My Bitter Conscious

Chapter 1

 

Outside of my confided cell, all I hear is moaning and soft footsteps. Every time I make a peep inside of here, I hear the people outside of my cell stir briefly. Then, they go back to pacing. I have stopped walking towards the door to hear changes. I have come to believe that everyone outside of my padded cell is diseased and waiting to kill me.

I am still restrained. I’ve been running my back against the padded wall to keep the blood working in my fingers. The straight jacket is an interesting piece. It is defiantly inescapable. I am totally without hands. I have been using my toes instead.

I dehydrated, having my last meal three days ago. I tried eating some of the padding in my cell; it was disgusting and unhelpful. I wouldn’t recommend it. Instead, I lay here famished and greying. I have been reduced to peeing on myself, which leaves my groins sour and wet. I am without comfort or reassurance, and above all that I think I’m going to die.

I feel betrayed by the system of people begging for my trust then, leaving me to die like this �" cruel and without knowing why. Their faces were so encouraging to me. I thought I was finally going to be okay in most ways. I was still without doubt when they locked me in here, for misbehaving. I knew I deserved this punishment, but I didn’t know that it was going to a lengthily one.

I have been sitting in this same spot for a while now. I’m hunched over, because it’s the most comfortable position sitting up at the moment. My feet are folded �" Indian-style. The people outside have slowed. Through my grayed window, I only see one moving along. I supposed he’s the only one in the corridor at the moment. He’s been by my window twice in the past hour. His black shadow shows him with short hair and a spiked collar. He moves by each time, staggering, like the rest. I can’t tell what’s wrong with him or the rest, with just their shadows.

If I were to move, a few of them would tap on my window. It isn’t the kind of reassurance you want when someone is making sure you are okay. They are emotionless. They press themselves against my window, making me waver. Sometimes, I can see their fingers pressed against the window, like they are pointing me out. But, I know, they are sick �" somehow, someway. They never respond, insuring my safety, but they ooze the thought of my doom.

My padded cell has become my tomb. My conscious, my bitter-conscious is locked up in shackles too. She doesn’t believe this is the end though. I can see her expression in my mind’s eye. She is raised, looking at the window, challenging me to break the glass that separates me from that shadow. I can’t do it, though.  I’m stiff, against the padding on the right wall. I lay my head against the padding on the back wall. My hands are cuffed to my back in this ridiculous, inescapable jacket.

The shadow moves from my sight. I hunch over, glaring at my shins again. Their grey, weak, I haven’t exercised in days. Before I was shackled in here, I wasn’t permitted outside for three days. I haven’t been able to run, what I would consider route exercise. Instead, I sit here, staring at either the ground or the window, but staying silent. The things outside are intimidating.

In the distance, I noticed sounds I’ve never heard in the corridors of the psychosomatic ward before. The ward was white walls and white tile floor with white barred windows. Everything about it gave it off as being clinical and sterile. The employed nurses and staff were always in white, with hand cuffs and tasers.

I had not thought much of it before now. It was close. It was so close I could hear gun shots and stomping. I was reminded of soldiers in uniform fighting to keep us, diseased, closed up. I was only reminded of this because I was diseased, of course, but of nothing that was contagious. I forced the thought of soldiers in green and gray putting down paranoid people in white.

Soon, I could hear muffled communication between them. They were yards away from me. I was almost in disbelief. Coming to my feet, I started towards the grey window. I stopped, thinking of the shadow people who always seemed so unfulfilled.

“This is the last place we’re checking, Grover.” I could make out words of a disgruntled child-like tone. It was the first words I had heard in three days, but I couldn’t make my feet move. I couldn’t believe in this. This wasn’t a rescue.

It was silent. I could hear securitized footsteps, padding with something dragging behind them. They were closet to my cell when they stopped pacing. Shattering glass was what I heard next, then nothing. I closed my eyes, debating of whether to hide or wait for them to find me. I glanced around the room, my hand on my stomach, looking at all the padding with no imperfections except the few bites taken from the left wall. I pull my feet together, with my arms folded; I wait for them to break my glass.

It shatters with two blows. I’m revealed.

I’m staring at a tanned, bald man. In his hands, I register a light brown bat. He’s smirking. I’m amazed. I’m standing, hands at my back, watching �" amazed. He’s speaking to someone I can’t see, but I can’t manage words at the moment. My sub-conscious is hiding somewhere.

He’s looking through the door way for me. His eyes pinching, his words seemed loud, but I just stand there; unmoving. I think of how I have been in this confined space for so long. His words are rattling, but they don’t make me want to move. I think of how safe could it possibly be out there compared to in here. I know what’s happening in here, and only briskly of what could be happening out there.

The space around me feels so still.

I start forward, seeing waves of brown moving forward, around me; I fall backwards trying to escape. I then realize it’s just my hair, and this man is still staring curiously at me. I struggle in my restraints to gain balance. Finding it, I move forward �" baby-steps.

I can see shadows behind him, which reminds me of the dreadful lurkers in the hall. I’m without words still as a mixture of unknowing and worry spreads across me. My sub-conscious is gazing at these people through a magnifying glass. Could they be real?

My eyes are sensitive to the pouring sunshine behind them. I have to squint to see them.

“Let’s go,” is the first thing I hear. It isn’t the man with the bat who spoke, but a deep voice that belongs to one of the people behind him.

I part my lips, searching for something, but nothing comes to mind. I’m still staring at this beady-eye man, who is still staring at me. We’re both consumed with surprise, when another head comes into view. This one is a lovely red-haired vixen whose expression is unreadable.

“That’s not her.” The red-head speaks softly.

Of course, I’m not anyone she knows. Her face is completely foreign to me. The bald man isn’t anyone I recognize, either. They are both complete strangers, staring at me, bewildered. For a second, I think maybe I’m out of place, but here they are breaking the glass meant to keep me locked inside.

But, I’m oblivious of everything, making her statement complete inessential. I stop contemplating what she’s saying. I have bigger fish to fry.

“Wait-“I snap, the words, much like this woman, are foreign to me. I’m startled by it.

The gent with the bat has removed it from my sight. I’m in the middle of my padded cell. His expression has become meek. I’m able to see more clearly now as the sunshine behind him has become clear. The sunshine is peeking through barred, small windows just behind him. I remember them briefly, before coming in here, thinking �" finally, a room with a view. But, that wasn’t true. This door rarely opened, and then it stopped opening completely.

He is looking away from me now. I’m not sure of his expression. The woman has completely disappeared from my view. I can tell he’s about to leave me. I suddenly feel at deep loss inside. How inhuman could you be?

“Those things-“I tried to speak again; the man is still looking away. “Those things are going to be able to get me.” I’m speaking fluidly now �" pleadingly. I am closing in on the door, no longer taking baby-steps, but instead brisk strides. “You can’t leave me like this.” I fear for my life right now. My hands are restrained. I have no way to protect myself from those lurkers that I’m convinced only want to do harm.

The man has backed away from me. I can see regret on his features as he moved completely from my view. I’m feeling shrill terror crawling up my numb arms. My sub-conscious is at a loss for words. My jaw must have dropped to the ground in some attempt to flee. I’m stricken. My mind has begun a mantra of “no’s”. I’m staring at the luminous sunlight that is peaking through bars. The air is crisp in my nostrils, stirring my gut as I smell foul rot. I hear their footsteps echoing against my eardrum.

They are leaving us.

Say something!

My subconscious is growling at me.

“Please-“my tone is too weak to be heard.

I let my eyes fall to the ground as glass break beneath my feet. I stagger. The restrains are unusually tight against me, considering I have been gripping them fiercely this whole time. The glass is littered a foot beyond the door. Its tinted qualities reflecting the white light from the light bulb stuck out of the ceiling. I pull my foot back, analyzing the pieces; they are too small to be helpful at all. My sub-conscious is reeling: That’s not her - Over and over again in my head. Now that they have left me here, I wish I was her; whoever it was that she was looking for.

This can’t be it. No.

I glare back up at the piercing sun light, gleaming into my hell hole. I padded forward, trying my best to not step on glass. Though, it was nearly I’m possible balancing and cautiously walking. I make it to my door, careful not to cut my neck on any jagged edges, I peer through the window.

In the hallway, the stench of death is obvious. I take aback by it immediately, ducking back into my padded cell. My face is in a grimace. I want to wipe my nostrils as if I’m fanning the smell out, but I can’t. They clink against my lower back every time as the metal buckles meet.

I exhale, and then inhale, still scowling; I peer back through the window. I look for them. I can’t see them. Their footsteps are still alive though, and fading. There is a wall to my left, making my cell the last one in this corridor. To my right, there are gurneys and wheelchairs without owners. There are white and blue linen strew from a green hamper. They are sprinkled in red, what I assume to be blood. The light is casting bright beams on them, making it hard to stare at. I look away, farther down the aisle. I see the end of my corridor, a poster with a human head’s anatomy on it. I see red smears on the walls, as if someone had dragged their bloody hand against it. I do not see them. I wince, retracting back into my padded cell, as my back cracks.

Think Leigh. Think.

Before me, the shattered window still withheld few pieces of large, jagged glass on the bottom of the window. Perhaps, I could �" no, with what? My conscious is glaring at me through angry, hazel eyes. I don’t know. My hands are cold. I can’t exactly slam my body against the door and hope the glass falls this way. I’m not balanced enough to stir one leg over to it. I would fall dead on my a*s or worst �" cut myself. I’m clenching my teeth, back and forth. My conscious is demonstrating me lifting my leg and snapping it around the glass to make it fall this way. I’m not going to do that. I can’t do that that. It wouldn’t be good.

You have to.

The piece of glass is sticking from the window’s edge. It is just big enough to fit perfectly in my hand to allow me to disentangle this jacket from me. I wish I could just lift my hand up high enough to grasp it. It is much too high for me to reach.

I feel betrayed by my conscious as I lift my leg up just as she demonstrates. I glide it in the air, holding my own with one leg. The jagged glass is right in front of me, maybe a foot away, as I dip my leg behind it. Just a little- when my sub-conscious shrills in horror.

I snap away from the window, landing on my a*s, cutting my palms on the shattered glass covering my padded cell. I clench my teeth as the pinching unnerves me. I exhale, inhale, exhale �" trying to catch my breath. Before me, just outside of my window, it stares at me. The expression on his face frightens me. His eyes are gray with no life. I think he once had the blackest of eyes, seeing his pupils vaguely, while masked in pools of gray. His hair, under-groomed, sticking in five different directions was the least shocking of this man. His nostrils flared. His lips parted. His hands grasping the jagged window without strain, as he peered in, analyzing me. He looks so… hungry.

Get up.

My inner self is screeching as the blood drains from my face. My feet are peddling by themselves. They want to move me, but I can’t find any traction against my padded cell. My fingers are wet with blood, but I can’t see them. I’m gulping back tears. What is this monster? I see his face painted in red �" blood.

He’s so angrily famished. He’s thrashing back and forth with flared nostrils. His lips are quivering. His hands were oozing dead black blood from where he grabs at the glass so eagerly. Soon, he is pushing himself through the door. His hands secured against the padded wall, leaving his chest wide open. He lifts himself briefly, before losing balance and falling into the glass. He then proceeds to grab at the air in front of him, as his chest pours blood down my padded door.

Kill it.

The words shock me. We don’t kill things, no �" no. I’m watching this once-man reach out for me, his expression tirelessly hungry. He wants to kill me. I know it. He would eat me if I let him. The opened wound on his chest had no effect on him. He stays livid and yearning for me. I’m wheezing now.

Kill it.

My inner voice is shouting at me. She wants me to stomp its head in. She is showing me this disgusting image of a brutalized human head. Her feet covered in black blood. She is gasping for air.

Without thinking, I roll over, until I meet the right wall. I sit up, and then guide myself to my feet using the wall. My expression has hardened. I’m about to do it. I am going to smash his head in with my soft, white slipper. His body is anchored perfectly on the window. He can’t reach me if I stand merely feet away. His head open, just like his chest was when he met the window. He met his demise. I stare at him; scrutinizing his heated, want for my what �" blood?

Does he want to shred my flesh off with his arm hands and drink my blood? I don’t know what he wants from me, but the idea of him wanting to consume me set me off. It pushed me into my dark zone. The zone that got me put in here to begin with. I’m crouching now, staring into his yearning eyes. He has no soul, if it were true your eyes mirror your soul. Could he be without pain, too?

His jaw unhitching and reapplying revealing gruesome black and green teeth that I assumed to be searching for a finger or an ear; I grimace. He knows I’m near, he has grown more animated as I sit here, gawking at him.

Stop antagonizing it.

I’m not doing anything of the sort.

I step back, standing. I lift my foot up. He grasps at it, only finding dead air in front of him. My heart is sinking as I extend my further. I make haste against his head, retracting so that I’m out of his grasp again. He is too slow to catch me. That blow did little. I go again, this time, I hear cracking. I feel the impression of broken skull this time against my slipper. I feel a rush of relief as I retract this time.

He’s still moving.

Ugh.

I cringe as I look at him this time. His skull is indented, but his ravaging is still being endured by the pane of the window. I can hear the glass further into his abdomen. I drop my leg for seconds, repositioning myself to gain better balance, and then I smash him once more with great force. That was it. I felt my foot dampen with fresh cranium blood and fluids as my foot punctures his brain. He stops moving. My left leg falls aside the right.

I choke at the sight of brains oozing from his skull. The purple insides looked moist and repulsing in the center of broken ivory cranium. His blonde hair stuck in several more positions, including against his moist insides. I turn, hacking and releasing air stinging the pit of my empty stomach. I grasped my padded wall, trying my hardest to get away from the dead. I crumble as tears swell up, and I’m on the ground dry heaving and tearlessly crying. My subconscious has no pity for me as she begins to reprimand me for being so weak. I shy away from her, trying to repress her and failing �" always failing to get away from her.

Get us out!

I can’t. I have nothing to remove the shackles with.

Once I get my insides squared, and under control I hobble into sitting position. The dark place for me is always an unhealthy one to escape. I don’t want to be bad.

I’m still panting when I come back to my feet. My heart is thumping in my ears. My legs are like jelly beneath me now. I force them forward. A pool of black blood has formed in front of my door now. It shelters the glass, making it hard to see. I kneel. A large shard had snapped off, and now is soaked in black blood.

I sit next to the thick, black blood, careful not to touch it. I extent my leg forward, depositing one toe onto the thick piece of tinted glass and push it towards me. A wave of blood comes with dragging against my white padded cell. Soon, it streaks a vile, dark green color, making me gag some more.

I scoot back to the wall, dragging the piece of glass along with me; I leave a fading trail of greenish-black streaks.

Against the wall, I turn to face it. I push away, carefully as I lean backwards, my fingers cold-numb but, searching for the cold glass on the soft floor. I am nearly on the ground before I clasped it. I carefully lean back up, the piece of glass cold even in my cold hands. I work minute or two before I feel any lessen in my restraints.

Once I undo all the buckles, I’m pulling as well as fiddling with the last of the buckles, having enough space to move my arms. I am free moments later, dropping the jacket to the ground as the cool stench of air infiltrates my being. My gray flannel shirt is still half buttoned, as it was the day they put me in it. It stirs memories of me lashing at the boy, the beautiful, dark haired one that was crying. I made him cry. I shouldn’t have said what I did.

A pang of guilt finds me, as I stand free of restraints. And, then when I stare at the corpse which only makes me feel worse.

He was going to eat you.

The words nipped me. My sub-conscious has been quiet for so long, now she was peering at me, smiling. It was that you’re-lucky-you-have-me smile, that smile that intimidates and rages me. I will never be without her, we both know that, and yet she still mocks and teases me of it.

She is everything that is strong and willing about me. I find my strength resides with her, unfortunately. I’m a pawn on her chest board, most days. She was the one that willed me to say those things to that boy, that started this fight and she made me kill that creature. Her wicked grin makes me flush.

Leave me alone. Leave me alone.

Where would you be without me?

I tried to remember a time I was without her. I can’t. She has consumed my memories as well as my thoughts. She fills my head; making it her home. She is my beholder. She looks just like me, but put together. I wish I was so much on the outside, but I’m just a pasty, eighteen year old shut-in. Her hair is cut, short into a bob. Her nails are red, polished and clean. I usually imagine her in whatever attire I’m presented with.

I bare my teeth, trying to ignore her. She always worsens, never betters. I’m trying to pick up the rest of the pieces of me that gave way. My breathing has become even. My hands, bloodied from the shatter glass, are stinging and cold. As I look closer, I notice thin cuts from where I held the glass in my right hand aren’t as deep as I thought.

I had dropped my piece of glass on the ground. Picking up the strait-jacket, I find it and hold it up near my chest. I don’t leave the jacket. Instead I toss it around me, like a coat, and stare at the dead corpse.

Its dead body is pierced nearly halfway through by the window pane. The dark, black blood has stopped oozing. He really didn’t have that much to give. His hands are limp, but seeming to still reach out for me.

Without giving it much though, I place my left knee on this mans bloodied shoulder. I try my best not to look at the crater where its head once was. My right foot is slippery beneath me, making my balance limited. I pushed myself up and under the window pane, with my right leg now meeting his opposite shoulder. I feel his ribs crunch in the sole of my feet. I’m almost over him, now squatting over, trying so hard not to slip and fall forward I very carefully slip my leg down his back side. Once my left met the ground, I proceeded with my right, in my left hand there is still the glass and I’m on the outside of my confinement.

The air is salty with stench. I’m holding my nose; the glass is cradle close to my stomach, as I take my first steps. My eyes are searching the space just above me. A gurney to my right, with stained sheets, and nasty film on the floor I clench my teeth trying to keep from tasting the air. My mouth is dry though, being unwaveringly parched. I must be running on fumes, because I’m not willing to give in.

The barred windows are shining it what looks like new bright light to my eyes. I squint as the sight before me sucks me in. I’m overlooking the courtyard of my psyche ward. There are the familiar chipped white benches by the maple-colored doors. In the middle, a basketball court, sharing a cement connection to a table and bench red picnic area. To the left, against a pale brown building, is a set of bleachers. That’s where I usually sat, mostly alone, watching everyone else. When that became uncomfortable I would instead take laps around the court yard with a normal group of joggers. East of my bleachers, is the guard tower, we sit eye to eye really, when I’m at the highest point in the bleachers.

My thoughts fade, realizing the disarray below me. Directly below me, I see bodies, piled �" stacked, wrapped in bloodied sheets. What happened? Was this war? I tried to look for the sky, the window pane was too far back �" all I could see was courtyard and the building directly north. The creature behind me, what was he, that’s the bigger question. What are they? The face I saw was indeed human once, bloodied, angry, and hungry �" but human. They are no doubt my shadow people that come unwavering. Their gray bodies against my tinted window rattled me enough.

I glared back into the courtyard, seeing a burning fire in the middle of the basketball court. Assuming it’s from the same people that wrapped the bodies and probably the same that allowed me release from my padded cell, I search for them outside. I press myself farther against the window, looking �" all I see is more courtyard and pluming smoke.

Reviews

[Shep]

I stumbled on this using the tool to discover writing to see where it would lead me to new books and stories I haven't read or they haven't visited my books. your name and book came up and I took a chance to read it. And was surprised that l actually liked what I read. The story was descriptive and entertaining and kept me going form the top to the bottom nicely done. they only thing I would change is the font size so I could read it without having to press my face to the screen other than that it was a good read. I would be glad to read more once you respond considering I am not sure that you will . Please be kind and return the love.