from some dark hell with three arms and waterlogged skin lapping up the blood of the deceased? No, Mickey stuck to his story. He most definitely told no one about his desire to bash in Abigail's brains, let alone the fact that he had tried to act on that desire before the beast had prevented him. He enjoyed the adulation.

And I did save her life in the end, he thought. And did that action perhaps negate the vileness of his inner thoughts? No matter what evil coursed within his inner voices, Mickey had never caused harm to anyone; he had never acted (other than your attempt on Abigail) on his own dark desires.

So, for that first month, Mickey enjoyed his new fame. Over time, however, his dark thoughts returned. These jackasses praising him were the same assholes that had avoided him for years. Now he received cards, flowers, and even visits as if the past had never been. What once felt like love now only sickened him, coming off as false and rotten.

When he was released from the hospital and rehab, and had returned to his apartment, the post-incident high diminished rapidly. He resumed his duties as a security guard (he wasn't letting that Hollywood dick take his job), but walked his rounds with the help of a cane, and at times when even that was too much, a walker. Soon he was back to his mumbled greetings and the tenants carried on life almost as normal. Some stopped to speak to him, here and there, but they were quick to remember how awkward conversations with Mickey could be, and even these fragmented conversations began to fade.

Mickey slept uneasily every night, wondering if the beast would be back, but he suspected that if it returned for anyone, it would be for Abigail. He couldn't call her Abbie anymore. She had been responsible for that thing, he was certain of it, and that made her perhaps even worse than him. No, Abbie was too good of a name for her.

Abigail came to about a week after Mickey, but had stayed silent for the first month, unwilling to talk to anyone regarding that night. Two weeks after Mickey returned to The Villa, however, she began to speak. Her story did not match Mickey's. According to Abigail Weber, Mickey Vartabetian had killed her husband in cold blood. Apparently she had decided to save Mr. Robert 'could have been Jerry' Weber's good name.