My nails dig into my arms, pulling me back to reality. The walls seemed to be closing in, the rotten tiles swelling around you. You shuffled your feet along the floor, kicking up patches of dust, while a strong hand kept a firm hold on your upper arm, guiding you towards a secluded room. His voice echoed in your mind, spitting hurtful names at you, but you had learnt to tone the noise until it was background noise. Still the voice sometimes came back stronger so you had found ways to keep yourself focused, such as digging your nails into your wrists to draw blood and the medication the doctors had put you on. Also drugging your mind with alcohol worked, but while you were trapped in this prison it was pretty hard to come across.
Also there was another way that you hated the electrotherapy. This, as a matter of fact, was where you were going right now.
"Mother, why are you leaving me here?" You scream, clutching to her hands, the voice roaring in your head.
"It is for the best," your mother consoled you, "all I want is for you to be safe and happy, even if an asylum is the only way to achieve this."
"But I thought you loved me," you shouted, terrified as she pulled away from your grasp.
"I do, you just need special treatment."
Arms locked around your waist and wrapped around your arms, half carrying you down the hallway as you desperately tried to catch a last look at your mother. Gates slide into place, locking her away from you. You got one last look at her pitiful face through the bars before the wooden door swung shut in front of you as the doctors pulled you down the hallway. You chewed the inside of your mouth, tasting blood as it floods into your mouth. The pain was a relief to you.
"Look how easily your mother left you. She doesn't love you; if she did she wouldn't have left you alone in this crazy hospital. It's just you and me now."
That voice. It brought you endless pain and suffering. Because of that voice you were in this crazy place and God knows when you were going to be let out. He continued to talk to you, whispering to you.
"Tell anyone in this place about me and I will kill you. I will kill your mother. I will kill everyone you have ever cared about."
Your tongue probed the ragged flesh inside your cheek, blood washing over the tip. A metal taste filled your mouth and the backlash of pain hit you, mixed with the heart-break you were feeling about your mother leaving you in this place. You managed to keep a hold of yourself, though your eyes darted around your gloomy surrounding, probably making you look like a crazed person.
As you moved deep your heard the screams of other people and the harsh laugh of the orderlies. "I think this one is a screamer," commented a voice from the room you were passing and flashes of light came from the barred window, with a light crackle of electricity. What happened in this place? Once again the voice came back stronger, causing your knees to buckle. But instead of talking he just laughed, harsh and loud. It was as if someone was pressing themselves up to you and laughing right in your face. Along with the laughing you heard a cracked scream. It took a few moments until you realised it was coming from you. You felt like you had lost control of your body as the noise still ripped out your mouth, until the orderly on your right gripped a strong hand over your dry mouth.
A door to the side of you opened and a boy about your age slipped out, orderlies following close behind like shadows. So far this boy was the only young person he had seen, as the patients that were milling around pointlessly in the yard as she arrived were fully grown adults, completed with blue gowns and blank faces. Their eyes told hidden horrors that lay inside, though your mother never noticed. Your eyes dragged up and down his boy, taking in his brown hair which parted to the right, sides shaved. His almond eyes stared back at you, interested in his girl that was being pulled through his corridor. So far he was the all person in this corridor, as no one else had the same illness as him. No one else heard the voices. Plus everyone was scared of his manipulating powers.
You wrenched your head back to look at him longer, feeling the orderlies' sharp nails digging into your cheeks, causing you in wince in pain. But this boy was to interesting to stop looking at. Her eyes quickly scanned his tall figure, taking in the blue gown that flung loosely from his frame and his jeans which smoothed down his long legs. Your eyes moved back to the cut that ran through his eyebrow and onto the skin under his eye, amazingly missing his eye. By the look of the scabbing it wasn't that old of a battle scar. Finally moving your head back to the front, you were marched into a room a couple of room away from the boy. As you walked into the room, you could feel the boys eyes boring into your back, feeling them look up and down the back of your body.
You were going to talk to this boy if it was the last thing you did in this horrible place.
You were being forced down into the chair, the voice in your brain telling you to resist, knowing that this was the only way to get rid of it. Your body followed what the voice was commanding you to do, arching your back and shoving your arms down on the armrests, trying to stop yourself from being forced into sitting, knowing that if you sat you would be trapped.
Firm hands forced you down by the shoulders. You tried to resist but all too soon you were strapped in, buckles clicking around your wrists and ankles. Your head was pushed back against the headrest and pads were connected to the skin of your arms and on your legs. Your chest rose and fell quickly, feeling light-headed. You hated what was coming next. Only one thing could calm you down when you were in this state. And here he came now.
You were pulled along the corridor, though you tried to drag your heels. Strong hands on your forearms stopped you from not going into the room. Appearing in the doorway, you took in the chairs with straps and electrical pads that connected to it, immediately knowing what this room was. It was your first time in electrotherapy. Your knees buckled as they had before on your first day here, your palm growing sweaty as they moved you towards the chair. You had heard about this kind of torture but you didn't know they still admitted it.
You had been here for about two weeks already, with days packed fill of different kinds of therapy to try and stop the voice that went on in your mind. So far most of them had failed, leaving them literally tearing their hair out of what to do with you. That's when they decided to allow you into electrotherapy, with the only other person that was allowed in. The boy that lived in the same corridor as you, embarrassingly you didn't know his name. The treatment seemed only fit for him; that was before you came, because he was strong, the effects of madness not taking over him. He seemed perfectly at ease when you had seen him walking around, a smirk playing on his lips and a plotting look in his eyes.
This same boy was sitting in the chair in front of you, watching your struggle with a slight smirk, though he had a pained look in his eye. You wriggled in the orderly's arms as one of them carried you to the chair, forcing you down and locking your arms and legs in place. The boy caught your eye as the orderly attached the pad to your arms and legs, mouthing silently, "keep your eyes on me." You wondered what he meant, when the machine started up.
Electricity crackled through your body, burning as it run in your veins. Light flashed in front of your eyes and you squirmed in your chair, resisting the urge to shout at the orderlies to shut the machine down. But still you kept your eyes locked onto the boy's in front of you, watching as his fingers clenched into fists at the slight of you being hurt. You were confused and the voice in your mind screamed before it shut off. The electricity shut off, leaving you twitching in your chair, feeling numb. But the voice was gone and you seemed uninjured, so you were pleased.
It was the boys turn and he locked onto your eyes, but you couldn't keep his gaze, not wanting to look at the pain in his eyes.
After that you were sent out into the yard for a rest before you went into recovery classes where you talked about your problems with other people. You hated talking to the other people, wanting to keep your problems to yourself. You were heading off to go and sit under the tree by yourself as you usually did, when you felt a hand wrap around your thin wrist. You turned on your heel, trying to pull your hand away when you realised it was the boy from down the corridor.
"I thought I would introduce myself since I haven't yet. I'm Gary, Gary Smith." He told you with a slight smirk playing on his lips, letting his hand slip from your wrist, though he kept to close to your body as though you were about to walk away from him.
"Well you didn't have to grab me like that, you gave me a shock. I'm Pandora."
He raised an eyebrow questionably, "as in Pandora's box?"
"I'm full of secrets," you muttered mysteriously, turning on your heel. You were about to walk away when you felt someone pressing close to the side of your face, hands snaking over your shoulders.
"Finding out secrets is something I excel in."
Gary sat down in his normal chair, not making the fuss that you made. You blushed slightly, because you were worried in case he didn't come, though you knew he would because you were the only one that heard him talking to himself in his cell during the day and heard him screaming at the nightmares at night.
His eyes caught yours, his brown eyes slowly warming as they stayed on your frighten ones. You relaxed back into your chair slightly, knowing that Gary was going to be there for you. The orderlies moved to the electricity box, cranking it up. Electricity flooded into my body, crackling through my veins. Voices screamed and my vision blanked.
When my mind cleared I was still fastened down to the chair, though the burning feeling that was shocking through my body had vanished. The voices had gone – for the moment anyway. Now it was Gary's turn and I caught his eye, watching his swirling chocolate eyes carefully while the machine he was attached to whirred into action. For the first time I decided to watch him, to keep his stare, because usually I could never do it because I couldn't bear the pain of watching him get hurt.
The machine buzz and I saw the electricity crackle down him arms, shocking into his system. But he didn't see it be feeling it. He mostly seemed surprised that I was still watching him. He smirked at the fact he had caught my attention and I kept on staring at his lip as they curled up, revealing two lines of straight teeth. For the first time I looked at him properly, taking in his toned body and long legs. And for the first time I feel properly in love with Gary Smith.