Page 43 of Twisted Heathens
I can’t kill him, please don’t make me. I can’t do it.
I slice and slash, fucking devastated by the ceaseless anger. The pain that isn’t even Vic’s fault, I’ve carried the scars inside for years before we met in a backstreet nightclub. Cutting myself viciously until the voices fade once more, I slump on the floor. Suddenly tired and drained of all hope. This is my routine. It always works.
But my biggest fear?
That one day, it won’t be enough. Even this won’t stop me.
And the shadows will win.
* * *
There’s a metallic bang as the guard slides the food tray in, rousing me from the nightmare of the past and hurtling me straight into the nightmare of the present. He slams the hatch shut again without uttering a word. Speaking isn’t allowed. Even if I had something to say, my body won’t cooperate. Nothing escapes my lips right now. They’re just numb, slippery with drool. Every inch of my body is empty. Immobile.
How long have I been here? A week? Month? Year?
Does it even matter?
I once spent a weekend in the hole, back in Clearview. That was torture enough, and it felt shorter than this. But who knows? Time isn’t real anyway, not anymore. Life ceased to exist for me a long time ago, when this sickness took root, invading my brain and corrupting my soul. It’s all been illusionary since, dragging on without meaning.
Sleep returns, black smog descending and enveloping me. The food turns cold, the sunlight fades. Stripling across the room through the high barred window, peeking out from the basement level of the institute. I can’t escape through it.
Don’t you think I’ve tried that?
Another day begins. Another tray of food. More sunlight, more rain, more numbness. Then another. Tray after tray. Day after day.
I lay there, fading and withering. Tormented by ghosts and memories in my head. Voices and whispers of a time long past, yet still irrevocably tied to my present. Truly, I envy people that can simply move on. Like it’s so fucking easy to do. Everyone should hurt as much as me. Everyone should suffer like I do. That’s all I can think. It’s bitter and pointless, like an angry child. But inside, deep down, I’m still that angry child.
The days blur into one another. When my endless solitude is finally disturbed, I’m not even sure what’s real and what’s not anymore. The drugs have been forced in through an IV, eroding all of the precious, painstakingly constructed boundaries in my mind. Unhinging and destabilising until I swear the padded room is watching me, laughing and sneering. They’re meant to have the opposite effect, right? Fucking psychiatrists. It’s all bullshit.
“Brooklyn? Can you hear me?”
I’m rolled over, the sheets pulled back as cold air hits my skin. Beady eyes peer down at me, beneath white hair and wire-rimmed glasses. His skin is creased like old parchment and scented with expensive cologne.
“Time to get up now,” he croons. “You’re free to leave.”
A guard is brought in to lift my flaccid body, forcing me onto legs that refuse to hold my weight. I’m removed from the cell, out into a bleak corridor. Shadowy and never ending, with more cells and barred doors stretching onwards into the distance. I think I hear voices as we pass, but the whispers from behind the doors are indecipherable.
My mind is groggy, unstable and short-circuiting.I can’t process anything or even begin to question what’s happening around me, the sinister darkness in this place. The scenery just melts away into the background as we walk past.
“It’s taken some time, but we’re now happy for you to leave and rejoin the main population. The new drugs have you looking much more stable, hmmm?”
He’s talking on and on, this odd-looking man. Signing release papers as he walks, tucking the fancy fountain pen back into his white coat once finished. The words float inside my head, all meaning lost in translation. One thing screams at me through the heavy fog.
This is not what better feels like.
What have they done to me?
Entering a nearby office, I’m deposited into an armchair. My head is propped up so I can see the doctor taking a seat at his desk, humming under his breath. He’s short and round, clearly well into his sixties. The striped bowtie and braces beneath his coat make him look like a fucking cartoon character. If I could feel my face, I’d laugh.
“Hmm, let’s see. Well, well. Interesting stuff.”
Continuing to mutter and ruminate, he hobbles over to a nearby mini-fridge and ducks inside. Rifling through the tiny labelled bottles of countless drug cocktails like he’s the fucking bartender and I’m a helpless punter. When he sidles up to my chair with a hypodermic needle, I try to move and fail. Nothing responds to me, not even my toes. All I can do is sit helplessly frozen as he finds a suitable vein and plunges it in.
“Very good. This should liven you up, dear. Such a good girl.”
He retakes his seat and studies me intently, a loud grandfather clock ticking away in the corner. Gradually, feeling begins to return. My fingers spasm painfully, pins and needles spread. First paralysing cold infects my cells, then burning heat. Looking down at my bare feet, ever so slowly, I manage to wiggle my toes.
Within half an hour, I can sit somewhat upright and form words. I wipe drool from my mouth and lick my lips, tongue heavy and foreign in my sore mouth. Whatever he’s given me, it seems to have kickstarted my body. Was it adrenaline? Some experimental drug? I’ve lost count of the shit they’ve pumped into me. This isn’t right. It isn’t normal.