A Case of Sanity

(This is a work in progress)

         Doctor Charlotte Evans sat at her desk with an open case file before her. The file was thick with dozens of evaluations and photographs stapled randomly. A file this thick was normal for a patient that had been in care for a lifetime but the patient, Natalie Roman, had only been committed three months prior. In her three months at Mount Horeb Psychiatric In-Patient Facility, Ms. Roman had been transferred three times: from standard housing, to secured housing, to maximum secured. Her medications had been changed half a dozen times with varying degrees of success and her group therapy sessions had been all but halted. Mrs. Evans was the young woman's second doctor, the previous doctor having advised that Facility board that there was no way Natalie Roman would ever be functional enough to return to normal society.
                The board had not liked that diagnoses. For some reason the governing board of Mt. Horeb had some vested interest in seeing that Ms. Roman were returned to the general populace. It was not up for Charlotte to debate. The case had been assigned to her as a special priority. She had begun reading the case file with some little disinterest but as she read on her interest grew.
                Natalie Roman, aged 20, the only child of a broken home. Her father had been listed as unknown and the girl's mother was deceased....Natalie Roman had killed her. That had been the first murder at the hands of the slight young woman who barely weighed in at 110 pounds. Evidence had suggested that Natalie had murdered her mother over a year previous but had somehow managed to withhold her mother's untimely death for over a year. Why had she killed her mother?
                "He told me to."
                Charlotte Evans returned to that sentence written in an evaluating doctor's report several months prior. The interview had been taped and transcribed.
                Evaluator: What did you mother do that made you so angry?
                Roman: Nothing really. She was just doing what she always did.
                Evaluator: And what was that, exactly.
                Roman: (laughter) Nothing really. She sat on the couch most days, eating chips, watching television....she didn't even wash the dishes. You would think she could've at least washed her own dishes! She didn't have anything else to do!
                Evaluator: Is that why you killed her? Because she didn't wash the dishes.
                Prolapsed pause.
                Evaluator: Natalie? Is this why you killed your mother.
                Roman: No.
                Evaluator: What was it then? What happened to make you do something so drastic?
                Roman: He told me to do it.
                Evaluator: Who...who told you to do it?
                Prolapsed pause.
                Evaluator: Natalie? Who told you to  kill your mother?
                Natalie: Cipher.
                Evaluator: Cipher? And who is he?
                Prolapsed pause.
                Evaluator: Natalie?
                Natalie: (sigh)
                Evaluator: Natalie? Who is Cipher?
                Natalie: (unintelligible)
                Evaluator: Speak up...Natalie, who is Cipher?
                Natalie: He's an angel. An avenging angel. He told me to kill mom. He told me to do it! He told me to!
                Dr. Evans glanced up from the file. The evaluator had made notes in regards to this 'avenging angel'. His notes alluded to Natalie's intelligence. He figured that she was delusional. He noted that Natalie's tone was expressive of something akin to remorse, as if the young woman knew that she had done wrong and was somewhat embarrassed at speaking of her invisible avenging angel. He had also hinted at the fact that perhaps Natalie was faking her psychosis. Ms. Roman is amazingly bright and intelligent. She evinces comprehension of basic society expectations of behavior. Her discussions regarding this entity that she refers to as an 'Avenging Angel' seem, in the evaulator's opinion, forced and rehearsed. As if she is unused to the line of questioning. This pattern could suggest that Ms. Roman has created this being as a convenient ruse to describe a momentary lapse of sanity.
                But, it wasn't just a momentary lapse of sanity. Natalie Roman had not been committed for killing her mother. She had been committed for killing her mother and a love interest, Jack Olero. It was the discovery of Jack's body that had let to the discovery of Emma Roman. As of today, Natalie Roman was guilty of killing five individuals, including the author of the report that Charlotte Evans now read. He had been Ms. Roman's forth victim.
                Charlotte leaned forward in her leather chair and picked up her phone. She pressed a button and listened to the hum of electricity as the lines connected.
                "Dr. Evans?" Her secretary answered, her voice seeming tiny despite the fact that she was just outside the door and technically only ten feet away.
                "The Roman file...weren't there audio and video recordings that went along with it? All I have is the paper files. Where's the recordings?"
                "They are in the vault. I didn't know that you would want them?" The secretary's voice sounded concerned, mindful that she might have made an error.
                "Have them ordered and delivered immediately. I want to know everything there is about Natalie Roman."
*******
                "You don't have to stay here." Cipher said with a cynical smile. He sat at the edge of the metal bed, glancing around the small bare cell. "You could leave."
                I ignored him. He knew what I was thinking which was why he smiled so coyly. He enjoyed my discomfort. He fed on it as much as the pain of the sacrifices. It was for that reason that I had grown more and more uncertain with him.
                "Natalie?" Cipher called to me. He stood and tripped lightly towards me. His figure was almost completely solid, although I could still see the pale green walls faintly through him. He was more corporal than he had been a year ago when he had appeared to me for that first time. His eyes were still that bright and unflinching red. How had I ever thought those eyes compassionate? Now they were sinister, filled with malice. "Natalie, dearest, don't ignore me. I'll get cross if you ignore me."
                I sighed. Yes, he would get cross. And lately he had grown so powerful that he didn't even need me to help him manifest. This also frightened me. He had grown so powerful, continued to grow powerful. Eventually he would not need me. What would happen when that day came?
                Cipher chuckled, reading my thoughts as easily as if I had spoken them allowed. He stopped before me, bending his lithe body slightly to brush a diaphanous finger across my face. Although the finger had no substance I could feel the coldness of his touch on my cheek.
                "We are connected, you and I, Natalie. I will always need you." He answered despite the fact that I had not spoken any question.
                "Will you?" I whispered, I stared up into his face. He was tall, nearly six feet, towering over me as I sat on the slight bed. His hair would be a raven black if he had been fully formed, hanging loose and silken over his shoulders. I wondered how much color would enliven his pale face once he obtained full substance. Would he have a rosy glow to his cheeks, a slight tinge of life? Or would his face always be so ghostly white, the face of a deadly manikin.
                "Of course I will. You are mine and I am yours. I promised you that I would always be yours. We are entwined as completely as two individuals can be. One mind...one spirit...one heart..." He touched my chest and his cold fingers chilled my entire body.
                "How much more do you need?" I whispered.
                Killing mother hadn't been hard. I had detested her since I was a child. She was selfish, self-centered and cruel. It was her that had driven my father away and had kept him away so that he had soon grown tired of trying to interact with his daughter. It had been easier to get a new family. And he had. A new family with rosy wife and twin boys. He had replaced mom and I as completely as if we had never existed. Perhaps we no longer existed to him at all. He didn't exist to me any longer.