Chapter 10, Part 1: Who Am I?

Devi stopped the car in front of Johnny's house. She could feel it, some evil force pulling her into the building, telling her that this is what she must do. She drummed her fingers on her steering wheel nervously. She couldn't remember what told her to drive here in the first place. She sat there. " Wait. What the fuck am I doing here?"

She glanced out the car window at Johnny's house. She remembered it vaguely, but she couldn't quite put her finger on whose house it was. Instead, there was just some hollow memory inside of her that couldn't quite connect to her brain.

" My house?" She thought nervously. " I can't believe this. Have I gone absolutely senile? I can't even remember my name…" She did remember a delicious fury inside of her though.

Devi thought hard. There was a lot of fog settled on her mind, a thin blanket of lost images, words, and names. She tried to sort of the shattered pieces of her memory but she was coming up empty-handed. She knew everything, she could talk, obviously she could think, so she hadn't gone insane. She simply had lost her memory.

" People who are severely traumatized lose their memory." Devi whispered to herself. " Yes, only people who go through something really, really bad. So whatever happened to me, I'm fucked up over it." She looked over herself. She doubted rape – her clothing was on nice and neat.

" Well, I stopped in front of this house." Devi thought. " Instinct, maybe? Is it my house, or where I was going? Somebody in there would have to know."

She walked up the lawn and knocked on the door. She saw that 'You Can Still Escape' was painted on it. " Freaky." She muttered, and waited for someone to open the door.

Finally, the door swung open. A guy just her height was standing there. He looked ill, to put it gently. His skin, above all, was some sort of gruesome yellowish-beige, like the skin of those who sit in front of a computer screen all day. His eyes had dark circles around them, his hair was a bit of a mess. There were traces of someone who could be handsome if he took better of himself.

" Devi?" He asked, darkly.

So my name is Devi, Devi thought finally. " Uh… yeah. The strangest thing happened, and if you could cooperate…"

" So did you talk to Squee? I sent him to talk to you."

" Oh…" Devi thought hard. She couldn't recollect anything. The last thing she remembered was sitting at a kitchen table, staring at a painting. Then, there was a weird whirl to her memory, smudged beyond repair, and then her next memory was pulling up in front of this man's house. " … Yes, I suppose I did." Devi rationalized, maybe what this Squee told me made me go insane?

The man stood in the doorway, staring at her, his eyebrows raised. " So you forgive me?"

Devi was taken aback. So Squee was a messenger – he brought an apology to her. She couldn't remember anything though. It was like being reincarnated into the body of a total stranger. Devi didn't know what to forgive this man for. What could he have done, though? He was just about her height, thin, ill-looking, and dressed very Goth. There was absolutely nothing dangerous to him. He stood in the doorway, slouched and looking piteously sad.

" Yes." Devi said. " I forgive you."

His face brightened, then a look of suspicion crossed it. " Wait. Something's not right here. It's not like you."

A little boy snaked his way from behind the man's legs. " Johnny? Did she come back?" The little boy asked.

Johnny nodded. " Squee, what did you say to her? She looks brainwashed!"

Devi was getting uncomfortable. So this Squee could have been Johnny's son. Was she married to Johnny? Was this their child? Did they have a lover's quarrel? Did Johnny send their child to apologize to her, the mother? Was she some sort of horrible bitch, leaving her child with her ill husband like this?

" Johnny, you have to help me. This is going to be very weird to explain, but…" Devi felt it again – a surge of anger and pain inside of her. She was furiously angry about something, this she could remember. She clenched her teeth and continued: " … I lost my memory. I… I don't know what I'm doing here. I can't remember anything."

" What?" Johnny looked uncomfortable. " God, this is absolutely crazy."

" I know." Devi laughed nervously. " The thing is, I can't remember a thing. The only memory I have is just me stopping in front of your house. So I guess you'll have to clue me in."

Johnny blanched. " Oh, but in your ignorance you're happy. I haven't seen you smile for so long." He sighed thoughtfully.

Devi continued: " The… the only thing I can think of is… is a need for revenge. I feel this murderous rage in me, you know? This is just crazy. I can't believe this…"

" Oh… uh… revenge." Johnny looked nervous all of a sudden. " No, I have no idea what could have… yeah." He looked over his shoulder into the house. " You know what? Uh… here, I'll write down your address for you. You go home and relax."

" So we don't live together." Devi felt oddly saddened. There was something drawing her to Johnny. She could remember him, though she didn't quite know why. Johnny just seemed like a kindred spirit. Possibly someone she loved in the past?

" No! Of course not!" Johnny exclaimed. " Damn, you're really out of it." He finished scribbling an address down and handed it to her. " You go home, okay? Take some medicine. I don't know."

Devi nodded and went to her car, feeling dizzy. She turned it on and then looked at the address on the paper she received from Johnny. She remembered the street name. She also recalled how to get there. Yet she couldn't recall ever living there.

She started her car and drove away.

o-o-o

Chapter Ten, Part 2: What To Do?

o-o-o

" She's lost it!" Johnny raved. " Oh, this is both blessed and terrible news!"

Squee stared at him blankly.

" She's looking for revenge. Don't you get it, Squee? If she remembers, she's going to want to kill me!" Johnny looked oddly satisfied. " Just like that, we're enemies."

" Maybe she wants revenge against Ian." Squee offered.

" Oh, yeah, okay." Johnny muttered sarcastically. " There's an idea. What I did to her was worse. Much worse."

" Sorry." Squee whimpered. " I was just trying to help a little."

" But!" Johnny grinned devilishly, ignoring Squee. " There is a way to make her be on my side. Simply, I just choose to make her believe that I'm her friend. And I am. I love her. I really do." He paced the room. " I'll explain that she wants revenge on society, on how everyone she's ever known screwed her over. I'll make her want to stand by my side, be my Queen of Evil."

" Nny, that's bad! You'd be lying to her!" Squee shouted.

" I'll tell her, of course, that I tried to kill her. I won't hide that. I'll explain to her about her boyfriend. But I'll leave some stuff out. You know, twist it even more to my favor." Johnny said. " I'll give her a taste of her past, but I can't let her know much."

" Oh." Squee looked downcast. " But why can't you just help her back to normal?"

" Then I'd lose her forever." Johnny said. " This is my last chance to make her be mine!"

Squee shivered. " You shouldn't lie to her."

" I won't. I'll be selectively truthful." Johnny laughed to himself. " Yes, I'll explain the past to her. But I'll make her want revenge on others. Expulse her fury on those that drove her to her mental corruption. Yes, she'd be just like me. She can even be the next flusher."

" Flusher?" Squee whispered. " Like the one on the toilet?"

" No, no!" Johnny exclaimed. " Someone who's here only to get rid of assholes. Sort of nature's way to even the tides. And she's the next one, and what better way can she be about it than from an ex-flusher?"

Squee didn't seem to understand, but he nodded anyway.

" And you, Squee." Johnny sighed. " You'll be holding us back. Yes, chances are, you'll really hold us back at times. But we'll manage, you know? You'll get used to us. We'll be good to you. Who knows, you're probably destined to be a flusher anyway. What with your childhood and all."

Squee felt the hairs on his neck rise in fear. " I don't want to be one, though!"

Johnny grinned. " Ah, but its fate. This is all coming together marvelously." He paced frantically. " Yes, I can see it now. Devi and I, both fed up with society, killing brutally, happy together. And to think that a few weeks ago I wished to kill her to relieve myself of emotion. What a fool I was. Emotion is what drives us all, it's what makes us do these things. If I were free of emotion, I would lose the desire to kill in the first place."

" I… I guess that makes sense." Squee concurred.

Johnny grinned. " To think that I could ever be satisfied in such a way."

" So you're happy?" Squee wondered.

" I'm happy." Johnny looked out the window thoughtfully. " Dreadfully happy. It all came together in the end, didn't it? It all makes sense. The flusher order… we'll be a Flusher Family, all of us, together!"

Squee looked frightened. " But I don't want to be part of your family!"

" You'll get used to it. Life throws you lemons, but eventually you'll stop throwing them back. You'll make lemonade." Johnny threw his hands up into the air and laughed. " Yes, this not an ending! This is a beginning! An awful, horrid, bloodthirsty beginning!"

Squee backed up against the wall, looking afraid. He picked up his Shmee doll and hugged it. Squee knew a few things already about life, though. Johnny and Devi were driven by fury inside of them, but they wouldn't harm someone they truly loved. Johnny's feelings had ripened and had been cultivated to the point where he couldn't kill Devi, no matter how hard he tried. Devi's feelings for Johnny had disintegrated from pure hate to mild dislike, and after losing her memory, she'd learn to even love him in return.

o-o-o

Chapter Ten, Part 3: Epilouge

Though their relationship became one of minds, of parallel minds thinking on similar wavelengths, it had crossed the border into physicality much later. Nearly three years after Johnny and Devi began to work together, protected from outside forces because they were all flusher material again, they had a child of their own. It had taken Johnny that long to be able to transcend his own fear of bodily contact, of being human, of emotions.

Johnny never did lie to Devi. Whenever she asked him of her past, he told her as much as he could. Neither could recall their childhood, though, for neither had seen the other's childhood, and there was no way to supply these memories to one another. Therefore they viewed their lives as enigmas up until they both met.

As for Squee – he adjusted rather poorly at first, but eventually learned to avoid his adopted family's killing sprees and their multiple torture chambers. Instead, he became one of the youngest successful poets, his poetry dark and disturbingly emotional for such a small child. He grew locked inside himself, becoming more and more disillusioned by what humanity was. As he retracted into himself, he also learned to dislike humanity and the need for physical contact. In short, he was becoming very much like Johnny, on a track to a similar future.

Perhaps they were destined to eventually all come together.

Perhaps one of them had done some prodding to push Fate into this one direction.

Whatever it was, they were all happy, beneath layers of pain, bitterness, and hate.

Author's Note: A very serious finish here, I felt this story was deserving of a very complex, touching ending. And, of course, it leaves room to fill in pieces, just like the first JTHM series. YES! I realize I am insane and I just had to completely destroy Devi's character, MWA HAHA, but eventually I got the ending I wanted! And Johnny didn't have to lie to Devi after all… simply unveil her past selectively, so to speak… and how does it all work out? I don't know! Why wasn't Devi reported as missing? Since she's a flusher and can't be caught. There.

P.S. I drew JTHM FANART! It's realistic and I don't care if it looks nothing like the comic books! I cackle and upchuck in mockery at such an idea!

GOTO:
(Devi is on the left, Nny on the right)

GOTO:

(Nny getting a Brain Freezy.)

Review and I might do a magical sequel, wherein Devi and Nny realize their love for each other after Nny selectively explains Devi's past… And the beginning of Squee's training as flusher.