Chapter 19- Dear Insanity

There was no window in my room so I didn’t know what time it was. When the bell rang signaling patients to get up I jumped. There was a loud alarm sound as all the doors to the rooms were unlocked. As I sat up it felt as if my bones were creaking. I was sore from laying on the piece of cardboard and tired from the lack of sleep. Getting up I stood in the doorway and watched as kids my age bustled around, doing their own thing. ‘Excuse me,’ I asked one girl passing by. She was black, really tall and pretty dressed in a fire red suit. She stopped, turned towards me and glared.
‘What?’ She sounded hostile.
I hesitated before I responded, ‘Um… do you know where the showers are?’ She gave me a once over before pointing in the direction she was going.
‘Come on I’ll show you,’ she smiled sweetly and began walking. ‘My name is Nadia. What’s yours?’ I walked up beside her and realized that there were many people with different colors clothes. They ranged from white, like mine, to green, purple, yellow, gray, black and red like Nadia’s. Some people had metal bracelets on with blinking red lights.
‘Alice,’ I replied as I dodged a red-headed boy sprinting down the hallway laughing manically. Nadia saw me looking and giggled.
‘That‘s James. He’s schizophrenic.’ I watched until he disappeared down the hall behind us. ‘He’s being transferred to the Asylum in a few days. We’re gonna miss him, he makes everyone’s day.’
‘Why is he being transferred?’
Nadia rolled her eyes, ‘Cuz he’s turning 21. For the past week or so he’s been acting more violent and frantic cuz of it. On Friday he stabbed a patient in the throat with a fork cuz he thought she was his mother.’
I instinctively grabbed my throat, ‘Stabbed? He stabbed her cuz he thought she was his mother? What’s he got against his mother?’
She shrugged her shoulders, looking straight ahead. ‘She was trying to kill him cuz he wouldn’t stopped yelling at his reflection in the mirror. I’m here for “bipolar” issues.’ She stretched her shirt out, to emphasize the color. Then she pointed at mine, ‘You’re here for self-injury. Did you try to kill yourself or something?’
I grinded my teeth at her lack of respect. ‘No.’
‘James is gray for schizophrenic. Purple is for druggies,’ she pointed at a guy in purple. He had platinum colored hair, gages, and tattoos covering his arms. ‘That’s Kyle. Green is for people who have undergone “traumatic events”. I personally think that they’re a bunch of p***y’s griping for attention. Yellow is for depressed people like my girl, Kitty. And black… don’t mess with those people.’
‘Why? What does black mean?’ I asked as we rounded a corner to a big room. There were tables in the center and what looked like a cafeteria line at the far end. Out of all the colors there were more green and white than any other colors. There were several black uniformed people in the room, all of which had a large bubble-like space from any person.
‘Those are the people who kill. They kill like their hungry animals, it’s crazy. Just last week Nick almost beat one of the workers to death.’ I gulped and looked out into the room again. The people in black seemed to all be looking down and they all had bracelets on them. We got to the right side of the auditorium and went in the room that had the girl’s sign on it. We went down the hall and entered a huge room with shower heads lining the wall. There were only about twelve girls in the room, all of whom were being monitored by two women. Nadia went to one of the women and I followed.
‘Nadia Hamilton, patient 0102. Section C Room 102.’ The lady looked down at her list and nodded, got up and walked away. Nadia walked back towards me, ‘You have to give them your information. Meet me after showers and I’ll give you a few more pointers.’ She walked over to a shower head and began taking off her clothes. I looked away and walked towards the desk where one of the ladies sat.
‘Hi… um. Alice Autumns. I don’t know what patient I am. Section C Room 157.’ The lady looked at me above her glasses and checked her clipboard. The other lady came back with a red uniform and placed it on a desk where other uniforms were.
‘Ms. Autumns, you are not a patient so do not worry about that. You’re here for evaluation.’ I grinded my teeth, how many people are going to say that? ‘Go ahead and take a shower, Ms. Autumns.’ I nodded and looked back out into the shower room. I picked a shower head furthest away from everybody and did my thing trying not to be extremely paranoid. I had to take my bandages off but didn’t really care considering I never usually wore bandages for the cuts. When I was done I grabbed a towel off of the many handles and went over the table where a clean set of white clothes lay. I copied some of the other girls and got dressed in front of the two ladies who monitored everything. Nadia was waiting for me at the exit of the shower room. She smiled and waved me over.
‘Let’s go get breakfast, I’m starving.’ Nadia smiled, grabbed my hand and skipped all the way to the cafeteria line. I grabbed a plate and followed her down the line as the ladies behind the counter scooped up food and dumped it into our plates. After we got our food, I followed her over to a table. ‘Jeez, I swear this food gets nastier by the day,’ she complained, scooping up a fork full of what looked like grits.
A girl in yellow walked up and sat down at the table across from Nadia. ‘Hey,’ the girl said slowly looking at nothing but her plate of food.
‘Hey, Kitty. What’s down?’ Nadia said perkily.
Kitty started picking at her food. ‘Oh, nothing. Trying to stay as sane as possible.’ She glanced up and looked through her auburn hair. ‘Whose the new victim?’ I cocked my head at the use of the word “victim”.
Nadia shook her head, ‘Oh, when will you ever learn that no one here is sane. This is Alice.’
‘She‘s a bleeder.’ Kitty stared at me.
‘Bleeder?’ I asked just as the crazy red-headed kid sat down.