She had stopped taking the pills the fifth month out of the asylum.
Of course currently they didn't call it an asylum any more just an institution, as if it was a fancy prep school that rich parents sent their children too.
It wasn't.
Sarah moved into a one bedroom apartment with a large glass window so that she could watch the sun set and rise as soon as her step-mother and signed the papers, releasing her. She had missed seeing the sun during her treatment, she was usually asleep or indoors when either happened.
The first morning, sitting on a rugged second-hand couch facing the window, she had sipped a watery coffee, watching as the light flooded the room, making the bland cigarettes-tainted white walls turn into a myriad of purples, oranges and whispered pink.
She was renting the apartment for real cheap and sometimes, it was obvious like when the tap water became a wheezing torrent of rusty rattling pipes, or when her next-door neighbours shouted, she could hear them through paper thin walls, or when they fucked, their moans and animalistic grunts filled the air. Her own pay-per-view channel without the view.
Yet with all the downsides, she had that window with view of the grey city below and that was enough for her. She could recite too, on her violin, fingers dancing nimbly on the bow and no one dared to complain. She had given up acting, after Jar…the incident.
Back at the institution, they had a designated time for her to play, and they would make her stand in a circle of staring eyes, half-sedated, sometimes filled with panic, and asked to play.
She would but only because she would die without the music. They already had taken all out imagination she could spare.
When the crush would become too tight, the screams too loud or insults flung too harsh, she would retreat into her music and forget, playing all night from sunset to sunrise.
The first time, she did that, she forgot to take her pills. One blue capsule every eighth hours, two orange and green ones after meals and that tricky white pill that clung to her throat and tasted like ash when she started to see them again.
She had played and played, praying that nothing bad was going to happen, too much had already happened. She just fiddled on her old instrument and felt free, until she saw him again. Out of the corner of her eye, peering out from the mirror, all sensuous cruelty, eyes staring at her in hunger and pity, hands that had touched her once so aching, soft reached out. When she had turned, he was gone, her own dishevelled appeared staring back at her, eyes widen in fear and panic, knowing that seeing him was wrong. She remembered that her childhood hadn't always been like that, filed with fear at each crack or wind whisper. Those friendly faces, leaves matted hair, stick arms or filthy wings, feral eyes and crooked smiles where her companions, sometimes her only friends.
Alone in the world, lonely, they had come to her, taking the sadness away. At first, her parent's had dismissed them as imaginary critters and they were, they had too be because if they were real, then she had lost more than a decade of her life. They couldn't be real.
So without realizing it, she had stopped taking her pills, they rested safety in little orange containers with their neatly printed labels in her cabinet over the bathroom sink that sputtered rust water when the demand was too high.
It was just before sunrise, Sarah as was her custom was awake, sitting on her couch, drinking her bad coffee, just for the caffeine boost because she hadn't sleep more than two hours that night, dressed in a torn T-shirt that ended at the knee. Her leg was curled under her, foot swinging back and forth, toenails painted in chipped florescent polish when she heard it.
That musical tinted all-too-familiar voice sounded behind her. She felt without seeing, his lithe body pacing. She stubbornly ignored him, biting her lip, counting the ways she could escape to the bathroom without looking at him.
"I knew you'd fight it, that you'd come back to me." His voice rang out, mockingly, his fingertips toying with the strings of her violin.
"Please don't touch that." She managed. She could feel the fine trembling shaking her body as she repeated 'it's not real, it's not real.' over and over in her head as if by saying that, she could wake herself up from a delirious nightmare. She could have stood against any of the others but not him.
"Sarah.' He said and picked up the instrument, artfully putting it under his chin. He raised the bow and softly played a horribly beautiful note that reminded her of moonlight caresses and sea salt stiffened clothing. "You shouldn't be so rude to your guest."
"You're not a guest. Go away." She bit out, wrapping her arms around her. She could feel his warmth, startling, behind her.
"There was a time you begged for the opposite. You were the one who called for me." And then he played. A low kneeing sound fell from Sarah's lips and she clasped her hands over her ears, eyes screwed shut, trying to block each nuance as she tried vainly to push back the tide of memories. She knew that song. She had laughed at it, danced at its tempo, made love to it. She could take it no more.
"Stop it!" She shouted. "You're not real. Stop it! Please!" He stopped playing and put the instrument back into its case. His footsteps made no sound on the mouse colour carpet but still she kept her eyes closed. He took hold of her chin in a velvet iron grasp, leaning in so closely that she could feel his breath on her flesh but he smelled of nothing because he was nothing. He wasn't real. He couldn't be.
"I'm as real as the wind or the stars or of the dark side of our lady moon. I'm as real as your memories." He said, breathing in deeply.
"But they aren't real. Not all of them." She twisted her face out of his hands but he refused to let go. "They told me so. Let go."
"And they lied." He whispered softly in her ear, almost cajoling. "Lies. All of them."
"No!" She replied sharply. "You're the one who lied."
"They like to keep their sheep under control." He scoffed, realizing her head. "I'm the only one who can't lie." He sounded bitter for a second.
"My step-mother." She started but he interrupted her.
"Lied the most to you. All those stories about how you were wicked for seeing us, how you were wrong, unnatural. Insane." He drew out the last word in a viscous hiss. "She stopped you from seeing the truth, your mind turned into cotton because of pills, she forced you to swallow. She wanted you docile, the perfect model of a dutiful daughter. She hid your wilderness from you with all her venom lies."
"You're cruel." She murmured a tear slipped through her closed lid, rolling down her pale cheek.
"No." He denied, shaking his head. "I tell the truth."
"Go away." Sarah said, at the end of her arsenal, feeling small, cold.
"Never again." He sat beside her, the springs creaking under his weight.
"I can't take it anymore. Stop." She opened her eyes. He was before her, so cruelly handsome, marble sculpted man, making her feel small and brown beside him like a country mouse. "Why do you hurt me?"
"Because I love you." He admitted simply, gathering her into his arms, her body fell against his without resistance, limp like a rag doll. "Give in to me."
She nodded against his chest, watching as the sun rose, knowing that everything that she knew had ended, wanted to care but couldn't. She wanted it like it was before. He tightened his arms around her and they disappeared.
A week later, an angry landlord stormed into the apartment finding it empty from human life, empty save for a tattered couch illuminated by the sun and an empty violin case, the velvet lining still warm from human touch.