Beneath the Stains of Time
001
Hazy forms gradually assemble from thin air in front of me.
Mom. Dad. Mikey. Grim-faced doctors.
Everyone I'd expect, if I were in my right mind.
But there's another, too.
Someone who doesn't belong.
A slight form in the corner.
Time slows as I peer into that corner, trying to speed my agitatingly fuzzy thought process.
For a second, I could swear it's looking at me.
Slow fear grips the base of my spine.
I struggle so sit up, blinking stupidly.
"Who-" My tongue is thick in my mouth.
They disappear.
Just..cease to be.
The doctors hover in the background and my mother throws her arms around me, sobbing.
I put the person-who-didn't-belong out of my head for the time being.
For now, I'm busy coming to terms with the fact that I'm still alive.
My mother's eyes flick down to the insides of my wrists and fill with tears again.
Sick glamour..
"We're getting you help.." She whispers.
I'm struck for the first time by the notion that I might not be going home.
My heart pounds in my chest.
The one that kept beating, no matter what I did to silence it.
It's choking me.
I don't feel well.
How am I supposed to deal with this?
I barely know where I am.
I barely know who I am.
"Mom," I tell her, fighting the urge to just pass out again,"What..what kind of help? What's going to happen now?"
My mother bites the inside of her cheek and fiddles with the handle of her purse.
Nervous things.
She steps back.
She can't tell me.
A doctor comes up. He has a square jaw and just the right kind of emotionless face.
"We'll be keeping you here for a while to make sure you are fully healthy and to help you recover."
My stomach drops.
"So what, like an insane asylum?"
"The term is 'phsych ward,'" he snaps.
Time passes in a blur of explanations I don't understand. Finally, my parents and Mikey get ready to leave.
They say goodbye, one at a time.
Not together.
My dad looks unsteady, like someone is pushing at him, trying to knock him over.
My mother is distraught yet hopeful, thinking that they can help me here.
They both hug me hesitantly and wait outside.
Mikey steps up to my bed.
"Mikey," I ask desperately.
"Yeah?" He asks, scrubbing at his eyes with closed fists, like a child.
"What happened to me?"
"I..I came in the bathroom and you w-were bleeding and then you fainted and I panicked and we took you to the hospital and now you have to stay here to try and get better and.." He trails off, looking despairingly around him at this sterile, uncomfortable-looking place, my new home. My new prison.
I nod, and then he hugs me really hard.
Tears burn at my eyes a bit, because he's the only one that hugged me like I was a person, and not a little glass something.
I'm not glass.
Fragile-everyone is.
But not glass.
Mikey promises they'll be back soon and then they leave me.
Apparently, I'm spending the night in this hospital bed and then they're moving me.
People watch me, to make sure I'm not gonna try to kill myself again, I guess.
It's kind of annoying, but I amuse myself for a few hours by perfecting my evil eye on them.
After a while, I pretend to be asleep. They stay a little while after that, but once it gets really dark outside, they stop coming.
I stare at the ceiling and try to block out the sound of my pulse.
I think of anything and everything to take my mind away from the fact that I'm still a prisoner.
I don't think I'm really..suicidal. I just don't want to have to live.
Does that make sense?
Of course not.
My mind wanders away from the complicated topic, to easier things.
I have a cramp in my foot.
My wrists ache.
There's cracks in the ceiling.
My hair is in my face. It bothers me.
They took my shoes off.
I never understood what everyone thought was so great about the stars.
Why do I feel like I'm not alone?
My eyes widen. I jerk out of my self-induced trance.
The person-who-doesn't-belong is in the corner.
Cautiously, I sit up, trying not to attract attention.
The corner it's in is in shadow.
All I can make out is that it's human-looking and short.
"Hello?" I called softly.
This really should've been freaking me out more than it actually did.
Was it a ghost?
My mind flashed unbidden back to all the horror movies I'd watched that concerned revengeful undead beings.
But that stuff wasn't real.
The thing gave no sign that it had heard me.
"Hello," I called again, louder this time.
Then hastily clapped my hands over my mouth in case the doctors came back in.
The thing came a few steps out of its corner.
The light from the moon threw some of it in relief, and I realized that it was just a person. A kid, really.
"How'd you get in here?" I asked.
The kid didn't speak.
And here's the part where I began to wonder exactly what kind of medication they'd given me.
The kid started to fade around the edges, blurring and hazing and eventually becoming one with the air around him.
My mouth hung open.
Finally, I just gave up and went back to bed.
I can't think about this right now.
Besides, sleep is the closest thing to death that I have right now.
I dream of broken glass things and children in masks.
Mom. Dad. Mikey. Grim-faced doctors.
Everyone I'd expect, if I were in my right mind.
But there's another, too.
Someone who doesn't belong.
A slight form in the corner.
Time slows as I peer into that corner, trying to speed my agitatingly fuzzy thought process.
For a second, I could swear it's looking at me.
Slow fear grips the base of my spine.
I struggle so sit up, blinking stupidly.
"Who-" My tongue is thick in my mouth.
They disappear.
Just..cease to be.
The doctors hover in the background and my mother throws her arms around me, sobbing.
I put the person-who-didn't-belong out of my head for the time being.
For now, I'm busy coming to terms with the fact that I'm still alive.
My mother's eyes flick down to the insides of my wrists and fill with tears again.
Sick glamour..
"We're getting you help.." She whispers.
I'm struck for the first time by the notion that I might not be going home.
My heart pounds in my chest.
The one that kept beating, no matter what I did to silence it.
It's choking me.
I don't feel well.
How am I supposed to deal with this?
I barely know where I am.
I barely know who I am.
"Mom," I tell her, fighting the urge to just pass out again,"What..what kind of help? What's going to happen now?"
My mother bites the inside of her cheek and fiddles with the handle of her purse.
Nervous things.
She steps back.
She can't tell me.
A doctor comes up. He has a square jaw and just the right kind of emotionless face.
"We'll be keeping you here for a while to make sure you are fully healthy and to help you recover."
My stomach drops.
"So what, like an insane asylum?"
"The term is 'phsych ward,'" he snaps.
Time passes in a blur of explanations I don't understand. Finally, my parents and Mikey get ready to leave.
They say goodbye, one at a time.
Not together.
My dad looks unsteady, like someone is pushing at him, trying to knock him over.
My mother is distraught yet hopeful, thinking that they can help me here.
They both hug me hesitantly and wait outside.
Mikey steps up to my bed.
"Mikey," I ask desperately.
"Yeah?" He asks, scrubbing at his eyes with closed fists, like a child.
"What happened to me?"
"I..I came in the bathroom and you w-were bleeding and then you fainted and I panicked and we took you to the hospital and now you have to stay here to try and get better and.." He trails off, looking despairingly around him at this sterile, uncomfortable-looking place, my new home. My new prison.
I nod, and then he hugs me really hard.
Tears burn at my eyes a bit, because he's the only one that hugged me like I was a person, and not a little glass something.
I'm not glass.
Fragile-everyone is.
But not glass.
Mikey promises they'll be back soon and then they leave me.
Apparently, I'm spending the night in this hospital bed and then they're moving me.
People watch me, to make sure I'm not gonna try to kill myself again, I guess.
It's kind of annoying, but I amuse myself for a few hours by perfecting my evil eye on them.
After a while, I pretend to be asleep. They stay a little while after that, but once it gets really dark outside, they stop coming.
I stare at the ceiling and try to block out the sound of my pulse.
I think of anything and everything to take my mind away from the fact that I'm still a prisoner.
I don't think I'm really..suicidal. I just don't want to have to live.
Does that make sense?
Of course not.
My mind wanders away from the complicated topic, to easier things.
I have a cramp in my foot.
My wrists ache.
There's cracks in the ceiling.
My hair is in my face. It bothers me.
They took my shoes off.
I never understood what everyone thought was so great about the stars.
Why do I feel like I'm not alone?
My eyes widen. I jerk out of my self-induced trance.
The person-who-doesn't-belong is in the corner.
Cautiously, I sit up, trying not to attract attention.
The corner it's in is in shadow.
All I can make out is that it's human-looking and short.
"Hello?" I called softly.
This really should've been freaking me out more than it actually did.
Was it a ghost?
My mind flashed unbidden back to all the horror movies I'd watched that concerned revengeful undead beings.
But that stuff wasn't real.
The thing gave no sign that it had heard me.
"Hello," I called again, louder this time.
Then hastily clapped my hands over my mouth in case the doctors came back in.
The thing came a few steps out of its corner.
The light from the moon threw some of it in relief, and I realized that it was just a person. A kid, really.
"How'd you get in here?" I asked.
The kid didn't speak.
And here's the part where I began to wonder exactly what kind of medication they'd given me.
The kid started to fade around the edges, blurring and hazing and eventually becoming one with the air around him.
My mouth hung open.
Finally, I just gave up and went back to bed.
I can't think about this right now.
Besides, sleep is the closest thing to death that I have right now.
I dream of broken glass things and children in masks.