Page 32 of Madness

I avoid the hallways to solitary, instead making my way to the main floor.

There’s no noise as I walk, my bare feet padding softly against the tiled floors. Her door looms ahead. The warm glow of her light cast across the floor lets me know she’s still awake, most likely painting the mural on her wall.

I don’t knock – I never do.

I turn the knob on her door and open it enough for me to slip in.

She’s engrossed in her work, and I have to take a moment to watch her as she works. It’s such a rare sight that I become just as entranced in watching her as she is as she digs her thumb intothe well of crimson blood on her wrist and swipes it across her white concrete wall.

The different shades of red slowly create a picture – a family.

I’m not even sure Red realises what she’s doing.

The characters in her painting, each one of the people she’s grown to love in some way over the years, all having a tea party.

We look happy.

I scan the faces and note the three new ones that sit surrounding her just as Harry, me, and Jameson do.

I’ve not seen them before, but Red’s movements are reverent as she strokes her index finger over a skinny man’s chin. She moves to paint what seems to be identical twins, one holding a set of cards and the other a clock.

Her work has always been exceptional.

Her past work is hidden down in the storage room in the depths of the institute, and my feet twitch with the urge to get them for her, desperate to make her happy.

Red flits to the opposite end of the wall to where I’m painted, and she smiles up at me, well, the fake-painted me.

Her hand sinks into the pocket of her joggers, retrieving the blade, and she makes another cut, another scar to mar her perfect body.

I growl as a droplet of blood falls from her wrist to the floor.

Red turns and tuts.

“You made me drop some,” she huffs, bending to scoop the tiny droplet from the floor and rushing to use it, completely ignoring me.

“I hate seeing you hurt yourself,” I grunt.

“I need to make art, Bander,” she sighs.

We’ve had this conversation countless times, and I know she’s tired of it.

I do not wish to hinder her, to prevent her from making incredible pieces of art, especially when they are so heartfelt, but the scars that now litter her body because they refuse to let her have some paint angers me.

My fists clench at my side, my knuckles turn white, and I have to suppress the urge to pound my fist into the concrete wall.

“Do you like my newest addition?” Red asks, changing the subject.

I focus all of my attention on her, and she rushes to show me what she has done since I last saw her.

She starts at the top end, the caterpillar that looks so like Abe, the psychologist here, that I have to suppress a snort of laughter that threatens to escape. Then she shows Jameson and Harry sitting to her left side, both staring at her with such love that my heart stutters in my chest.

I stand behind her, offering her some cake, and I pause.

She’s painted me perfectly, right down to the prosthetic eye I have to wear, and the slight dip in my cheekbone as my facial structure collapsed inon itself without the support of my natural eye. My brown hair is red from her blood, but the way it flops into my eye when it grows too long is exceptionally detailed, and the small black flake in my blue eyes is there, too. The scar that runs down my eye and cheek is jagged and puckered from the tool used to do it, and somehow, the details on the wall match it to perfection.

I resist the urge to cover it with my hand, an old habit that my Atropa admonishes me for whenever I do it.

To be loved is to be seen, and my Atropa sees me for who I am.

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