Title: One Of Us
Author: Not An Infant
Rating: K+
Disclaimer: Hey, what do you know? I've caught Angela and locked her in my basement, too! She's painting my dreams for me so I don't forget them visually. (if anybody really takes my seriously, we have a problem.)
A/N: DREEEEEEEAAAMS ARE MY REALITYYYYYYYYY……..
The sign over the orange walls said, "Welcome to BONES: the asylum for the criminally insane!" Everything in that room was orange. The lightning, however, made the color unhappy dull. Even her bright tomato mini dress with tank sleeves, ruby red lipstick, and orange (obvious) wig couldn't add any life to the lobby. Dr. Brennan sighed and tore her eyes away from the banner, walking towards the empty receptionist's desk, her crimson heels clicking loudly in the silence.
She placed a folder of recent applications on the keyboard when she heard movement next to her. Looking to her left, she caught eyes with two men in white suits and white skull caps and medical tubes trailing from their noses. They didn't have to say anything. Brennan was smart enough to see exactly what they were thinking. She took a polite step backwards.
"I'm sorry, but you need to return to your rooms because I'm not a patient," she said lightly, turning to walk away. The patients here may have been mentally unsettled, but they seemed to connect with each other on one thing; they knew who was one of them.
These patients, apparently convinced she was a patient, followed her down the hall. Their beetle black eyes, absent of any depth, were so fixed on the back on her head that she could feel the burn of their gaze. She quickened her pace, shivering slightly, down the halls until she entered the brick-walled area of the patient's wards.
If I can just make a few turns here, I can lose them.
Dim candle-lights lit the way, but still she could not see the blond female in a white tank top before she bumped into her clumsily. The first thing Dr. Brennan thought was that the blond was another damn patient, but a closer look revealed her to be--
"Rebecca!" she exclaimed in fearful shock. "You're supposed to be in your office!"
"You," Becca replied, her hoarse, empty voice sending tremors down the other girl's neck. "Are supposed to be in your ward, Dr. Brennan."
Everyone had gone round the bend! Panic rose like bile to the back of Brennan's throat. Her breathing came out ragged and choked. She didn't want to die. Stay calm, Brennan…
"I am not a patient, Rebecca," she protested in a huff. "Don't you remember me? I'm your boss! You work for me! Don't you remember? I'm not one of them, Rebecca!"
"But you are one of us now, Temperance. You have always been," Becca insisted.
You too? What nightmare have I stepped into?
Brennan caught sight of a mirror at the end of the hall. Pushing Becca aside with her shoulder, she walked unsteadily towards it, transfixed with horror by what she saw.
She wore a ragged white tank top, stained with some sort of muddy brown liquid. Her legs were covered by white cotton pants, like Becca. Her wig was no longer there. Just her natural auburn shoulder-length curls, disheveled and dry around her.
None of these things compared to the revulsion Temperance felt when she saw her eyes; the pupils were white, and her irises were a pale, sickly blue. She felt the frustration and confusion boil from a simmering volcano into flames of unadulterated rage. Without pausing to feel the physical pain, she grabbed her hair, shielding her eyes from herself with her elbows.
"I am not-a-patient—" she growled through clenched teeth. But she didn't know anymore what those words meant. The burning in her soul was heightened by the burning in her scalp.
"I'm—not—not—"
And then the feeble strings connecting her to sanity broke.
"I CAN'T TAKE IT!!" she screeched out, pulling her arms away from her head and taking to tufts of hair with her.
Her inhuman, bone-rattling screams seeped through the brick and steel walls of her own prison and soared over the rooftops, in the bathrooms, and in the lobby. Outside, the gardeners working in the hill-ridden backyard of the Asylum heard her voice, looked at each other, and sadly shook their heads.
Another neck snapped by its own hand.
A/N: I put this at the bottom so that my mysterious story would not be spoiled. Basically, Brennan is the boss of an Asylum, but then she goes crazy under the stress and has to be enrolled in her own asylum. This was a dream. Forgive me if I make no sense.