Shades of brown showered my room with darkness. I searched blindly for the light switch, running my arms up and down the wall by the door. I was exhausted from everything. I thought about how the Warden took the medication that just began to take hold of me. I had a small bruise on the side of my face from his hand, I could feel it. I could also feel the emptiness inside of me that had made the nerves return.
I needed the pills. The Warden was too late in taking them from me. I knew I had more somewhere here, I just had to find them. I frantically started searching for them, ripping apart my room, digging through drawers and under clothes that I hadn't worn in forever.
"Come on Jared!" I whispered to myself. "I don't need anything." However, I still searched. I had started to become angry with myself for letting this happen again. I promised that I wouldn't get hung up on it, but I couldn't help it, the Warden was right, if I were out, I'd still be an addict one way or the other.
Tears began to fall…it had been a very long time since I had cried, it seemed.
'Here I am,' I thought to myself. 'Still the same broken man like before.' I fell to my knees and let the tears fall…'like a coward.'
I disgusted myself and for that I sobbed. I felt a presence in the room, then felt a hand fall on my shoulder. I didn't look up, I just watched my tears drip to the floor. What I felt must have been a delusion, after a moment I tried to see who was there for me, it was no one. It was nothing. However my door stood wide open.
I gathered myself and stood, walking out of the door, once again only this time I headed for the cafeteria. I was honestly searching for Alice, someone to talk to other than the Warden, but she wasn't there. Instead of staying, I entered my office for the first time in days. Doing so reminded me of her, Charise. She had left a paper heart pinned to my wall before she had left. I decided to pick up the phone and call her. That would make me feel better, I knew.
Charise almost answered immediately. "Jared!"
"Hi Charise, how are you?"
"I'm good! I miss you! I'm glad you called me!" The excitement in her voice made me smile.
"Well I just wanted someone to talk to…and I missed you too."
"How are things with you? I haven't heard from you lately."
"I've been really busy with work and the Warden, well you know."
"The Mistress says she misses the Warden." We laughed.
"-and the Warden told me to tell you that he truly loves her." Charise had already begun to make my week better. We talked for almost an hour before I let her go.
For the rest of the day I wore a smile that was sure to be noticed by the Warden when I went to entered his office again to check on him.
He, once again, laid his head on the desk, just as he did when he was sobbing. I didn't hear crying however, I didn't hear anything at all.
"Warden?" I walked to him only to be surprised by his sudden scream when I had poked him several times. I jumped back, startled. He brought his knees up to him in the chair and he shook, staring at me the whole time.
"Are you alright, Sir?" I became worried again. He began tapping his fingers on his knees very fast.
"Of course I am."
"A-are you sure?" He had started to become calmer, letting his legs down and only shaking a bit.
"I just fell asleep, that's all." Then he let out a small laugh. "Bad dream again."
"If you say so, Sir."
"What did you need?" I started telling him Superjail's current statistics, as I did every week.
"Well, Sir. We have seventy-five injured, four-hundred and twelve killed, three released and one has escaped." I spoke very fast and I slowed when I saw that his eyes seemed to becoming, unfocused. "Our finances are doing fine and our total statistics of prisoner to cell ratio is-" He closed his eyes suddenly and fell out of his chair. I rushed from behind his desk to help him, luckily I had caught his head before it fell victim to the floor.
"Warden!?" I repeated his name several times only to get his eyes to open slightly. This is when I noticed that my pill bottle was spilt on the floor beside him, more than half of the pills missing than before. 'I thought everything was fine with you!' I thought, feeling that I had failed him once again.
I panicked.