Page 6 of Madness

“Harry!” I smile.

He never comes to my room to see me, deciding to keep to himself more often than not or spend time with his animals.

“Hi, Red,” he says softly, “A was wondering if ya had seen ma mouse?” his Scottish accent stronger today.

His green eyes, wide and large behind his glasses, dart around my room, but he never looks at the work that decorates my walls or at me.

I take the opportunity as I always do when he refuses to look at me to look at him – really look at him.

I wonder what secrets lie behind the glasses he wears that reflect the light but not the emotions he rarely shows, only ever showing the animals he believes he can talk to.

“I haven’t,” I frown, “Has Doris gone missing?”

“She wasn’t where a left her when a went to shower,” he frowns.

I try not to imagine him showering, how soapy and wet his body would get, but my insides flush with heat, and my panties get wet at the image that is conjured in my head.

“Red?”

“Hmm?”

“Yir bleeding.” He nods his head at my arm, which is dripping with blood onto the tiled floor.

Fuck I wasted it – too busy thinking about the boy in front of me even though he can barely look at me.

Despite my efforts over the last ten years, he somehow remains an enigma, locked away within himself from the trauma that got him admitted here. He’s built an impenetrable fortress around his emotions with the company of his mouse and rabbit—the only ones he lets in.

I hear him talking to them like they are family; his responses to them are always warm and filled with love, and I want that to happen to me.

I clasp my hand over the self-inflicted wound in an attempt to prevent further loss of my only material. The physical pain from the wounds I inflict on myself is secondary to the ache in my chest from his standoffish behaviour.

Taking a deep breath, I turn back to him, hoping that today might be the day he lets me in, even just a little.

I smile, but it lacks my usual happiness, “Sorry. Do you need help looking for her?” I ask him, even when I don’t want to leave this room.

The ideas bounce around inside of my brain, and my fingers twitch against my skin with the itch to use the warm liquid that I can feel pooling between my palm and wrist on the mural I’ve been painting for the last three months.

I can almost see the final piece of the mushroom stools I’m working on coming together. Each stroke of my finger against the wall is a release for me, a way for me to channel the anger and resentment that have built upinside me from my sister's actions that got me sent here.

The mural before me isn’t just another piece of art that I’ve painted. It’s me – my soul.

The blood I’ve used isn’t just metaphorical; it’s a part of me, my only material since I’m not allowed actual paint, and I’ve lost count of the wounds that now litter my body that I’ve made to make this piece of work.

Harry shakes his head, “No. She’ll turn up. She likes to go on adventures when a canni, and she was worried about Thatcher and the storm rolling in.”

“Storm?” I ponder, turning my head to the barred window, “There was no storm forecasted.”

“New inmate comes in today. Ya know, there’s a storm every time. It’s spooky,” Harry laughs.

“Do you know who?” I ask.

I like knowing who’s coming into my institute; the more I know, the safer I am, and I need to make sure that I am safe above all else.

“Someone named Alice,” he says, but when I look back at him, he’s on his knees, crouching and looking underneath my bed.

“The Alice?” I almost shout.

Wonderland has an Alice who, two decades ago, somehow managed to defy the odds and escape.

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