I knew I wouldn't have much time before I said goodbye.

Over the next couple days, I tried to develop some sort of fear about this asylum. It didn't really work. This was because I, as a child, could not possibly imagine the horrors that lay before me.

All I saw was that I was getting away from Mother and Father. I saw it as some sort of sanctum. I wanted to go.

Cynthia wasn't too worried, but she was more worried than me. She knew more, some information she withheld, but I'll get to that later.

I methodically ate, slept, and talked the next few days. Just biding my time. Then on the 23rd, I woke up in a cold sweat.

I'd had a nightmare about the asylum. I was trapped in a room, and the light was just slowly going out. As it went out, I had started to try to escape, but I fell and fell and fell.

Then I woke up.

I didn't know then how scarily accurate my dreams would be. So I went to school as usual. My teacher took me aside and interrogated me.

"Mary Alice, you've seemed kind of...out of touch these past few weeks. Is everything fine with you?"

I gave her a look of feigned innocence. "What are you saying?"

"I just wanted to make sure you were healthy."

She meant well, but she wasn't really helping. "I'm fine," I lied.

The teacher didn't look convinced. "If you're sure..."

"I'm sure," I practically shouted. Please leave me alone now, I mentally pleaded.

She nodded and let me go back to my penmanship homework. I tried and failed to concentrate.

During recess, I sat on the swings, kicking my feet back and forth. I listened to Jo-Ann's monologue to today's new kid, Gertrude Frank.

"See that girl, over there on the swings, not swinging? That's Mary Alice Brandon. Don't talk to her. She's weird. Her sister, Cynthia, is all right, but she's a lot older than you. She'd probably still talk to you though."

"Oh, and there's Sister Abigail. She's the second-grade teacher and she's really smart. See the kind of old lady over there, with the purple dress on? That's Sister Annabel. She's nice, but she's got a bit of a memory problem. If you're in her class, you'll want to help her out."

I would be leaving all of this behind. How could I be so nonchalant about this whole thing? I'd never see any of them again.

Granted, I wasn't close to any of my fellow schoolgirls, but I had been waking up and coming here for seven hours for the past two years.

I didn't need to do this. Suddenly I wanted to resist my parents on this asylum thing.

I looked through the future for some sort of change. Nothing. The girl in the asylum was wearing a different dress, crying miserably, but she was still in the asylum.

I could delay it by a few days at best. There was no choice. I was going to an asylum.

On sudden impulse, I kicked my feet and pushed the swing up. I'd seen other kids do this. Arms back, legs forward. Arms forward, legs back. Repeat.

When I could feel the chain go slack as I reached the highest point, I took a deep breath. Then I pushed myself up and out.

The flight wasn't worth the fall. I landed, hard, feeling stabbing pains in the arm that had broken my arm. People gathered around me, looking at me with wide eyes.

I didn't want to see any of them. I jumped to my feet and raced home.

My parents looked up when they heard the door open. "Mary Alice?" Father asked without seeing me. It wouldn't be Cynthia.

"There was an accident at school. On the swings. I got hurt." It was the first time I had ever out-and-out lied to my parents.

"Oh, sweetie," my mother said without sympathy. "What did you hurt?"

"I'm not sure," I declared. Not a lie.

"Well, let me see it."

She examined my arm, feeling for sensitive spots.

"Based on when you said 'ouch', it looks like you didn't break anything," Mother surmised.

"How did this happen?" Father demanded.

"I was swinging. I went too high, and I fell off," I answered tersely.

They wrapped my arm in a bandage and sent me to bed with some chicken soup.

I still saw them telling me about the asylum at dinner. I just had my arm in a sling, eating with my left hand.

I read for a while, but couldn't seem to stay focused. What had I done this afternoon?

I had heard such terms before - self-inflicted injury, suicide. They were for people who were crazy.

But maybe I shouldn't be so judgmental. After all, I was crazy, right?

Whatever I was, I knew I hadn't been trying to kill myself. I wasn't looking to die. Just looking to do something out of the ordinary.

Ordinary. Ha. I almost forced myself to laugh, but decided it wasn't worth the trouble.

By "ordinary," I meant my usual submission. Just taking everything that came at me, being able to see it but not to do a thing about it.

I wanted to take a stand today, to change that...and it looked like today would be the day I was locked up for good.

I shrugged and tried to focus more on my book. It didn't help.

I wrote down my vision of the asylum to try to concentrate.

I am in the dark. I am alone. The room is a small, claustrophobic square. I'm scared. People come for me in white coats and hook me up to a scary machine. They push a button, and I feel fire in my veins.

I'm incapacitated. I can't move, but my limbs are thrashing wildly around me. I'm foaming at the mouth like a rabid dog. I feel dead. Is this what dying it like. I don't want to know.

Somehow I know I'm not dying but I want to die I'm not safe here I need to escape but where can I go I can't go anywhere I'm trapped

With a start, I looked up from my vision journal. I'd been staring off into space for God knows how long.

I sighed, closed my journal and put it back under my bed. I didn't know what to do to amuse myself.

So for a while I just laid on my bed, until Cynthia came. She rushed right to our room to see me.

"Mary Alice, are you okay?" she shrieked. "I didn't see what happened, but Rose told me you...fell...off the swings."

I shook my head. I'll tell you later was the message I was trying to send.

It worked. "Girls!" Mother shouted. "Come to dinner!"

I stumbled down the stairs. It was time to accept my fate.

Over a celebratory supper, Mother and Father talked about the stock market and World War I and blah blah blah.

I ate, gave an occasional nod when appropriate, and thought a lot. This is it, I told myself. Today is the day.

"Oh, and Mary Alice, dear!" Mother announced brightly. "We've got a wonderful idea for you, darling."

"We think we should send you to this lovely home," Father agreed. "Here, take a look."

He showed me a picture of it. Oak Hills A, the sign read. Father had tried, unsuccessfully, to cut off the "asylum" part.

"I'll go," I conceded, "but I know it's an asylum."

Mother looked flustered. "Why ever would you think that?"

"Because I can tell the future and I can see myself in a room that locks from the outside, enduring shock therapy," I responded.

Mother tried to summon a response, and came up with this excuse: "Oh, Mary Alice, you know you have a few problems. This will help you straighten them out."

"Yes, and numbers one and two on my list of problems is you two," I spat.

"Mary Alice! Go to your room!" Father boomed.

I stomped up the stairs, yelling, "I knew you were going to say that!"

I packed a bag full of all my clothes and then alternately read and wrote for an hour. After that, I fell asleep.

They drove me to the asylum in our brand-new car. Something wrong with that sentence, don't you think?

Mother and Father kissed my forehead goodbye, but Cynthia hugged me so tight I thought I would break. "I love you, Mary Alice," she whispered. "I'm going to think of you for the rest of my life, my brave little sister. I'm going to name my first daughter after you. I'm not going to forget you."

"Love you too, sissy," I whispered back. I couldn't promise her the same thing.

I could forget her. I could forget everything I knew.

With that, I started to cry.

Okay people! My very few but very valued fans! I want at least two reviews before I post the next chapter. Constructive criticism is welcome; flames are NOT. Thank you!