Nightshade: A SimLit | Chapter 76: A New Beginning

Beep... beep... beep...

The steady beeping of the heart monitor and soft humming of machines were the only noise that could be heard in the room. There was an element of sadness in the air, along with a sharp scent that could only be described as sanitary -- a common characteristic of hospitals.

It had been a long night.

Amelia sat in a chair near the bed with her hands folded neatly in her lap. She stared blankly at the ground, having lost track of what felt like endless hours passing by, shaken up and exhausted from everything that had happened leading up to this point. She remembered the scream that snapped her out of her peaceful sleep, Tiffany racing into the bedroom to tearfully tell her and Onyx that Orion had jumped off of the balcony... and it was all downhill from there. Amelia knew that she'd never forget the sight of his broken body being picked up by Onyx, who was in a completely panicked state, as they used a Glimmerstone to rush him to the Realm of Magic, even though the memory seemed hazy in her tired mind right now.

 It had been then that Tiffany called Rocket and Meteor, explaining the unfortunate event to them. Even in the short time it took them to arrive at the hospital, the doctors had determined the extent of Orion's injuries. The head trauma had left him in a comatose state, though they had high hopes it wasn't bad enough to cause any permanent damage, and several of his bones had been left in a mangled, broken mess. There were no doubts that he would wake up, so his chances of recovery weren't the cause for the somber feelings everyone seemed to have. It was the fact that he'd been driven to this in the first place. No one had any explanation for why he would do it.

But some had their growing suspicions. 

By now, it was morning. Over the painstakingly long hours, the doctors had been able to slowly withdraw supportive care from Orion. He was breathing fine on his own, and they thought that perhaps he'd wake up even sooner than they expected. Amelia's attention snapped to him when she heard him inhale deeply a few times and noticed that a few of his muscles were beginning to make tiny movements, which gradually increased to him obviously beginning to stir from his deep slumber.

"I-I think he's waking up...!" Amelia's exclamation was quiet, as she didn't want to startle him. The doctors said he would likely be disoriented and confused whenever he did awaken. The attention of the entire room was focused on him as his eyes slowly began to flutter open.

'Where... am I...?'

His mind was foggy. He could hear what sounded like soft, muffled voices, and his vision was having trouble focusing. For a moment, he felt so distant, like perhaps he wasn't even really there...

"Orion?"

The voice was chillingly familiar. His eyes slowly began to regain their focus on the first person in his field of vision.

"I was so worried about you!"

'Tiffany...' The haze was clearing from his blank mind and he had a sudden moment of realization. Everything that had happened last night flashed before his eyes again, and his body succumbed quickly to the fear. The heart monitor beside of him beeped rapidly in pace with his pounding heart. He had no strength left, but somehow, he sat up with struggle. "G-Get away from me! Get away...!" His voice was dry and his throat sounded raw, and he cried out as he became aware of the pain coursing through every inch of his body.

"Orion!" Onyx scrambled to his feet and rushed over to the bed. "H-Hey, it's okay, calm down...!"

Orion struggled against the firm but gentle hands trying to lower him back down. Everything seemed to go by in a flash, and suddenly there was someone else trying to restrain him. He was confused and terrified, unsure of what was happening and why.

"No! No, please...! It's not okay... it's not..."

"Sir, I need you to take some deep breaths and lay back down." The nurse's voice was hardly soothing to him. "Can you do that for me? I know you must be scared and confused, but you have multiple injuries that--"

"Let go of me! Let go... I can't... I-I can't..." His breathing was labored and erratic, his entire body trembling in a mixture of fear and pain.

"W-What's going on?" Tiffany stammered. "Why is he acting like that?"

"He's just... very confused," the nurse sighed and glanced at Onyx, who was just barely able to keep Orion from thrashing wildly out of their grip. "Can you hold him still? I'm going to use a spell to try and calm him down."

Onyx frowned. "I-I'm trying to--"

"No, please! G-Get her away from me! Please!" Orion was beginning to break down into choked sobs. He had never been one to yell, which only made his shrill cries all the more bothersome. "She did this! She wants to kill me... s-she tried... to kill me...!"

Tiffany gasped and stepped back in wide-eyed shock. "W-What? O-Orion, I would never...!"

"D-Don't lie! You know you did it! You pushed me!" Orion sobbed, finally running out of the strength to continue struggling against the grips that held him. "You know... you know what you did..."

The room was filled with a sudden tension. Onyx stared at him in disbelief, unsure of what to even say or how to de-escalate the situation. The nurse quickly took advantage of the moment to deliver a quick blast of magic to him, causing him to yelp but finally weakly collapse back onto the bed.

"Wh...what did you do... t-to me...?" Orion was still shaking, but he could feel his body relaxing despite his desperate urge to escape. His heart rate began to slow, and the anxiety seemed to dissipate, if only a little. 

"It's to help you, okay?" The nurse frowned. "I just need you to calm down... you're putting too much stress on your broken bones by thrashing around like that."

Onyx glanced at Tiffany, then turned his attention to the nurse. "...why... why would he say that she...?"

Confident that Orion was tranquilized enough to stay still, the nurse stepped back from the bed and looked at the others, who were clearly worried. "He's definitely suffered some head trauma. It's likely that he has a mild case of amnesia. He's simply confused about what happened, and since you were there," he paused to look at Tiffany, "he probably somehow thinks that you did something to him... please don't take it personally. As he recovers, I'm sure that he'll settle down. Remember that he just came out of a coma, and clearly he... wasn't in a good state before what happened."

Tiffany nodded, seeming shaken. "I could never do that to him. I-I reached out to him, to try to stop him from jumping... maybe that's what he's remembering and it's making him think that I pushed him."

Orion's voice was slurred with drowsiness. "No, I know exactly what happened, Tiffany... you're... you're a liar," he mumbled. "H-how could you d-do this to me... when all I ever did w-was--"

"Stop blaming me! You did this to yourself!" Tiffany interrupted in a snappy tone, causing Orion to flinch in response.

Amelia quickly put herself into the middle of the conversation. "Are you seriously going to yell at him? He was in a coma, Tiffany! He doesn't know any better!"

"L-Ladies, please calm down!" The nurse cringed. "Anyone would be understandably stressed about the situation." He approached Tiffany carefully. "Maybe you should step out of the room to cool down for a moment...?"

She crossed her arms and turned toward the door, mustering some fake tears and a sniffle. "Y-Yeah. I'm so overwhelmed. I can't believe he would talk to me like that... confused or not, I'm his wife. Ugh... I'm out of here."

The door slammed behind her as she stormed out of the room, leaving Rocket and Meteor speechless. Neither of them were truly sure how to feel about the situation, but Rocket was the first to speak, his voice trembling in anger. "Really, dad? Even the nurse is explaining to you that you're confused and you're still going to blame mom for this? Nobody did this but you..."

"Why won't anyone believe me...?" Orion whimpered quietly. "I'm not lying... it's true, I swear..." The exhaustion, the pain, the delirium... it was all beginning to get to him. To say that he was an emotional wreck would be an understatement. 

Onyx looked across the room at Amelia. Though they didn't say a single word to each other, they could tell that their minds were on the same wavelength -- they had to get to the bottom of this.

"I'm done listening to you accuse her of something like this!" Rocket angrily stood from his chair, fists clenched tightly at his sides. "Mom has dealt with your crap for all these years, and this is how you repay her!? I'm sick of this! I'm sick of you!"

Onyx spoke up, his eyebrows furrowing in frustration. "Rocket--"

"Come on, Meteor." He interrupted him and marched toward the door. "We're leaving."

The nurse awkwardly glanced at them, unsure if he should try to interrupt the drama. "I'm sure he doesn't mean to act this way. Please understand. He doesn't know the difference--"

"No, I can't understand! I can't take this right now!" Rocket looked at his brother. "Are you with me or not?"

 "I..." There was a hesitance in Meteor's voice. He didn't even know what to believe anymore, but he glanced toward the door. Knowing that his mother was just outside of it, probably an emotional wreck herself over what was going on, being accused of such horrible things... it was the final straw. "You're right, Rocket. This is too much..."

"Good." Rocket walked out of the room, closely followed by Meteor, and the door slammed shut a second time. 

Orion watched them abandon him, too weak to cry any harder than he already was. "I-I wish... I wish I would have just died..."

Amelia's heart crumbled at the sound of his words and the nurse approached her, motioning for Onyx to follow.

Their voices were lowered to whispers, hoping that Orion couldn't make out what they were saying.

"I'm going to go see if I can calm everyone down and convince them to come back. I-I'm sure they're all just very overwhelmed," the nurse said. "Could you keep an eye on him until I return? Make sure he doesn't hurt himself."

"...of course," Onyx sighed. "We'll take care of him, don't worry."

"Yeah." Amelia nodded, but her eyes were fixated on the floor. Her mind must have been racing a thousand miles a minute with thoughts that she didn't want to believe.

As the nurse slipped quietly out of the room, the two approached Orion's bed. His eyes were fixated on the ceiling and tears were still streaming down his face, but otherwise, he was unnervingly silent.

"Orion," Amelia said gently, "we want to--"

"You have to believe me..." Orion interrupted. "Please. I-I can't... I can't take this anymore. I can't live like this..."

"Listen to me. Please tell us what happened. I-I know maybe you're scared, but... I want to know everything. The whole truth." Amelia frowned. "Not the lies you've been using to hide it..."

There was silence after that. Orion tried to blink back his tears and regain some amount of composure, but reliving all of the memories had never been more overwhelming than it was now. 

"You can trust us," Onyx added. "I promise... we want to help you. We care about you, Orion. Even if you think no one does..."

And that's when he finally broke.

Orion confessed everything. Not in the greatest amount of detail, because that would take far too long, but the parts that he did recall vividly were traumatic enough. Tiffany's years of abuse, her manipulation, her lies, her seemingly endless list of cruelty towards him... it was as though a heavy weight was rising off of his shoulders, only to fall right back down onto his tightening chest. When it reached the point he was crying too hard to even form sentences, he fell silent. He couldn't fight the weariness that was slowly engulfing him, and his eyes fluttered closed as he drifted off to sleep, too sedated by the magic to continue on.

The only word that could describe what Onyx and Amelia were feeling was heartbreak. For so long, Orion's silent cries for help had gone unnoticed by them. Did they have only themselves to blame for this? They couldn't have known, but there would be no convincing them this wasn't partially their responsibility. They weren't there for Orion when he needed them the most -- and for that much, at least, they'd never forgive themselves.

"W-What do we do?" Amelia turned her attention to Onyx, feeling sickened by the explanation she'd just heard. "We can't let this continue for another single second..."

"You're right." Onyx glanced at the door and his eyebrows furrowed. His voice was a low, threatening growl. "There's only one thing we can do: confront Tiffany."

---

Their footsteps were loud as they stepped out into the hall. Tiffany was now the only person there, and quite frankly, they weren't concerned with what happened to the nurse or the twins. They only had one focus, and when Tiffany turned to see them approaching, she could clearly see their anger.

"Is hearing Orion say those terrible things about me upsetting you, too?" Tiffany frowned. "I can understand that. I've had a moment to calm down, and... I know that it isn't really his fault, but I--"

 Amelia interrupted. "He told us everything. You don't have to play mind games with us anymore."

She was frozen in shock for a few moments before fully turning to face their direction. "You seriously believe him? The one with head trauma and a case of amnesia over me?"

 "It's rather convenient that the amnesia only applies to this one incident, isn't it? He knows perfectly well who he is, who we all are..." Onyx growled. "I didn't raise you to be a liar. Tell us the truth. You're caught in the corner, there's no way out of it now."

Tiffany averted her gaze, considering her options for a moment. She knew they were right -- she was caught in her intricately woven web of lies and nothing could save her from the wrath that was sure to come. "Fine. He's telling the truth. You said he told you everything, right? You see, the thing is, he's never been anything more than someone for me to toy with. I can't explain why, but my only desire for so long has been to break him. All of the years of torment he's endured... it was his pain, but my pleasure. So what if I've left him broken beyond repair? So what that I tried to kill him? He doesn't matter anyway. He's been stripped down to nothing -- worthless. Besides, the damage is already done..."

"...and thanks to your blissful ignorance, it's far too late for you to do anything about it." Her lips curled into a twisted smirk.

Onyx gasped quietly, unsure of how to even process the things that Tiffany was saying -- the child that he and Amelia had raised with their own two hands, even despite her not being theirs. Someone that he viewed as his own daughter. But now, suddenly, the sight of her made his stomach churn. His gaze met hers, and for the first time, he realized how truly soulless she was. "...Tiffany--"

He wasn't able to finish his sentence before a thick cloud of black smoke lunged past him and directly toward Tiffany. It took him a moment to realize that it was Amelia, completely outraged and now in dark form, and he raced forward in an attempt to restrain her. "Amelia, don't!"

It didn't stop Amelia from getting in a solid punch to Tiffany's face, causing her to yelp and stumble backwards.

"What the hell is wrong with you!? I can't believe this!" Amelia snarled, struggling against Onyx's grip. "I'm going to kill you! I'm going to--"

"What's do you mean, what's wrong with me? What's wrong with you!?" Tiffany hissed in pain, grasping the side of her face.

He firmly tried to pull Amelia back, ignoring her angry thrashing. "Amelia, you have to calm down! We're in the middle of a hospital! You'll get us kicked out!"

"Like I care!" She yelled, more aggressively than she meant to.

Onyx managed to wedge himself between them, still blocking her from reaching Tiffany. "I know you're angry! I'm really angry, too, but you've got to get a grip on yourself! We have to focus on what's important, and right now, that isn't beating her up!"

"I'd say beating her up is extremely important right now," Amelia began, pointing toward Tiffany as she spoke, "and by the time I'm through with her, she'll be heading to the hospital's morgue!"

Onyx's voice was stern. "Amelia, enough! I'm serious, calm down before the hospital staff notice there's a scuffle going on! What's more important, revenge or being here for Orion? We can deal with her later."

She paused her violent struggling against Onyx and took a moment to consider her actions. "I--"

"I can't believe you'd just attack me like that!" Tiffany snapped, finally regaining some of her composure. "I'm practically a daughter to you, and this is how you're going to treat me!?"

Amelia's chest heaved heavily as she stared at Tiffany, her yellow eyes piercing right through her blue ones. "You're no daughter to me, Tiffany," she said coldly, voice trembling. Her anger began to fade and tears filled her eyes as her own words sank into her mind. "N-Not anymore..."

You're no daughter to me. Tiffany's face fell, and for once, she felt a twinge of genuine sadness. It cut her deep, but she wouldn't ever allow anyone to know that she cared what they thought of her. Yet she only watched in stunned silence as Amelia broke down into devastated sobs, her face buried in the palms of her hands. Onyx tried his best to offer some kind of comfort, but his gaze was fixated disapprovingly on Tiffany. Behind his stern eyes, there was pain, and she could see it so clearly.

Onyx and Amelia were suffering the loss of someone they never truly had. The Tiffany that they thought they knew never existed. Maybe that's what made it hurt the most.

Onyx gave a comforting rub to Amelia's back before stepping closer to Tiffany. "Amelia's right. You're no daughter of ours. I don't know what made you choose the dark path that you're walking down, but you're not going to be dragging Orion along with you anymore."

"W-What are you saying?" Tiffany stammered.

"What I'm saying is," he began, motioning toward her for emphasis, "you're going to go back into that hospital room and tell Orion your goodbyes. Because you're not welcome in our house anymore, and if you want to get anywhere near him again after you leave this hospital, you'll have to do it over my dead body."

Her eyes widened. "You can't kick me out, nor can you make me split up with him!"

"It's my house, I can do whatever I want!" He snapped. "And you're right, I can't make you split up with him. But when you go in there, I'm certain he isn't going to come running back into your arms with forgiveness after what you've done. I'm sure with some support from Amelia and I, he'd love to talk to you about a divorce. And when he gets out of the hospital, you'll be signing those papers if you know what's good for you."

 "...Y-You wouldn't do anything to me. You're bluffing." She scowled despite seeming intimidated. "You can't force me to do anything--"

She stopped mid-sentence as a thick, black cloud of mist surrounded Onyx, revealing his dark form. "I don't think you want me to force you!" His fangs were bared as he snarled loudly at her. "But if you want to do this the hard way, go ahead!"

Tiffany stepped back, her body tensing as she realized that she really didn't have a choice. With a low growl, she turned to head back to Orion's hospital room, defeated.

---

Tiffany found herself begrudgingly explaining the altercation in the hospital hallway as Orion sat across from her on the bed, quietly listening. "...so, long story short, I basically confessed everything to them. They know you're telling the truth now," Tiffany grumbled. "That's at least one thing you can thank me for."

"He doesn't need to thank you for anything," Onyx growled. 

"...I..." Orion took a deep breath, struggling to keep his composure. "I really don't have anything to say to you, Tiffany, except... it's over."

"And what do you think forces me to be fine with this?" Tiffany's eyebrows furrowed. "Sure, you guys can all threaten me as much as you'd like, but I don't see any reason why I have to sign the divorce papers."

"W-Well, I could always go to the police and press charges against you for everything you've done," Orion began. "You can either sign the papers or go to jail." He knew that anyone else would tell him to report her to the police anyway, but in reality, that wasn't really an option. If nothing else, Tiffany was a person who desperately sought revenge -- every move he made had the potential to backfire, and there's no way she wouldn't ensure that he regretted that decision later.

"Like you have any evidence for anything!" Tiffany snapped. "There's no way they'd believe you."

"There might not be evidence but there are lie detectors," Amelia interrupted. "Are you going to deny that he'd pass one? What about you? Do you think it would determine that you're telling the truth when you deny his accusations?"

"Tiffany, please..." Orion tried to reason with her. "T-This has gone on long enough. Just... just give it up already and move on with your life. It's over for us."

Although her heart swelled with anger, she knew that they were right. "...It's over," she repeated with a nod. 'For you, at least.'

---

Months passed by.

Orion's recovery felt like a long process, but like all things, it eventually came to an end. His physical wounds had all healed by now, but the kind that ran far deeper than flesh would forever leave scars -- or at least, that's what the therapist told him. Every week, like clockwork, he'd go into the quiet room for the same old sessions of spilling his most vulnerable feelings to someone that was just barely closer to him than a stranger. Slowly, things were getting better for him, but the road ahead still seemed endless.

But every step was just one more in the right direction. Especially today.

The last few boxes were piled neatly in the corner of the small apartment. Moving out of Onyx and Amelia's house was something he both looked forward to and dreaded -- they'd been so supportive of him throughout the past several months, but he was glad to get away from those four walls that held so many terrible memories. Tiffany moved out before he even came home from the hospital, taking the cat with her -- which was probably the only thing he missed. The divorce was now being finalized, and although his mind hadn't yet emerged from it's dark place, he finally had a sense of freedom from her chains.

"Well, that's everything," Amelia said. "Your apartment looks great... but I'll admit, the house is going to seem way more empty without you there."

"It won't be the same without you, either," Orion sighed, but managed a slight smile. "But... we can still visit each other. I really can't thank either of you enough for everything that you've done for me... I'll always be grateful for that."

"You don't have to thank us." Onyx smiled. "You're like family, and that's just what family does for each other."

Orion felt a warmth in his heart and tears in his eyes. "Family... you're right." His smile widened, although it was a bittersweet one. "I'm going to miss you both so much..."

Amelia blinked back tears of her own. "We're going to miss you too, Orion..."

He stepped forward and pulled them into a hug, which they readily returned. For the first time, things were finally starting to look up for Orion, and it was a relief that he couldn't describe. He never thought that he would get a second chance at happiness, but today felt like his new beginning.