SIX MONTHS AGO…
Ipop my eyes open, one and then the other, as fog circles my brain, making it hard as hell to think straight. I glance around the small room. The walls are a dingy white color, and the only window is equally filthy, as the rain outside beats against it. The howling wind an eerie soundtrack, as reality dawns on me.
Wellard Asylum.
That’s right. I skinned that fucker alive, and didn’t know I was being recorded by some good samaritan. Yeah, that’s where I fucked up.
Witnesses.
The judge’s words echo in my mind.
“You are a danger, not only to yourself, but to the community at large. This court orders you to be committed to Wellard Asylum, to undergo diagnosis and treatment.”
I move to sit up and quickly notice the restraints. I can endure torture. I can handle almost anything. Almost. This is too fucking much.
Anything but this.
I struggle to get a breath as the panic sets in.
“One hundred. Ninety-Nine. Ninety-Eight.”
Closing my eyes tight, I fight my mind to stay in the present.
Don’t go back to that place, Raven.
My arms are restrained to the bed. I bet the door is locked too.
No! I try to scream, but it gets caught in my throat.
According toGoogle,12.5% of the population in the United States suffers from claustrophobia. Small spaces alone aren’t a problem for me. It’s confinement in smalldarkplaces that sends my mind into a frenzy.
“Fuck!” I scream out, in a mixture of anger and frustration.
The cloudiness in my brain tells me I was drugged. That I can cope with, but restraining and caging me is not an option. When they brought me in, they laughed, and called me a psychopath. That wasn’t news. I already fucking knew that people think I’m insane. Restraining me though, that’s over the fucking line. They want a fucking psycho?
I’ll give them one.
I work to loosen the restraints. They’re white cotton pieces of fabric that are pretty easy to get out of. Surely an asylum hasbetter equipment than this. It’s fucking embarrassing if this is how they intend to secure the insane. Maybe the others don’t fight back. If they are left in a constantly drugged state, they wouldn’t be able to. But I am not others, and every fucker that works here is about to find out I am not a man to fuck with.
I lie back on the bed, move the restraints so it looks like I’m still locked in place, and wait for someone to come in. Closing my eyes, I wait for what feels like hours. Since there’s no clock in this hellhole, I have no idea how long it takes before I hear theclickof my door unlocking.
Keeping my eyes closed, I listen as heavy footsteps come closer. I’m sure it’s a man, but I wait, until I feel his breath wash over me, to pop my lids open and grab his arm, pulling it behind his back, as I jump up and slam him face down on the bed.
“How the hell?” He grunts into the bed, before I flip him to his back and punch him in the face repeatedly.
“This thin fucking fabric? I could’ve gotten out of that in my sleep.”
I grab his throat, squeezing with one hand, while I rifle through his pockets, to find something sharp, with the other. Pulling out a case, I move to sit on top of his chest, and remove my hand from his throat, so I can unzip it and see what he brought for me. He coughs and sputters, as I glance at the weird collection of items a doctor brought with him to examine a psych patient.
A small torch.Interesting. A knife, needles, a black box, pliers, zip ties, and, yes, my personal favorite, a scalpel. Restraining me with zip ties would’ve been more effective. I would’ve gotten out of them eventually, but not nearly as fast as the flimsy fabric I found around my wrists when I woke up.
“You came bearing gifts. How sweet of you.”
I grab the torch, and light it in front of his face, causing him to flinch, but not close enough to touch his skin. Fire is not my method of torture.
“What would you do with this, Doc?”
He trembles beneath me as his eyes widen.
