Chapter One: We gather up our forces/She's busy hearing voices again
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Summary:
“As I mentioned, our Glorious Leader has been in need of a propaganda tool for the masses for quite some time. We have had a poor reception outside of Draag, to put it gently. It is to that end that he has elected for something new.” The Secretary leaned yet further forward until her gloved hands were spread flat across the cherry wood’s surface, her thumb touching the file closest to Sylvia’s second favorite teacup.
Head Nurse Sylvia is a woman dedicated to her work of healing Draag's most sick and broken minds. An expert in her field, she has attempted to stay as far below the surface as she can in order to truly dedicate herself to her work. However, when an offer comes that she simply cannot refuse, Sylvia is plunged into a world of intrigue, blood, murder and forced to question just where her loyalties lie - to the Dictator whose world has made her who she is now; or the past which bore her?
Notes: references to implied torture, reconditioning, sexism, violence
“The Past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became the truth," - George Orwell, 1984.
Gubrick Central Clinical Hospital,
Year 17 of the Concrete Age.
Morning.
The view beyond Head Nurse Sylvia’s office was a wall of nondescript grey. It always had been, for the past 17 years. The flat windows were speckled with raindrops, and the heavy smog further worsened the vista. On a clear day, she could’ve seen across the city to the Gubrick River, as it wound its way through the capital. But that had been in a time before with building ordinances and true, beautiful color to both the sky and the buildings that were largely lost. The craftspeoples who’d taken such pride in their work through the guilds had been packed up in cattle cars and sent elsewhere, branded enemies of the state.
The only craftsmen who hadn’t been sent away had been contracted to work on the dictator’s palace. Sylvia’s head swiveled on an almost automatic movement as she reached an ungloved hand across her desk. Groping blindly, her fingers closed around the rim of her mug of coffee, and she picked it up. A lifetime of living as she did - with only one eye with which to see - made her work through that lack in other ways.
Shaking her head, Sylvia sighed and fingered the thin curtain as her gaze returned to the wall of the grey office building before her eyes. The age of concrete had brought few marvels, and instead torn down so much individuality for the same grey squares stacked atop one another. The only differences were on the inside. This kernel of precious individuality was one Sylvia harbored like the jewels sewed into the lining of her mother’s coat.
Her office had all the necessary, required things of a head nurse. A typewriter, rolodex, pens, ink, paper, filing cabinet under the desk. Larger steel ones stood like soldiers against the far wall in front of her, their innards filled with names and clippings and words that no one but she would see. She raised her gaze from the dark swirl of her coffee mingling with the dollop of milk she dunked into it, to stare into the shadowed gaze of the dictator.
Every office, schoolroom, meeting room and the like had some reproduction of the official portrait on its wall. By legal standards that if ignored meant imprisonment, the portrait was supposed to face towards the palace. But for Sylvia, that wall was glass. So, it faced away from the palace, towards another, older building that was now little more than a carefully cleared space in an industrial park.
She’d done it on purpose. A rebellion, in some small, fiendish sense. She lowered her gaze to her cup again, blowing on the liquid to cool it. She hadn’t applied her lipstick yet - she needed to brush her teeth to get the smell and tinge from her teeth first. Her hair, normally so pinned and perfect with her precious stockpile of pins, laid down her shoulder in a regulation braid with the expected red hair ribbon of an unmarried woman. Her fingers plucked at the poorly made ribbon, feeling the coal-silk weave slip and slide under her pads.
I should be wearing black. The thought slid through her own internal walls so sharply and certainly that the coffee cup in her hand shook ever so slightly. It was just enough to disrupt the perfect spiral of the milk and sugar ratio, but the fact the thought had even occurred at all made Sylvia’s head glance sharply to the corner. Under the boring cinderblock paneled ceiling (she generally avoided looking up there to keep with the illusion of being anywhere else), was a camera. Technically, given her rank as the head Nurse of the Gubrick Central Clinical Hospital, she should’ve been freed from the shackles of surveillance. But in a state such as Draag, no one ever was truly free to do anything. The idea of being under constant observation in order to perfectly perform to standard would drive a lesser woman than Sylvia to hysterical madness.
However, she merely scowled at it, and turned her head away, displaying to its own unblinking eye, her empty socket. The hole was neat, free of infection (She’d sterilized it herself) and the tissue had healed nicely, if she did say so herself. It was only here, in the square block that was her office, as her feet sank into the plush afghan rugs and her hand ran over the velvet cushions of the two standard armchairs, that she was without the armor of her patch.
Disarmed in so many more ways than one. In fact, she thwarted so many rules and regulations just in her appearance alone, that it was merely her rank that kept those black vans from coming to take her away.
Thud. thud.
Sylvia paused midway through placing her coffee mug on the desk, and reached across her desk to press her telephone’s intercom.
“Maya?” She murmured, reaching for the eyepatch and lipstick in one futile grasp. Sprawled as she was over her massive desk, there was a schrk sound that cut sharply through the air. Sylvia glanced down, and swore. Her precious stockings had a ladder rip.
“Fuck.”
“There’s a woman here, Nurse.” Maya murmured, her normally cheery voice dulled with an undercurrent of fear. “She demands she see you.” Maya’s breath fluttered through the lines and Sylvia raised her head to the thick wooden door that separated her office from the long hallway to the wards. Her hand grasping her patch and lipstick tube switched to the thin first drawer on her right hand side. Dipping in, she yanked out a TT-33, and checked the clip.
6 bullets.
“I’d advise you against firing that, Nurse.” An oiled, smooth voice cut through the air and dropped the temperature a good ten degrees. Sylvia glanced up, her single eye narrowing in confusion. Her door, which was locked from the inside, was now open and standing in the gap was a small woman.
She wore a black skirt suit with a short trenchcoat thrown over her shoulders. Her legs were enclosed in pure nylon stockings, the lucky tart. Her heels looked to be western make, with a solid block heel. Sylvia’s own were only recently the same degree of quality. She’d grown used to cork heels, and the twisted ankles that came with it. Her hands were encased in black leather, and the suit looked to be again of good european make. Her hair was firmly plastered to her head and swept back into a sharp bun, no strand gone astray. Sylvia’s own thick braid thumped against the front of her dress, which was pulled tight across her breast, the material taut from the sprawl of her body.
“Did I catch you off guard?” The woman asked, cocking her head to one side. Her jet-black glasses refracted Sylvia’s own face back at her, showing the panic and rage draining from her face in real time. “I’m sorry, truly. It is always such a shame to come in so early in the morning.” The woman picked a non-existent piece of lint from her shoulder, marched in without being invited, then gently dropped her briefcase onto the coffee table.
Sylvia’s shoulders tensed. Her gaze flitted to the doorway, where two male soldiers stood guard. The woman glanced over her shoulder at them and wordlessly flicked her fingers. The men stiffened, and one reached behind him to pull the door shut. It thudded closed with a final, resounding thump.
“Now, where were we?” The woman straightened, her fingers dipping into her briefcase. She still hadn’t met Sylvia’s gaze full on once. Her gloved fingers teased the folds of her case, and slid out four thick manila folders each stamped with the Draag Seal and Classified in Keposhka across the face.
“Both he, and I know that the work you have done is invaluable to our glorious state.” The woman spoke softly, her vowels soft but her intent was sharp, like a scalpel held to the throat. The he; the weight it carried in just the inflection alone made Sylvia still.
The guards; the way that Maya had been silently forced to breach her privacy; the whole-hearted assurance this woman had in entering - all of it slammed into Sylvia with the force of an oncoming train. She stared silently at this woman and her beetle-black eyes, and felt the hand around her desk edge shake. The crunch of her costly manicure digging into the wood made her look down.
“You’re his secretary.” She stammered.
The Secretary gave a soft, unassuming smile. “Of course, Nurse. Why else would I be here?”
To arrest me for treason. Or under assumption of failure of duty. Even a missed meeting could be enough to send me to a camp in the north. She inwardly shuddered and tried to hide her expression.
“Ah.” The Secretary seemed to blink for a moment, then threw her head back and laughed, showing tiny, perfect teeth. “You think we were coming for you?” She scoffed. “Come now, a nurse? What good would bringing you before a tribunal bring for our people? Your record’s cleaner than a river stone!”
“Of course!” Sylvia laughed uneasily, trying to hide her galloping pulse in how she reached for her eyepatch. She ducked her head slightly down and to her left, turning her ruined eye away. Pulling on the ribbon, she bound it up alongside her braid in one elegant twist. Testing in the small hand mirror in a drawer that the patch covered her wounds, Sylvia raised her head again. The secretary was still staring blankly at her, her position and posture unmoved. She did however raise her gloved hand to her nosebridge and pushed her glasses up over her eyes.
Sylvia made no verbal or physical indication of the sight that stilled her - the Secretary’s eyes were bone white through and through. She’d heard the rumors for months, passing from the nurses under her, to vendors on street corners and the gossip columns. The secretary, infamous as a sign of the regime from the beginning, undead? The very idea flew in the face of the modern Draagic state.
But for people of Sylvia’s generation, of the world before, this was a sign.
Mother War was not dead. She had not forsaken them after all. The old pantheon was still watching over their shoulders.
“The files?” Sylvia came around her side of the desk and settled into the armchair with an effortless plop of fabric. The Secretary slid into her seat much more gracefully, her legs artfully crossed at the knee. She leaned forward, the trenchcoat at her shoulders barely shifting. Her hand again went to her temple and she sniffed.
“As I mentioned, our Glorious Leader has been in need of a propaganda tool for the masses for quite some time. We have had a poor reception outside of Draag, to put it gently. It is to that end that he has elected for something new.” The Secretary leaned yet further forward until her gloved hands were spread flat across the cherry wood’s surface, her thumb touching the file closest to Sylvia’s second favorite teacup.
“Something new?”
“There is a need for music. We must show to the world that the Concrete age is a stable one. That we are open to foreign interest and investment, especially with America. There is no need to ally ourselves with Moscow, you see?”
Sylvia did see, which made her want to shudder. Had this been 17 years ago, we would have had Europe and America eating out of the palm of our hand. But this coup… the power change was enough to bring woe down on our heads, but combined with the effects of the National Socialists sweeping East, no wonder they all fear us…
“So why not send an opera company or the Auxiliary band?”
The Secretary’s gaze flattened, shuttering with an almost audible click.
“That is the easy answer. Come now, you were of the before period. What was and has always been the defining fact of Draag’s international image?”
Sylvia paused, balancing the answer in her mind. It would be so easy to blurt out the real answer, the one the regime hated with the passion of a thousand suns - hope. Hope for the broken, the beaten and the damned to rise up against their oppressors; to hope and live for positive change. The siren song of Draag’s band had been so strong that nothing could quench it.
Nothing but fire.
However, she sensed that the Secretary expected the proper, reconditioned answer. She had to appear as if those weeks in that dreary, barbed wire camp with guards and rifle butts trained on the crown of her head, had worked. Do not question the authority of what is being fed to you. Only take it in, so that you can turn it back on them.
“Strength, and wealth.” Sylvia paused. “And wheat.” She repeated obediently, thinking of the national anthem and the posters in the metro telling loyal Draagoshkas to think of the peasants eternally tilling the fields and toiling in the factories. Never mind that the unions that had kept them from being wounded on the job and in good pay when it rarely did happen, were gone.
Everything was gone. The time before was full of gluttony and lies. You were fed a diet of falsehoods. Accept what the dictator offers, and you will be rewarded greatly. The past exploited you. It is in your best interest to be here. Be in the present, for it is now that you prosper.
“Exactly. We must remain strong in order to show the major powers that we intend to play to their level. Imagine the reality of Communism knocking at our door? Our glorious leader reduced to a mere head of the party?” The secretary tsked, clicking her tongue for emphasis. “In order to reduce that threat, we intend to show America what wealth and benefits have come to Draag since our Glorious leader ascended to power.”
The way the secretary seemed to wholeheartedly believe her own filtered, diluted propaganda corroded the inside of Slyvia’s mouth and her costly fillings. She refused to see the damn woman as anything other than a mindless, cunning puppet dancing along on the Dictator’s strings until he grew bored of her and snipped them.
Which was what she would’ve thought had Sylvia not seen the Secretary’s white corpse eyes.
She decided to not jump to any opinions before being presented with the evidence in the files first.
“And we intend to do this through some prisoners who have been held so dearly in the hands of the MOAT for a little while.” Her hand went back to the files and she flipped the dossiers open, revealing familiar patient intake forms.
Familiar Keposhka script met her eyes, all stamped with the correct numbering of MOAT prisoners, their initials and numbers all in perfect, uniform typeset. Sylvia leaned forward, snapping on her black gloves as she went. She lifted the type-sheet and moved it aside, then stopped completely still in her tracks. Her hand fell open and the paper fell back to the table, sliding smoothly across the wooden surface.
Staring up at her, eyes wide and pupils pinpricked with unimaginable fear was none other than the man she had once viewed as her prince and true leader. Whose palace had once occupied the current industrial park that her view overlooked to the distant west. Whose ideas and promises for a new world had ushered in a great and fair age of workers unions and true, possible equality.
Whose death, alongside his brother and closest friends had allowed for the violent and bloody Ravkan-backed overthrow of her homeland, and the death of that equality and hope.
Head Nurse Sylvia stared blankly and wordlessly into the dark, ageless eyes of Crown Prince Gerard Way, and knew without even looking at the other files that they contained his brother Michael, and dearest and deepest friends Frank Iero and Ray Toro.
“We intend, Head Nurse, glory be to our leader, to utilize the Black Parade to enact a new age of propaganda for the West to witness our return to the world stage. You-” The Secretary gently closed the dossier and stacked them into a neatly tagged pile, then pushed them across the table to Sylvia:
“Will be responsible for their re-education to standard. I will be in attendance to ensure that it all goes smoothly.” The Secretary rose to her feet silently, and reached for her briefcase. She adjusted her glasses once more, and calmly glanced up at the camera that watched over them with its single unblinking pupil.
“No one will know what occurred, of course. Should you reject this offer, I shall have you transferred to a work camp in Siberia. Do not disappoint us, Head Nurse. Good day to you.” The Secretary pushed down the cuffs of her coat and stepped toward the door.
Sylvia watched her go wordlessly, and the moment the door had slammed shut, she sank silently into the chair and pressed her gloved hands to her face. Her breath stuttered like an engine refusing to turn over, and then she pressed her knuckles to her mouth.
In words low enough for the microphones to not hear or any listener to think she was coughing, Sylvia murmured in the old Draag language:
Where are you, Destroya?
End of Chapter One.
AN: Thank you for reading! Reblogs and replies always appreciated!
