Hey everyone…I am having issues with the ff because it's not letting me upload things but now its all good…and I am getting a bit meh about the story and I feel like crap because at the start I was like 'nope, not gonna give up or get bored' and there are stories on ff with like, 100+ chapters …anyway I am starting to wonder how it's all going to end and when I start thinking about it…there is a wall because I have never really done an ending before so if anyone has any suggestions, they would be cool… the next chapter will be up at the weekend for definite (it will be the onethat is back at the crimescene)and it will be the last chapter for until the 14th because I am away wooooooo….lots of pretty sun away from all the rain that's been going on for days…anyway I'll stop going on now… Thank you again to everyone who just checks out the story, it's been fantastic the response and it's just more than I thought it would be when I started so thank so much.

Thank you so much to Dybdahl, The Magic Bringer, CSI-Fanatic-CSI, Shellster, Ally-617-luv-tv , Jenn, pigeonofdoom fugimermaid, sparklin-strawberries and dark-girl-faith-sidle for taking the time to leave reviews…thank you xxxx

Shellster- Hey thank you for taking the time for reviewing…I'm not a Catholic though but it's always good to wondering xxxxx

The Magic Bringer – Hi, glad your are reviewing me again, its great, thank you sooooo much. xxxxxx

Fugimermaid hiya and awww thank you… I am planning to stick with this one…I am not planning to get bored with it yet so that's plus…hmmm maybe about the gsr fans being all happy and bouncy and sugared up…there could be gs moments but a lack of 'r' in those moments…I like my daily doses of pain…meh…anyway after that weird little ramble, thank you for reviewing, I so grateful…Thank you xxxxx

Pigeonofdoom heya, thanks for leaving two reviews and very bleh indeed. I actually worked in a morgue for a few weeks when I was 15 and it is so scary and so freaky and I remember the "freezer" door opening and thinking, "OMG those feet are really white" which was actually really disrespectable now that I think about it…so that's were that little bit came from…thanks again xxxxx

Dybdahl- Hey, thank you for letting me know about chapter 10 and it will be fixed within the week…thank you x…there probably should be a lot more control in a mental hospital but it can be a low budget funding place that's totally rundown…I got my thoughts of what a mental hospital is like from watching 'one flew over the cuckoos nest' and that seems pretty relaxed on there…xxxxx

dark-girl-faith-sidle hiya waves glad you like…thanks for two fab reviews, that's just wicked…I am running out of drugs now, I am like "Largactil, ketamine... ermmmmm" so I think I am going to have to leave out the drugs now, find some other things mess/destroy Sara evil laugh

Ally-617-luv-tv- hi, stupid sight lol, thanks for leaving a wonderful review The present day chapter is next and should be up at the weekend …xxxxx

sparklin-strawberries- hey thank you for reviewing, I know that my spelling and grammer and punctuality is totally messed., my English teacher always gets mental when I hand my work in and it's always been like that…I would love to have a beta reader and I'd be so grateful, so thank you xxxxxxxx

thanks for reading

luvs n hugs

x


One night I drifting the corridors along and I found the front desk. They never locked the doors, I was told it made the other patients nervous.

I was wandering because there was a violent storm and for once my system was drug free and my senses ran wildly. The lightning was so bright that every time it struck, it had lit up the dorm and the night brighter than the sun, making everything the light touched look faded and bleached. The thunder cracked so loud it reminded me of the horrid black belt. I had tried to sleep but the storm had started near midnight, after many people had already gone to sleep. I was stood on my bed watching out of the window I could see the lightning cracking down over the land in streaks like unnaturally bony fingers sprawling outward as if they were trying to grab everything in its pathway, then, almost the moment the lightning was over, the thunder would boom.

The woman at the desk looked bored, like so many people in the institution. She looked about forty, forty-five. Her legs were crossed and she wore brown shoes with long heels. Her hair was glossy and brown. Her shirt was ivory with pearly buttons and she had a silky scarf around her neck. She was staring up, her spider eyelashes crawling up to her finely plucked eyebrows. There was a pen in her mouth. She was very still and I wanted to pick up a boot and throw it at her, just to see if she blinked.

"Hi."

After a few seconds, she realised she wasn't alone. She looked at me and pulled the pen out of her mouth and smiled.

"Hi there, sweetie."

I learned that her name was Ester Browning. I showed her the wristband with my name on. I hated the plastic wrist cuff; I hated it because I felt it had branded me like cattle.

"What are you doing up at this hour?" She asked gently as if she was trying to keep me calm. I wondered if she would be pressing a button on her desk that was letting the doctors know a patient was loose, a psycho ten-year-old on the rampage. No one came though.

"I couldn't sleep. The storm was keeping me up."

I told her that mother would sit with me in my bed until I fell asleep. I talked about my mother for a long time, what she looked like, what she liked to do and memories I had of her and Ester listened to everything. At least I think she did.

Ester eventually excused herself and moved away from the desk and in to the room behind her. She came back with a file in her hand and dialled a number and passed me the phone.

It was my mother.

I was unable to speak at first when I heard my mother's tired voice. My eyes must have gone as wide as dinner plates. I didn't know how I was able to speak but I managed to squeak out something. My mom asked me how I was and if I was being good. I told her how much I missed her and how much I wanted to come home. I asked her about my brothers. She told me that Adam was still in prison and she got a letter from Nick a few days ago. She read it to me. She told me she got a new, small house with blue shutters and small garden where she could grow herbs and vegetables. She told me that she was going to grow vegetables and lots of different flowers. She spoke of Auntie Annie and her boys and how big they had got. It must have broken her heart but it meant the world to me to be able to talk to her.

I would return to Ester Browning often on the nights I couldn't sleep and I made a good relationship with her. She often told me that I was too pale and skinny.

"Just look at you," she'd say. "I am going to take you home with me and fatten you up, I am."


It was Christmas and Johnny, Mary and I were sat on the kitchen floor. We had been locked in and forgotten about. It was our punishment to clean the kitchen, until the nurse who had ordered us to do it could see herself in the surface. I wondered why she would want to see her face on the surface; she was very ugly.

We weren't actually cleaning and we had misbehaved on purpose. While the other patients could eat purified turkey and mushed up vegetables and a small sample of cake, we were eating cold chicken, anchovy paste and bread and butter with sour cream, ginger snaps and chocolate and marzipan fruits and grape fruit juice and ginger ale.

The sight of all the food spread out around us made me dizzy, I hadn't seen so much exotic food in one place.

It was Mary's idea initially but Johnny had developed it. Mary was wearing her pink nightdress that curved in at her middle and the bulged out again over her bum and stopped above her knees. She wore her uniform white pants underneath thought to keep her legs warm. Her hair was still perfectly straight. I was wearing my black nightgown and like her, my mental institution pants. Johnny had combed his hair and his uniform seemed less crumbled.

My eyes were like the glass facets of a diamond, I was so happy.

"Just think if this place wasn't here," Johnny said, "then we would be washing dead bodies." He reached for his plastic cup of pink liquid.

"But it is here," Mary pointed out, her mouth half full.

I couldn't stand the idea of scrubbing down the dead on Christmas Eve.

Mary looked at me, "Sara, slow down…try and chew your food."

I had been cramming my mouth with food, as if I was trying make myself choke on the food or as if someone would take the food away if we didn't quick enough. I stuffed my mouth with a bread roll that oozed with the paste and sour cream. I had spread it thickly like peanut butter and wrapped it around a piece of chicken.

I was happy where I was, but Johnny had an idea.

"We could burn it down. The gate."

I gulped down avariciously the juice I had in my mouth and looked at Mary.

"I have matches," Johnny said. He plucked them out from his pants and waved them in the air.

Mary hugged Johnny, thinking it was a brilliant idea.

I was dubious but I didn't say anything but I felt like calling him a moron. I didn't like the idea of being an arsonist but I found myself climbing out of the window following them.

There was a big empty bird's nest on the edge of the roof, so Johnny climbed up the drainpipe. I was watching him whilst my arms were wrapped around my stomach. I got no sympathy from Mary. I felt very sick as if my stomach was being beaten with a wooden spoon.

The nest didn't really catch fire at first. There was a lot of smoke coming out of it.

We stood there, dead and serious, watching it smoulder until flames started to arise.

I was lost in the dancing flames, licks of gold and amber and ruby melting together to create a blurry haze.

I realised I was crying and I couldn't stop. It was a relief that salt tears were pouring down my cheeks because I knew that I still had something human prowling around in me.

Mary took my left hand and Johnny took my right and we stood watching the flames crawl up the north side of the morgue.

I was sick at some point.

Eventually, some of the nurses came outside and they started screaming. It wasn't that big of a fire and we didn't burn down the entire building as we had hoped. We were taken back to the unit and we had to admit it was us who had done it. We were sent to our beds and the next morning we were sent for.

We were in the office. The psychiatrist was there with two nurses and a male Doctor.

They had a good scream at us. She was angrier with Johnny, she combusted at the sight of him.

"You are going to a place you won't get out of," she screeched to Johnny. "And where you will learn to do what you are told."

She looked at us.

"You two, get out and go back to the playroom. I will deal with you later."

We left the office and Johnny went to follow us but she said, "Not you, Johnny. You will stay here until it is time for you to leave."

We thought it was just a threat and he would be sent to bed with a needle.

Mary and I weren't escorted out of the office, so we hid behind a corner.

We were there for ages.

I fell asleep against Mary but awoken by screaming and a digging sensation in my hip.

Mary and I flicked our heads around the corner. Mary and I ran down the corridor.

Two men had Johnny by the arms and they were pulling him, kicking and screaming.

Mary and I were shouting things, random things and apologies but our words just became noise. They just kept dragging Johnny away. He was crying and waving to us and me and Mary just stood there.

We kept shouting to him, things I can't remember but he shouted to us that he would never forgot us

Neither Mary nor I ever saw Johnny again or found out where he went that day.

Two days later, the doctor told Mary that she was going out for the day. The nurse took her away in the afternoon and she never came back. When I asked where she was, the doctor said, "She's gone to a place where she will do what she is told."

I went to the bathroom and looked in the mirror. I watched the small girl with the lanky arms and a dirty white shirt and blunt brown hair staring at me. I knew it was my reflection but it felt like I was just hovering two inches to the left of myself. The small girl's face withered with grief and she placed her hands in front of her mouth to block a sob.

I turned the sliver tap and a gush of hot water came tumbling and spurting out, creating soft bubbles as it hit the sink. I placed my right hand underneath the scorching water and kept it there, the heat burning away at my skin, turning it bright pink. I picked up the white and used oval-shaped bar of soap with my left hand. I placed the soap in between my hands and squeezed it and watched the foam and froth seep out between the cracks in my closed hands. I suddenly realised how repulsive the soap was, as many other hands that crawled with germs must have already touched it. I dropped to bar and it sloshed around the sink bowl. I scrubbed my left palm up and down my index finger and then repeated the same motion on my middle, ring and little finger. I pressed my left thumb in to my fingerprints and then scraped my thumb away. I rubbed my palms together and smeared my wrists against each other.


A week went by and then I was sent for. I went to the office. She told me that I was been sent to a special school.

"Special?"

"Yes, You don't belong here, Sara. There is clearly nothing wrong with you and your teachers have noticed you intellect and we feel it should be nurtured."

"Why can't I just go home?" I asked.

I never got an answer and although I hated been stuck in the nuthouse, I was also scared about going somewhere new. I wasn't given any choice. I got ready and I was taken to the office carrying a black case that contained my things. I noticed that I actually got most of Liz's possessions and I wondered why she had not taken them herself. I was given another uniform; a sleeveless smoke grey dress that came down to my knees, a white blouse to go underneath the dress, white socks, a sliver cross and my black, cracked patent leather shoes.

One of the nurses, the nice ones, from the unit had been instructed to go with me on the trip. There was a black taxi waiting for us outside the front door and I got into it clutching my black case.


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