Story I started writing after listening to Inspire

[sweeneyreloaded]

Chapter 1
Tick, tick, tick. The familiar sting of the blade slices across his skin. He watches the blood flow from his arm onto the checkered black and white linoleum floor. Tick, tick, tick. The sound of the clock starts to grow distant, time seems to stop, and the walls start to bleed. “Am I in Hell?” he thinks as he collapses to the bathroom floor, the blade dropping from his hand. The room starts to swirl around him, he knows he’s cut too deep this time. As he closes his eyes and readies himself for death, he hears a knock on the bathroom door. It’s his 8 year old sister Clarissa. He calls out “go get Mom Claire,” then the room goes black and the last thing he hears from anyone is “oh my God Nicholas, what have you done!?” Next memory he has is waking up to the bright lights of the hospital, they have him hooked up to a respirator so he can’t talk, he can’t move because of all the cords he’s attached to. Somehow he’s still here, he doesn’t know why but he’s just glad he’s alive.
It’s Saturday, rainy as usual in the small town of Mercy Falls. They say that things are going to get better for me now, after the incident I promised my Mother I would go into a psychiatric treatment facility to get help for my self-harming addiction. I’ve been cutting since I was 11, since my Father passed away due to prostate cancer. My Mom doesn’t realize that it’s not something I can just give up so easily but she doesn’t realize a lot of things. Like the fact that her working all the time leaves me at home to do all the housework and take care of Clarissa and Micah, or the fact that when she IS home all she does is drink, or the fact that her boyfriend is sub-human slime. She didn’t even know when my sister lost her first tooth, or when Micah had his first kiss with some little girl behind the big Evergreen tree in the front yard. It doesn’t matter though, I’ll have plenty of time to bitch about my problems once I’m at the hospital.
As the car rolls up to the front entrance of Greene Hills Psychiatric Facility, I remember all the things that my friends used to say about this place. Most people say that they mainly house the criminally insane up here anymore, which I thought was just peachy that I would be housed with dangerous maniacs for the next three months. As we pulled up in front of the admissions hall, I will admit this place seems a bit menacing to me, I don’t really know what to expect here other than what I’ve been told all my life and those movies about mental patients going off the deep end, or the classic, “haunted” psychiatric ward stories. The policeman that was escorting me lets me out of the back of the cop car, undoes my shackles (which had originally made me feel more like I was going to jail rather than a treatment facility, I mean shit I sliced my wrists, I didn’t kill anyone) and leads me inside.
I’m greeted by one of the staff members, an older lady maybe in her late 50s, and asked to step into the assessment room where they will be asking me a series of questions to determine my treatment plan and my triggers, or at least give them a general idea of my triggers.
“Hello,” I hear a voice from across the hall in a separate assessment room. It’s the voice of a teenage girls. I look up to see a petite brunette girl, maybe 5’0 tall at the most, staring at me. I can tell that she’s been crying because her make-up is smeared, but she is still one of the most beautiful girls that I have ever seen. She has crystal blue eyes and ruby red lips, I’m pretty sure she could only weigh maybe 110lbs and at that I have this vision in my head. It’s Fall, the leaves have fallen, we’re laughing and I’m giving her a piggy back ride, twirling around in circles until we both get dizzy and fall down into the leaves. “Hello?” She grinned at me almost as if she could tell that I was daydreaming about her. “My name’s Addalyn, what’s yours?”
Now I’ve never been much at talking to girls, I mean sure I’m 17 years old, but being the one who practically raised my younger brother and sister… time isn’t exactly permitting. I’ve only had one girlfriend my entire life, and she cheated on me with my supposed best friend after we had been together for 8 months. It doesn’t help that I am a blundering idiot around women and naturally a shy introverted person, and my anxiety disorder doesn’t help anything.
“Hey…” I mumble, I can already feel my face getting hot. Great, we have hardly said a whole sentence to each other and I’m already acting like a love-struck halfwit. “My name is Nicholas,” I say in a semi-loud voice so she can hear me from across the hall. “It’s nice to meet you, you have a really pretty name,” I say. “Thanks.” She grinned a little bit, and before I say anything more a man in a grey business suit comes in with a clipboard and says “I’m Donald, I’m a caseworker here at Greene Hills. I have to ask you some questions and then we’ll get you something to eat because I know you must be starving.”
“Oh, okay I guess… food sounds really nice right about now though,” the rumbling in my stomach is intense because I haven’t eaten all day, or really since I was admitted into the medical hospital due to being on all those tubes.
“Do you smoke cigarettes?” the man asks. I shake my head no. “Do you drink alcohol?” I shrug and say, “Sometimes with my friends on weekends?” “Have you ever had sex?” My eyes get really big at this question and I almost laugh, “me!? Oh no… I’ve never had sex before.” “How long have you been cutting?” “Since I lost my Dad when I was 11 years old” I reply. “Ever done drugs?” I want to lie on this question because I know that if my mother found out I had picked up smoking marijuana, she’d be likely to murder me. “I smoke marijuana, does that count?” Donald looks at me and says “Marijuana is a street drug, so yes it counts.” He continues to ask me questions about my personal life, asking me questions about my Mom and my brother and sister. This goes on for about an hour, and finally he says “well I think we’re done here, thank you for being honest and answering my questions. I know this might seem a bit overwhelming to you, but we have some really good staff and you have a very good psychiatrist on your treatment team named Dr. Klaus, just read through the handbook I’m about to give you so you know the basic rules for the ward, you’ll be on Ward C which is the adolescent ward.” He hands me a booklet which I’m pretty sure that he already knows that I won’t look over it, but who knows, I might get bored enough to read this stupid thing.
Donald leaves the room and a male nurse comes in to take 3 vials of blood to test my hormone and medicine levels since I am already on anti-depressants. Afterwards the nurse says “I’m going to need to do a skin check and search you, is that alright?” “Sure, why not… just don’t touch my junk okay man?” I laugh a little but apparently the nurse doesn’t find it funny. I strip down to my boxers and show the nurse my scars and cuts, he goes through my clothing and of course finds nothing. I then put my clothes back on and say, “are we done here?” He nods, then leaves the room. After about 30 minutes a female tech finally brings me some food, a sack lunch. Which is perfect, a sandwich, an apple, some crackers, and some juice. I look across the hall to where Addalyn was and realize she’s gone, and wonder if I will ever see her again.





Chapter 2


30 minutes after I finish my sack lunch, a security guard enters the assessment room and says, “I’ll be escorting you to Ward C, your belongings are in inventory, you’ll get them as soon as they’re cleared.” I look at him, he must be almost 7ft tall, he’s a big muscular man and I can tell that he’s naturally red-headed because his beard is red. He’s covered in tribal tattoos which makes him rather intimidating to be honest. I follow him out of the assessment hall, then outside to the campus transport vehicle. My stomach starts to do backflips, I wonder if the other people will like me once I get on unit or if they’ll just try to kill me. “Hopefully they won’t all be crazy, hopefully I’ll get to see Addalyn again, maybe she’s on Ward C too,” I think to myself.
We arrive at Ward C which is an enormous building that looks almost decrepit from being so old. I can see that the ward is comprised of 3 floors from the outside just by looking at the windows. I can see a few patients staring out the chained up windows at me. I guess newcomers are the only exciting thing that happens around here. We get into the building and head up a flight of stairs to the actual Ward, and when we get there I am greeted by a number of patients. “Hi” “Hey, how are you?” “You’re cute” “Hey newbie!” all are spouted out at me at once. I make my way to the desk with the security guard where the Charge Nurse puts a bracelet around my wrist with my patient ID number and my name. When she was done, I go with her to the room where I will be sleeping for the next few months. She carried in some blankets and a pillow that is so hard it could probably be used for a deadly weapon and lays it on the mattress that shows old stains of god only knows what. I start to make my bed, pulling the cover sheet up and over my mattress, then tucking the sheets underneath it, putting my pillow in the pillowcase and laying it neatly at the top of my bed.
I lay down for a brief moment and stare at the wall to my left which is right next to my bed, I can see where patients have carved their names, initials, dates, phrases, and symbols into the paint and as I look at the wooden headboard of my bed I find a name scratched into the headboard dated to August 13th, 1994 “Addalyn Nicole” underneath the name I find “Help me” scratched into the wood ever so faintly. My head starts to spin. “August 13, 1994? But that’s almost 20 years ago, she would be in her late 30’s by now… the girl I saw was in her teens. I think I must really be going insane,” I think to myself. For a brief second I think I hear someone call my name, then I hear feet shuffling and out of the corner of my eye I think I see a shadow. “Stop Nick, you’re just seeing things. Maybe it’s your medicine, it’s not a big deal. Just calm down, don’t freak out. It was nothing, in fact it was probably just another patient,” I say to myself in my head, closing my eyes, then opening them again. I get up and go to the sink in the corner of my room, turn on the faucet to cold and then splash my face with water and rub my eyes. I go into the common area to join the other patients and am greeted by a tall, lanky curly headed, black-haired, blue eyed boy with glasses and freckles. He looks at me and says “you must be the new guy, I’m Eric. Fellow nutcase extraordinaire. You can just call me Wheezer though.” He holds out his hand to shake mine, I shake his hand and say “my name is Nicholas, you can just call me Nick. You don’t look like a nutcase, you actually look pretty normal to me.” He laughs and says, “oh my friend, you have no idea who you’re talking to. I have generalized anxiety disorder which means I’m always anxious, I’m also very moody. I’m in here because I tried to off myself by jumping out the window of a 3 story building, what about you?” I look down at my arms. “Oh, so you’re a cutter? I cut too. Let me guess, you cut down the road?” He looked at me curiously. “Yeah, I cut too deep too…” I manage to mumble, remembering that my arms still sting from the surgeries they had to do to save my life. “I had to have 3 surgeries to re-attach tendons and muscles, and to stop me from bleeding to death.” He scanned my arms and said, “ouch, well welcome to the nut hut kid.”
I walk over and sit down next to a girl who is rocking back and forth in her seat mumbling to herself, I try not to stare too much because I know it’s rude, or at least that’s what my grandmother used to tell me when I was a small child. “Now Nicholas, it’s not nice to stare at other people.” “Now Nicholas, don’t talk with your mouth full.” “Now Nicholas, don’t interrupt adults while they’re talking.” I remember how she always used to nag at me, then I remember the day that we got the call that she had passed away in her sleep. I was only 8 years old, it was the first experience I had ever had with death. I remember everyone wearing black, the sermon, the preacher giving the “Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust” speech, and people crying. I remember putting her favorite flower, a lily on her casket before they lowered it into the ground. When I snapped back to reality, I didn’t realize I had been sitting there crying. “Man, I really am a wreck,” I think to myself. I quickly look around the room and wonder if anyone had seen me crying and luckily no one had noticed, I wipe my eyes dry with my sleeve and then I notice the girl who was talking to herself is no longer sitting beside me. In fact, she was nowhere to be seen. I wondered if I had just imagined her, or if it was another incident like the one with Addalyn. Whatever was going on here, it was strange. That or I was losing my mind.
A voice came over the intercom “Ward C patients, line up for dinner please.”
I saw the other patients make their way as fast as they could down the hallway to the double-doors that were locked and wait. It almost looked like someone had rang the dinner-bell for a pack of hungry, rabid dogs. I follow the last of the patients into the line, the doors open, and the wolves descend so-to-speak. I take a seat off by myself away from the rest of the patients, trying to avoid as many people as I can. Finally, after waiting for about 10 minutes, the staff member by the name of Timothy calls my name and I go get my food which comes in the form of a bulky plastic red and white tray that looks like it’s older than I am. I go sit back down and take the lid off my tray to find a very sad attempt at what looks to be a hamburger. I take a bite and immediately can tell that the meat is veggie patty. I try my hardest to eat the sad excuse of a meal, gagging slightly with each bite. The tray also contains a portion of mixed vegetables and a fruit whip that is colored blue which I manage to scoff down.
After dinner we line up for medications, I’m third in line this time somehow and when I get to the window the “Med” nurse asks me, “prune juice, orange drink, or water?” “Orange drink,” I reply. She hands me a glass of orange colored drink mix and 3 pills and says, “that’s your Risperdal, vitamin C, and Klonopin.” I look at the pills and then down them with my orange drink which is slightly gritty and reminds me of Metamucil. She says, “let me see.” I look at her oddly, and then realize she’s talking about checking my mouth to make sure I haven’t cheeked my medicine. I open my mouth and stick out my tongue, wiggling it up and down so she can see, then I walk off towards my room.
When I get to my room, I go over to the large wooden desk and sit down. There is some paper and a pencil with the eraser and metal end missing. I start to doodle a bit, thinking about the girl who was sitting next to me rocking back and forth in the common room. I haven’t seen her again since the incident and I was starting to think that maybe I had just imagined her or hallucinated seeing her. I look down at what I’m drawing to find a dark, shadowy figure with no eyes and hands like claws in tattered black clothing, all of a sudden the room goes cold and the lights start to flicker and a pungent foul odor fills the air, the smell of death. I jump up from the desk and run to my bed pulling the covers up over my head telling myself that I’m just imagining things again, then I look up over the sheets and see the same shadowy figure hovering yards from my bed in mid-air. I let out a scream and all of a sudden the shadowy figure opens its mouth and a loud screech comes out and I cover my ears and close my eyes and start to yell “this isn’t happening, this isn’t happening, YOU AREN’T REAL!!” Next thing I know there are three nurses in my room pinning me down, I try to fight them off and I start to cry trying to tell them what’s going on, but one of the nurses says “don’t worry, shhh, it’s going to be alright. This will make you feel better.” Then she raises her hand, I see a needle in it, and next thing I remember is everything spinning and my head hitting the pillow, then blackness.
I wake up the next morning, my bum is sore from the shot they gave me so I know last night wasn’t a dream. “What the hell is going on in this place?” I think to myself. I look up at my headboard and this time under Addalyn’s name the words “fear the reaper” are scratched into the wood. Immediately chills run down my spine. Who’s the reaper? Was the reaper what I saw last night? A million questions raced through my mind. Then it hit me… Maybe Addalyn is trying to communicate with me through the scratch marks on the headboard. An idea loomed in my mind that if I got something sharp and am able to carve my questions into the wood, that she will respond back to me. But wouldn’t that mean she was dead? I guess so. A sudden sadness sweeps over me and I started to weep. I wonder why I’m crying, maybe it’s because I know that someone’s life had been lost that I felt a closeness to, or maybe it’s because of how desperate I feel, how vulnerable. I know now that there was a more ominous, darker side to this hospital and if people knew what was going on in here, they weren’t saying. I know that I won’t get any answers from the doctors or the staff members or even the nurses. All I know is that I have to find something sharp enough to carve messages into the wood. I start to look around, I know this is a hospital to house people who have had brushes with death but how hard can it be to find one little piece of metal. I look through the magazines, thinking maybe I can find a staple, but all the staples are taken out of the bindings. Then, I think maybe I can find something in one of the board game boxes. I look through the board games but all the pieces that could be used to hurt someone or tear skin are taken out. I sigh and then out of the corner of my eye something shimmers. Metal, I think. I go over to the corner and pick up a small nail that has come out of the ceiling. “This is just pure luck,” I think to myself.

[ngphil22]

Welcome to the forum!!! This story is great, keep it up. I want to hear more.

[eric52]

This works well, sweeneyreloaded. You've introduced just enough answers to all the questions you're raising to keep most readers hanging on for your next word. You have a natural talent. Add a few hundred pages and find a good editor, then an agent. I'm serious; you can do this.