Chapter 1

Meet AJ Lee

With a loud ear-piercing scream, AJ Lee threw the chair through the recreation room, to the staff members. Her head felt like spinning, she was so angry.

'Go away! Get away from me!'

Three months.

It had been three damn months since AJ was send to a psychiatric clinic by her family. They didn't understand one single thing about her. She was who she was, and if they didn't like it, well, they had to live with it. Ever since she could remember, AJ had a penchant for dating boys, only to break their hearts in the harshest ways. But the young woman didn't see any evil in what she was doing. It was always the fault of the boys. They were the ones who toyed with her heart, not her. They were the ones who hurt her and betray her. No, not AJ. There was one thing all her ex-boyfriends could agree on.

AJ Lee was crazy.

She could take a lot of insults, but if someone called her crazy, she would snap. She would throw a fit and scream until her lungs hurt. She was not crazy, they were! They didn't understand her, that's why they called her crazy.

After being put up with her shenanigans for years and years, AJ's parents finally had enough. Without AJ knowing about it, they had her signed up for a treatment in a psychiatric clinic which would last until she was 'cured'. When AJ found out about it, she was so angry she nearly destroyed the entire house. Everyone in the world was against her, at least that's what she thought.

Now it had been three months and she hadn't heard a thing anymore from her family. They abandoned her here. They left her here to rot with the damn psychiatrists who didn't understand one thing about her and those group sessions who gave her a headache for the rest of the day.

But one thing was perfectly clear to AJ.

She. Was. Not. Crazy.

The staff members could dodge the chair just in time; it hit the wall with a loud bang, leaving a big hole in it. AJ's fellow crazies looked up, annoyed that their only time of rest had been disturbed by this angry woman.

'Come now, AJ.' one of the staff members said, trying to calm the furious girl. 'Don't do this, stop this right now.' 'No!' AJ screamed. 'I want to leave this place, right now! I don't want to go to another group session! I want to go home! For the hundredth time, I'm not crazy! You hear me? I'm not crazy!'

The staff member shook his head. 'You can't leave.' he replied. 'You're not going anywhere.'

AJ saw black spots dancing in front of her eyes.

She charged towards the staff member and pounded him, both falling on the ground. Still screaming, AJ pulled on the poor man's clothes, cursed him and everyone in the clinic, and slapped him in the face. His colleagues desperately attempted to pull the raving girl off from him... but they miserably failed. One of them came up with an idea, though.

Suddenly, AJ felt a little prick in the left side of her neck, which enraged her only even more. 'What did you do to me?!' she yelled.

Her limbs felt like they had turned numb. Right then she realized she had been injected with a heavy tranquilizing medicine. Patients who caused a lot of racket would get an injection like that. The staff member rolled her off of him and got up. AJ was now lying on the ground, without any possibility to move. She didn't have any feeling in her body anymore, it was impossible to move. This was her punishment for acting out. It made her feel powerless; if she still had any sensation in her body, she would've cringed in humiliation.

'Bring her back to her room.' the staff member said, cradling his painful face. 'And make sure you lock the door.'

AJ was thrown on her bed, but not too gently.

'If you keep acting up like this, you will stay here for a longer time. Your attitude won't help you to get out of here.' the staff member said with a toneless voice. He glared down at her; for him, she was just another patient he had to deal with every day. Another annoyance. AJ glared back at him. She didn't like the staff members for one bit, not a single one of them. They were all against her, they were all out to get her.

The staff member turned around and walked away from her. He opened the door. 'Come to think of it...' he mumbled. 'Letting you stay here some longer wouldn't be such a bad idea.' Then he walked out of her room and closed the door behind him. AJ could hear two clicks; he had locked the door.

There she was.

All alone.

Lying on her bed without any feeling in her limbs.

It was so quiet in this small bedroom. It was only a couple of square feet long, just big enough for a cheap hospital bed with an old mattress so thin you could feel the lower frame of the bed, a desk and a chair. Usually when she got out of her room, AJ could hear the fellow crazies laugh and scream. But not when she was here. Maybe these white walls were thick enough to isolate her from the sounds.

It took a little while before she could feel some sensation in her arms. AJ rubbed her temples; the medicine gave her one big headache. Staring at the ceiling, she felt absolutely miserable. She was convinced that her family nor her friends (which she had very few) cared that she was stuck here in this worthless mess of a clinic. Did her friends even knew she was here?

If those staff members thought they would calm her down after this little incident, they would be wrong. AJ would resist to the very end, because she knew she wasn't crazy. But at the same time, she knew that her attitude would only lengthen her stay.

Fine then.

If they wouldn't let her go, then she would let herself out.

But how?

Was there any possibility to escape?

And if she would manage to escape... where would she go?