Billy lay on his bunk and stared up at the white, clinical ceiling of his cell. No, he admonished himself mentally. His ROOM. This was not a jail. Except that he couldn't leave. And there were guards. And they controlled his access to just about everything. The Green Demon is coming. No! Billy shouted at his mind, his eyes wincing and trying to force the thought out of his head. Go to hell, you stupid thoughts. Get the hell out of me!
Breath, Billy. Relax. They stay away better when you relax. Obviously, the meds weren't doing shit, Billy sighed. Sitting up, he moved over to the plexiglass mirror above his sink and looked in. His black hair had been cut short; he preferred it longer, but everything here was so cold and antiseptic. His eyes were sunken from the heavy antipsychotics, and his face had stubble that the nursing assistants hadn't been in to shave off yet. His eyes were a cool blue. Smart eyes, he'd always been told.
He shook his head and allowed himself a slight chuckle at his situation. He'd received a magic guitar. As long as he could come up with a tune and some lyrics to match the situation, it could do almost anything. Billy had no idea where this device had come from, only that he'd bought it at an old junk shop for a steal.
Unfortunately, Billy was also a functioning psychotic. He had these "episodes" in which he was very convinced that certain people were representatives of a creature called The Green Demon. He'd skipped out on so many therapists who'd tried to cure him of these delusions, and he'd basically been written off as untreatable. Most of the time, Billy was able to convince himself that acting on his instincts to fight the Green Demon and his spawn would wind him up in trouble, and that he himself was better off doing nothing, even if the world was not. But sometimes, the guilt was so strong, he just knew that if he didn't kill whoever it was, horrible evil would befall, and many innocent lives would be lost. It was those times when Billy generally wound up in lockup, usually for battery. Once, he'd been booked for attempted murder, but his lawyer had bargained it down.
So, when Billy had discovered what the guitar could do, from letting him fly to creating things out of thin air, he was sure that he'd been given this gift to fight the Green Demon and his followers. And he'd used it. Just once. Fortunately, the guy had survived the attack, and Billy had been committed, rather than locked up in a real prison. And since then, they'd been trying to cure him. They'd even counted his guitar as part of the psychotic delusion, given that when he'd been caught, no one had seen its powers. His current therapist used it in their sessions on occasion, but he never let Billy touch it. The therapist hadn't been able to make it work. Billy had no idea why.
There was a knock on the door; Billy had no idea why they bothered. Whoever it was just opened the door an instant later anyway. It was Lisa, a portly nursing assistant who he'd had some interesting conversations with. Billy kind of liked her.
"Billy, you want some lounge time?" she asked in a friendly voice.
"Hey, Lisa. Yeah, yeah I think I will," Billy nodded. "Hey, how are those grandkids?" he asked as Lisa escorted him out of the room into the hallway. There was a keycarded locked door at either end of the ward; the lounge was about in the middle.
"Oh, they're fine, thanks for askin'," Lisa said in a bit of a drawl.
Lisa walked Billy into the common room; two largish men were waiting outside in case of trouble from any of the residents, but the room seemed placid enough. Billy sat down and flipped on the TV. Immediately, his eyes were locked on; the caption read "Superhero Golem battles unknown creatures on Chicago's near North Side." And there it was. A slimy, tentacled beast, multiple eyes, teeth everywhere, fighting a blue, muscular woman. And Billy knew...that thing must be the Green Demon. And he knew, he had to get his guitar and get out of here. Now.
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