Page 4 of Madness

I try not to panic, knowing it’s just the madness playing tricks on me, but her head is ginormous, and her facial features seem to swell along with it.

“Not a talkative one, I see. That’s fine; we can always change that. We have ways of making even the craziest of patients talk,” she sighs, my lack of response clearly bothering her. “Well then, I’m Nurse White. Let’s introduce you to the Warden, shall we?” she chirps, but her voice is loud and harsh, making me cringe.

Her enormous head nods, and I worry for a moment that she will topple over.

“What an enormous head,”Queenie mocks my thoughts,“Can we chop it off, off, off?”

I shake my head.

I learned long ago not to reply to the two voices that live inside my head—that’s how people end up believing you’re mad, after all.

The air feels heavy, almost suffocating, as we stand before the imposing metal doors. The grey building towers above us, casting a shadow that swallows any traces of sunlight.

I imagine stepping back just a few steps to feel the warmth of the sun on my skin, but then they would think I’m trying to flee, escape, and run, run, run away.

Looking skyward, I see dark rolling clouds that form into shapes of all different kinds.

This was my favourite game as a child because I didn’t feel mad.

Alice and I would point out all sorts, and for a moment, we were normal as our arms stretched above us and our fingers pointed to bears, sharks, and birds—lots of birds.

A dark cloud passes over us, resembling a giant wyvern gliding over us gracefully.

“I wish to fly. Maybe we can ask the wyvern to save us and fly us far, far, far away from here,”the male voice says.

He has no name yet, but Queenie is loud inside my head, while he is not.

He lurks in the shadows of my mind, much like I did as a child, careful to avoid being seen by Alice and only emerging when necessary.

Alice once told me about the Cheshire Cat from Wonderland, who would materialise and vanish at will as if dissolving into thin air.

Maybe that’s what the voice is.

Three clicks in rapid succession draw my attention away from the sky and my thoughts of flying back to reality.

The doors open, revealing a large, opposing man standing there. His arms are crossed over his chest, bulging his muscly arms, and he watches me with narrowed eyes. His onyx hair is a stark contrast to his brown eyes that seem to pierce through me, assessing every inch.

The silence between us lingers for a moment, feeling heavy and suffocating.

“Alice?” he asks, his voice deep and gravelly, as I suspected.

I nod.

“Do you not speak? Perhaps you do not know how to speak,” he wonders, and I open my mouth again.

“I do,” my voice a mere whisper, “I’m Al.”

“Not Alice?”

“Not Alice.”

Nurse White snaps her fingers at the guards, and I snap my mouth closed once again.

There is no use for me to speak anymore.

Nurse White points to my chains, ordering the guards to release them. "There's no need for such things here. Alice is going to be just fine, and we’ll have your madness cured in no time.”

A younger guard moves to me, holding the keys to my chains in his hands. The cold metal still bites into my skin, and it will be a relief to have them off. As the guard fumbles with the lock, a strange sense of hope—something I haven’t felt in years—churns in my gut.

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