Dislaimer: I own nothing except my Psychological Hospital and it's staff. Next chapter is the turning point: The news article!
Chapter 4
"Ok, Bella. Who is it that is going to get you?" the nice female that brought me here sat on my bed next to me, recording our conversation. She said that if I talked it out with her, that she'd help me feel better. I faintly remember her telling me that her name was Christine.
"I…if I tell you, he'll hurt me."
"Why?"
"I…I don't know. He just will."
"Honey, can you tell me his name?"
"It's Edward." I heard a hiss from the corner of my room.
"I'm scared, he just hissed at me!"
"Is Edward here right now?"
"I think so. I can't see him, only hear him."
"Why can't you see Edward?"
"Because he hides in the darkness, and he only wants to hurt me, so he only comes out when he wants to hurt me."
Christine looked around the room and saw two dark corners, but the room was naturally dark, since it was almost night time. The lighting was poor in the ancient building that they used for the psychiatric hospital.
"Nurse?" Christine picked up the telephone and called the nurses' station. "Could you bring up three lanterns? Thanks. Ms. Swan's room, please. Thanks.
"Bella?" Christine turned her attention back to me. "You have to tell me if he tells you anything or do anything to you, alright?"
I nodded my head feebly.
"It's ok, Bella. Don't acknowledge he's there and he can't harm you."
"Really? Ca…can I tell you something?"
"Anything. That's why I'm here for you."
"When I was in the white room…" I paused, not sure how to continue. She waited silently and patiently for me to collect my thoughts.
"He…he got really violent. I couldn't defend myself, and he cut me."
"Bella? Did he leave a physical scratch?"
I hesitated, thinking about what he would do to me if I told her. I carefully lifted the bottom of my shirt up, just revealing a large and angry slash across my abdomen.
"HOLY… Bella? He did this to you?" There was no ignoring the fact that I was in a straight jacket the entire time of solitary confinement, when he slashed me up. There was no way that I could do this to myself, and nothing could do this to me in that room.
"We have a serious problem, then. Hallucinations don't physically harm you. Let's get a physician to fix it up so it won't hurt or harm you if it get's infected, alright?" I nodded and stood up next to her. I was lead out the door and down the hall to the nurses station. The on-site physician took me immediately. When I showed him the slash across my belly, he assessed the date of origin to be three or four days ago. The cut was healing fast and all tests reflected this conclusion. The records state that I was in solitary confinement during that period of time, and nurses' records and check-up charts said that I was fine and was wearing the jacket, that it was properly attached so I couldn't have possibly done it myself. The doctor supported this hypothesis too, because he said that these wounds couldn't have been self-inflicted. People in the hospital were finally starting to believe me, and I wasn't viewed as totally crazy.
As the doctors upped my dosage of medication, I started to see less and less of my hallucinations. I still woke up at night with fresh scars on my body in various locations, but my newest problem was waking up at night screaming my lungs out. I never remembered what it was that I dreamed about, but I never got a good night sleep. On top of the medication for the paranoia and schizophrenia, I proudly added sleeping pills to the list; which is the only reason how I sleep at all. The doctors reported a 'real improvement since I first came'. Lately, I have stopped the suicidal thoughts, which I proudly reported to my doctor, and I was seeing less and less of the threatening shadow figures. I was almost ready to be released.
There was one problem that I couldn't quite place. There were large gaps in my memory. I couldn't remember what happened for the last two years, and I could barely remember anything other than who I was and Christine, who helped me in getting better. It bothered me, like who my parents were, and what I was doing during the last two years, but I didn't stress about it much. This is my life. My typical days consisted as such: One hour of each of the activities per day: computer skills, physical education, mind games; which included stuff like playing musical instruments and playing chess or board games, cooking classes, doing laundry, and time to eat, plus adding in our daily scheduled visits to our doctors. Outside of the schedule, we were free to do anything that we wanted to do. I tended to read a lot of books; classics and romance, and I really detested music for some odd reason; especially classical music. Other patients tended to hide music players and turn down the sound of any music they were playing when I walked into a room or passed somebody, they knew that I really didn't like music and that it gave me strange nightmares. It felt nice that everyone would do something like that to help me feel better, like they actually cared whether I had a super day or a horrible one.
I sorta kinda like my life. Really.
