Hey, thanks for coming back! I'm glad to see I've drawn a few new readers along the way, and have managed to keep my old favourites with me too. This one's a little short, a stepping stone to the edge. Here's what it's like to be sick with fear.
- nH
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Chapter 15
Scare Crow
scare crow
scare crow
The day, the world, reduced to two syllables. Scarecrow. Her external tormentor.
Jane huddled on the floor in the corner of her room; the walls shivered right along with her. The friendly orderlies had fitted her with a straightjacket, to protect her from her own sporadic thrashings; the rational part of her mind – that rapidly shrinking part growing further away from daylight by the second – had realized long ago that this was, inevitably, where she would end up.
The room had become a hell of itching, moving walls, bleeding color and cross-fading screams from somewhere inside her beleaguered head. At times she felt as if she was inside the celluloid of a horror movie, a non-living figment of a sinister imagination, waiting for some unearthly monster or ghost to posses her and devour her soul. At other times, the hallucinations receded, leaving her to wonder if she was in the throes of a full-blown psychosis. These times were almost worse; it was during these quiet breaks that she had to admit that she most likely was.
"Jane?"
A watery call from above; at first it confused her, as at that moment she wasn't entirely sure where she was. Another attack of dementia was on its way out; she waited to see if this voice was a siren dragging her back inside.
"Honey, are you there?" it called again; this time it served to help clear her head. This voice was blessedly real.
"H-hey", Jane called out weakly. She struggled against the wall to her feet; if she could beat the next attack, she may be able to let this person – Angie, that's her name – know what had happened. As best she understood it herself.
"Hey!" she shouted. Discretion was no longer an issue, for some reason. Perhaps because she felt she had little to lose. "Angie!"
"Hey, girl! You're being awfully daring, if I may say", she answered, sounding a bit startled.
"He did something to me", she started. "He got into my mind – he's a monster…I can't…I can't tell what's real…"
"Jane", Angie called, sounding concerned. "Jane, hush a bit, someone might hear us, okay?"
"It doesn't matter!" Jane almost cackled. "It's over, he's won!"
A momentary hush; Angel appeared to consider this. "No, no honey! No, he can't win! What did he do?"
"He gets in, you breathe him in, and it's all over. You can't get him out. He's not a man, he's…all…straw and monster…"
The madness was creeping back in, she could feel it. She had in fact heard it first, in the brittle edge to her voice, as if it was coming from somewhere else. The walls were beginning to quake…
"Angie, I have to go."
"What? Where are you going?"
Nowhere was the proper reply, and would probably do quite nicely for the rest of her life. This time, Jane was beyond the point of no return; the only answer she gave Angel was a long, crackling laugh, a last bitter look at reality as it faded away once again.