Page 39 of Madness

Memories from when I first came here surface, flashing before my eyes – her determined eyes as she pressed the electric prongs into the side of my forehead until I was no longer coherent enough to beg her to stop. The drugs she would pump into my system to keep me compliant when dad would come to visit – ensuring I could never tattle on her.

I can’t deal with this anymore.

My chest feels like it’s about to cave in on itself, and I feel like the smoke filling the room is making it worse.

Ignoring the calls from everyone, I flee therapy and rush to my room, needing my sanctuary.

The hallways rush by me in a blur, and my movements become second nature as I take the twists and turns like I have every day since I was placed here.

My heart pounds in my chest, a wild drumbeat that syncs with the pounding in my skull and how my blood rushes through my veins.

I once felt at home here in Wonderland, befriending the nicer patients while Dad worked tirelessly to make them better, now…. Now it’s my prison, the walls no longer a comfort but a looming dark shadow of what my life has become because my sister hates me.

Finally, I reach my door, my sanctuary within reach, and the familiar tingle in my arms tells me I need to paint; otherwise, the darkness in mymind will take over, and I’ll be lost to the whims of my sister once again.

Throwing open my bedroom door, I jerk forward, a cry slipping from my lips as two guards with red blood-coloured uniforms stand in front of my mural, soapy buckets of water in one hand and a scrubbing brush in the other swishing back and forwards across my work.

“No!” I scream, even though I sound like I’m underwater. “You can’t. Please, you can’t.”

I know I shouldn’t beg. The guards are far too loyal to my sister to listen to my pleas, even when my soul feels as if it’s being ripped apart with every stroke of their brushes against the wall.

They aren’t adding to my work - they are removing it.

Eviscerating my blood… my literal blood from the work I’ve spent hours perfecting.

Jameson’s face disappears, the dried blood smearing across the concrete wall and dripping down over Hare’s smiling face.

I know I should move from the spot I’m frozen in, but I can’t – I don’t, not until every last spot has been scrubbed clean.

Just another thing she’s taken from me, and I’m done fighting.

I'm done fighting to ever try to escape Wonderland when she’s controlling every aspect of my life.

I don’t know when I fell to my knees or when the tears slipped down my cheeks, but when I finally look up,sheis sitting on my bed, picking invisible lint from her too-tight uniform in a desperate attempt to get Jameson’s attention.

“Tut, tut, tut, little sister. Did you not learn your lesson from last time?” she mocks.

I force myself up from my knees, my legs having lost feeling, and I struggle to maintain my balance, but I push forward, refusing to look weak any longer in front of her.

“What lesson was this,sister?” I sneer. “Was it that I have what you want? Or that I simply exist even when we can’t call this existence?” I hold my arms out wide, gesturing to the room that my entire life has fit into the last ten years.

Nurse White scoffs, her head raises, and her bright blue eyes, matching my own, look straight through me just as they always have. “No, this isn’t existing, is it? Even though it’s a pity you exist at all. Have you thought any more about my offer?” her voice is sweet, too sweet, the kind that would rot your teeth, but I see the snake that lies below, waiting to strike the moment she sees any weakness.

“That was no offer, sister. That was a suggestion... an order.”

“But the suffering would stop. You would be free. You do want to be free, don’t you?”

“There is no freedom, not from you and not even in death,” I whisper, but I know she can hear me.

She always can.

I may wish for the sweet oblivion of death to free me from the monstrous things that she’s capable of, but that means leaving Hare behind on his own, and he’s already been through too much.

Harry knows only a little, but my curiosity got the better of me, and I rifled through Jameson’s files when I was left alone.

Pure curiosity drew me to Hare’s folder, desperate for an explanation as to why he was the way he was, and he had no way of ever telling me. What I found was horrifying and brutal, and I swore never to tell another soul unless absolutely necessary.

Just the thought about the things that have happened to Hare has rage thrumming in my veins, and I steel myself, “Get out.”

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