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"Now, this is not the end.
It is not even the beginning of the end.
But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning."
Winston Churchill
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A hero is one who fights in the face of adversity with ingenuity, courage, and strength. In legends and mythologies, they were known to be blessed with particular gifts, set out on bold and daring adventures, and were often beloved by the gods. Heroes have their shining moments of victory after achieving goals to fulfill and conclude the long journey they began.
They receive the happy endings after defeating the villain in many battles and ultimately the war. The hero gets rewarded with treasures, showered in love, and graced with good fortune. Though questions do tend to rise when something befalls in the story, and those who are afraid to ask do not seek downhearted answers.
What happens when the hero fails?
What happens in the story when one momentous decision, one crucial failure sets the future in motion that includes dangerous and catastrophic repercussions? What happens when the hero is physically beaten, shaken to his core?
What happens when they are mentally and emotionally tortured by a single exchange?
When they're paralyzed or too heartbroken or too proud or overwhelmed with fear or feeling abandoned?
What about when they feel weak and hopeless and don't know how to recover from the ghosts of their past?
How does the story end then?
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Darkness blanketed the town of Beacon Hills on an almost normal evening in the month of August. The citizens were mostly at peace, sleeping quietly in their own homes as a storm began brewing. The thick, nearly black clouds swirled high above with a low rumble that would soon grow louder and louder as it neared. Resting close to the edge of Beacon County sat a mental hospital known for its macabre history of both the patients and the faculty, and its morbid interior as well as exterior. An inky black, winged creature swooped onto the metallic sign just outside the building, cawing classically at the trouble brewing beyond the entrance gate as a warning to all who entered.
Thunder, soon, cracked and lightning flashed across the midnight sky, brightening the hallways temporarily of the institution in an eerie manner, and giving it a haunted ambiance. Inside of the basement, the closed unit of Eichen House was silent, aside from the occasional mutterings of the patients housed there. In one room was a catatonic teenage girl, green eyes staring at the tiled wall ahead blankly, holding no emotion, her mouth slightly opened as her hair became submerged under the showerhead, completely immobile.
A heavy fog surrounded her, scalding hot water soaking her pale skin in the dark bathroom of the facility. Even without lights, one would be able to spot an angry red scar that marred her body above her ribs. The nurse by the door, clothed in her day-to-day grey scrubs, checked her watch impatiently, a towel resting on her other forearm.
"Alright, you've had long enough," she called across the room, her voice echoing off the walls, "Let's go."
No movement was made nor were any words spoken in response.
Vexed, the nurse huffed out, "I'm not buying the catatonic act. So don't think that I'm going to drop my guard."
Silence.
"I know you can hear me."
As the final straw, the curly-haired, older woman stalked over to the poor girl, ordering, "Look at me when I'm talking to you."
Stopping beside her, the woman seethed out, "Lydia."
When the girl stayed silent and still as the dead, the nurse reached through the water, not caring if it sprayed on her, and grabbed at Lydia Martin's face, squeezing her cheeks together tightly with one hand, forcing the girl's head to face her. Green eyes stared right past the woman, expressionless, causing her to let go of the teenager.
It seemed to take forever in drying the strawberry blonde and dressing her in regular patient clothes including a robe. It took even longer as the girl wandered through the hallway in the direction of her room with the nurse behind her, and an orderly at her side. The door to the closed unit opened at the swipe of a key card and a gentle push by the man leading Lydia back to her room.
"Is she alright?" he questioned, leaning down to get a better look at the girl's blank face.
The older woman responded harshly, "She's fine. It's all part of the act. She's just a dedicated performer."
Eventually, the girl was helped onto the mattress of the bed, her wet strawberry blonde locks splayed across the pillow her head laid on as the man poked the needle to a syringe into a small vial he held.
"Up the dosage to three mils," the older nurse told him as she observed, "She wants catatonic? Give it to her."
And with that, she slid the door shut, leaving Lydia alone with the male orderly known as Schrader. Nurse Cross marched back the way she came from, her attitude much too aggressive as she passed by the room next to the Martin girl's, where another teenager was housed, one who constantly spoke to the ghosts in her head. This patient had not moved from her crisscrossed position on the painful bed for several hours, staring attentively at the figure in front of her.
The sound of his footsteps and gentle breathing as he paced about, the smell of his cologne was just light enough to avoid being overwhelming, and the way his fingers combed through his curly locks made her question what he wanted from her. He spared brief glances, his intense eyes shifting from her form to the other areas of the room, thinking of what he wanted to say. She finally built up her courage, her curiosity already piqued enough, to talk to him.
"Why are you here?" she croaked out, her voice hoarse from the screaming and yelling she had produced earlier in the day.
He managed a kind smile, the one she had forgotten.
"You wanted to see me."
His words perplexed her, causing the girl to show it clearly on her face with furrowed eyebrows and narrowed eyes.
"Don't look so confused. You are, after all, in a mental institution," he pointed out, eyeing the cell-like room she resided in. "Diagnosed with, uh...What was it? Oh, that's right. Paranoid Schizophrenia."
She said nothing as she watched him step slowly through every inch of the room. She didn't understand anything about what was happening. She didn't understand why the figure was pacing back and forth in front of her. She wasn't actually sure what that meant. Her mind was reeling so much that she didn't notice he had stopped moving, crouching down, merely inches from her. In fact, she wasn't sure how it was possible to feel his breath on her face.
Her head shifted from side to side in a shaking motion, whispering, "You're not supposed to be here."
"And why not?" he challenged just as quietly as she.
She swallowed hard, afraid of the words to leave her mouth while she gazed into his eyes, reading his expression, his question hung thick in the air between them.
"Because," she gulped, a single tear falling down her cheek, "You're dead."
The boy in front of her only scoffed, his confident demeanor unfazed as he leaned in closer to confess something to her as well.
"And you're powerless."
Before she could react to his words, the teenage girl heard a scream so powerful that it busted and cracked the lightbulbs within the perimeter. Isaac Lahey vanished, out of sight, as Bree reached for her ear, which was dripping with fresh blood while hearing the commotion outside her cell.