"I'm lucky if I ever see the light of day again
My skin is choking me, my feeble walls are closing in
This cell is filled with scholars easing me, they're teasing me
They told me so I didn't know the fall would be this easy"
Icon for Hire "Off with her head"
Her brain felt hazy and muddled. They'd given her too many drugs this time, probably hoping she'd fall asleep and never wake up again so they didn't have to deal with her. They wanted the voices in her head to stop. They wanted her to be normal, something she just wasn't meant to be. She didn't stab the nurse in the shoulder with the pen, Joanne did. But they didn't believe her.
Now she was strapped up in a straight jacket lying on the floor of a padded room. Dr. Swanson said that the padded room was the worst kind of punishment. Silence is worse than torture, he'd said with a smile. They must have been idiots. There was never silence for her. The voices never stopped, they always kept her company.
"Fools." "You're the idiot here, not them."
"Joanne, you're the reason we're in here."
"Don't fight, please." "Yeah, kiss and make up…"
"Mandy can kiss my ass!"
"Enough!" "You shut up!" "Stop it, guys!"
She sighed; they were talking among themselves, using her skull like a conference room. Rolling her head towards the padded door, she wondered how she could escape with her arms pinned across her. Too weak, she told herself. The doctors would shoot her up with more drugs and strap her to a bed, praying she'd stop breathing with several doses of morphine. If she did escape, where would she go? They'd hunt her down like she was some kind of monster. It was only one person. One measly person. Well, two if you count his mother, but she wasn't human to begin with, maybe part demon. They had hurt her, abused her, raped her, and treated her like some kind of invalid. She hated them.
"Let Sue take over." "Yeah! Let her get us out of here!"
"Sue scares me." "Bitch never talks." "Does she have a reason to?"
"She'd rather see someone bleed than see them talk." "True."
"Is it settled then?" "Agreed." "Sue? A little help?"
The girl grinned, her lips pulling back over yellowing teeth. Gums as pale as her flesh. She sat up and turned towards the padded door, her movements jerky and stiff, like a puppet. There was hell to rise.