Sunshine was too feeling to antsy to make lunch for us, so I ordered us some pizza and some wine. Sunshine decided to skip lunch; she signed that she was too nervous and too anxious to complete a meal. Mercy joined me for lunch, but ensured that her mouth was constantly filled with food to avoid having a proper conversation with me. It seemed that they were still set on ignoring me despite the fact that we were living in the same house. Thirty minutes after lunch and about two hours since losing consciousness, Brian finally woke up screaming murder.
Sunshine seemed to have expected this kind of reaction because she was at the door of the basement before we got over the initial surprise of his screams. I quickly followed behind, and Mercy was on my heels. Brian had regained control of his body and resorted to absolutely destroying himself trying to escape. The few minutes it took us to get to him, his wrists and ankles were already bleeding from the struggle. Sunshine picked up a bottle and a syringe before methodically drawing out fluid after inserting a needle. She was calm, her face unmarred, even though my brother continued like a haunted banshee.
She put down the bottle and walked over to the thrashing Brian. Although he was trying to move every muscle he had, giving it his all, the chain still managed to restrict a lot of his movement. Sunshine grabbed his thigh and lifted him off the bed. The action surprised Brian, and the minute of confusion bought her enough time to inject him somewhere in the back. There were probably a hundred different ways she could have done it, but Sunshine was trying her best to cause Brian as much pain as possible. After a minute, Brian's screams stopped along with the rest of his body, slowly fading out until he lay there unmoving, not even his eyeballs. Sunshine put down the syringe and motioned for me to come forward, and started signing again.
"That was very rude of you. Why would you cop out and pretend, like a dainty damsel? Anyway, there will be no retreat or surrender; it doesn't matter what you do; there is no escaping me." I would be lying if I said that the version of herself that she presented to my brother did not scare me. Even as I interpreted as best I could, for her, word for word, her words presented questions I had never bothered to ask. Just how ruined was she?
"Don't worry, that was just a mild concoction designed to keep you in place. We are trying to make it seem like you lost your vision. We don't want to scoop them out of their sockets, less suspicious that way." My brother finally turned to me, and the pleading look in his eyes was unmistakable. Sunshine paused her signing, noticing the subtle movement.
"Come on now, don't look at her, there was no salvation for her when she cried out for you while her friends were sexually assaulting her, or when your parents were beating her. Why do you think there can be Mercy for you now?" Sunshine spoke so well on my behalf that I found myself choking up with emotion. It was even more touching given that I was the one who was relaying the message.
"The world is filled with beautiful things, and you don't deserve to take in their beauty. I put up some balloons for you and golden confetti as well. I want this ridiculous scene to be the very last thing you see. All this glitter and confetti in a dark basement that has only ever been used for torture is a very fitting homage for you, is it not? All that money and power, and all you could do with it was oppress the weak. You already had a lot on them, but you had to take more, didn't you? Any last requests, anything you want to see before your world becomes forever dark? I am just kidding, you can't speak," she signed, before laughing out loud as I translated.
The sound that came out of Sunshine was very chilling, and I fought the urge to step away from her. From the corner of my eye, I saw Mercy slowly inching away from Sunshine towards the wall. She picked up another bottle and a different syringe and drew fluid from a bottle labelled chloroquine. I had no idea what Malaria medicine was going to do in this situation, but I also had no idea what the condition was earlier, and the truth was, I did not care. Anything bad for my brother was good enough for me. She injected the liquid directly into my brother's eye, as the needle pushed its way past the surface of the pupil, I'm disappointed to say I felt bile rise to my throat. I swallowed several times, pushing back the contents of my stomach.
She repeated the same for his other eye and stood back to admire her work. My brother was still under the influence of whatever paralytic condition she had given him, but I couldn't help but wonder if he was feeling any pain. Before I could ask, his eyeballs started twitching rapidly and quickly turned red. After a few seconds, the muscles all over his body started twitching. Sin Shine quickly held him down for a few minutes before he finally calmed down. She dusted her hands off, satisfied with whatever had just occurred, and without another word, she walked out of the basement humming.
Mercy and I remained in the basement for another thirty minutes, and although no words were passed between us, we both knew it was fear that held us back. My brother's eyelids had drifted shut during his convulsions, so he just lay there still and unmoving. It had only been three days since his arrival, and he was already looking worse for wear. There were more than a dozen open bruises all over his body. His ankles and wrists had been scratched raw, and I hurt just looking at them. His clothes were in tatters from the accident and from being dragged across the floor several times. His reputation was already in shambles, and if sunshine was to be believed, once my brother regained consciousness, he would be permanently blind. We had already done plenty to irrevocably damage his life, and yet my revenge was beginning to feel shallow once again. His presence, although involuntary, was beginning to nag at my mind. I wanted too end this.
By the time we tiptoe out of the basement, Sunshine was at the sink, humming as she went about getting dinner ready. I dared not interrupt her, so I fled to my room, and Mercy fled outside, probably trying to put as much distance as possible between them. The words nagged at me, and although it was something I wouldn't ordinarily use, the word that seemed perfect for her in that moment was psychopath. If I didn't know any better and I was almost certain that I didn't, I would say Sunshine was a clinically diagnosed psychopath.