Chapter One: Never
The rain drums on the window. Pitter patter. Pitter patter. Pitter patter. Just like that.
The light hums above my head like a bee, like a swarm of bees that never go away. Water drips from the sink endlessly. I wonder just how much water it's wasting to have that leak. Probably a lot. I've decided I don't care. Caring is bad, caring sent me here.
I take a look at my watch. It reads six o'clock. I pick up my Sharpie and make another line on the wall. It's the only thing to do around here; count the time I mean. They've decided I've had too much fun, that I've used it all up, that it made me crazy. They're wrong.
They made me crazy.
I sigh and stare out the window. Some things never change and the landscape outside is one of them. Always grey, always raining. It's like all the color's been drained out of the entire universe. I wonder if that's how grown ups see the world, and if I see it like that now because I am one.
Six o'clock in the morning, I'm officially eighteen.
It's great to be an adult, just fabulous. Then again, I wouldn't know, I've only been one for two seconds and already I hate it. I wonder if they'll let me out now that I'm an adult. I doubt it. I don't have a choice anymore. I'm mental, I'll never have a choice.
They think I made it all up. They think I talk to myself when I look in my mirror. Toby can't back me up; he was just a baby. Now he's going on three. I really never got to watch though. It's been two years in white-washed Hell and a lot of tallies.
I wonder if I'll ever get out of here, if they'll ever let me go. Never. That's what my file said, but in much fancier words. Never.
Never doesn't seem like such a long time when you say it out loud, but it is. It's a word with power. I smile. I know all about words with power. He taught me about words with power. But he is gone, he will never come back, and there are some night when I wish he was here.
The Labyrinth changed me, and he changed me too. I'm not fifteen anymore, I'm all grown up. I know what I want now, and it's taken me three years to decide.
I stand up from the chair I'm sitting in, and I walk over to my bed. From beneath my pillow I pull out a book. The word Labyrinth is printed on the cover. The idiots don't even know I have it. Oh well. I flip to the second chapter and take a deep breath.
"I wish the Goblins would come and take me away..." I pause. There is no turning back. Not for me. "Right now." I smile as the lights flicker and then go out.