The room I found myself in was a dull eggshell white. Each concrete cinderblock that made up the walls here seemed to have enough of the ugly chipped paint slathered across its surface to fill its own paint can. Each layer plastered over the other so that the rough stone looked fake and pillowy, as if I could push my hand into its surface like a cloud or marshmallow. God was I tired though. In a corner of my mind, I saw myself laying there on the sheer wall sinking into its puffy layers as this place devoured me. Shaking myself, I walked over to the furniture in the center of the room. Just like in every cell in this building, they bolted the gray steel chairs and the table to the floor. They placed each one just far enough away from the others to be uncomfortable. Things here seemed sterile with an edge of shine, but that was because this room was all set dressing. Everything looked polished and clean, just in case somebody's parents, or maybe a social worker, were watching from the other side of the one-way mirror. As if a perfectly clean insane asylum would help the kids living here be any less crazy. Despite this façade, I could still see the grime that was embedded in the walls. I could feel the dirty film that coated the table under my hands like dried layers of sweat and spray-on disinfectant.
What bothered me the most though was, despite the harsh white light that glared above my head, I could still sense all the darkness in the room. The dark gathered below the table and invaded my shadow, stretching up and along my body, clinging to the insides of my clothes and waiting behind my eyelids. It was like it called to me, begging me to just let go so that it could consume me. The darkness had already killed my family, so now it was just waiting for its moment to claim me.
"I won't let you." I mumbled at the creeping corners of the room. My eyes were hurting, but I didn't want to blink. It had been three days since I had last slept, and every time I closed my eyes, I could see the monster. I could feel him trying to move from simple shadow to real threat. Though, for whatever reason, the only thing stopping it from killing everyone in this asylum was my thin grasp on consciousness. It was just waiting for me to fall asleep.
The door to the room clicked shut, and I jerked away from unconsciousness. The doctor in the white coat who had walked in gave me a wary glance. I could imagine how I looked, twitchy in my light blue hospital clothes, with my green eyes wild and bloodshot beneath my black bangs. I could see for myself that my already pale skin had taken on an unhealthy, ashen look from my lack of sleep, but I didn't care. Nothing mattered anymore.
"Hello," he paused as he looked at his clipboard, "Damien, I'm Dr. Jonathan Clark. I'm the chief physician in this wing. How are you feeling?"
"Peachy." I said, not making eye contact.
"That's not what the nurses tell me." He looked down at his clipboard again. "It says here that you broke another patient's nose today. Why did you do that?"
"He turned the lights off."
"And you're afraid of the dark."
"You're a real know it all, aren't you?" I sneered at him, "Except I'm not."
"Then why are you refusing to sleep at night? Why do you insist on keeping all the lights on in your room? And now you won't eat anything either?"
"They drug the food here." He didn't deny it, but just kept on talking.
"This behavior is totally unacceptable. You might have come here under unfortunate circumstances, but—"
"Unfortunate circumstances?" I stood up, "It killed Everyone in my apartment building! It tore my dad apart!"
"Damien, calm down or I'll have you sedated." That shut me up, so I sat down and put my head in my hands; the doctors here usually felt sorry for me when I did that. "It's ok just try to take some deep breaths. Why don't we go back to the beginning?" he said, "It's obvious that you've been through a traumatic experience, and I've read the police reports, but why don't you tell me your version of what happened?"
"I've told you people this story before. The last few doctors didn't believe me, so why should I tell you?"
"Believe me Damien, I've heard many stories while I've worked here. While not everything I've been told has actually happened, it was all based on what the child saw and heard, so it's based on the truth. Just tell me everything you remember, and we can sort out what really happened. It's all part of the healing process."
"So you're not even going to pretend to believe me? Fine, whatever." I took a deep breath and tried to think back. Even if no one believed me, maybe working through what happened would help somehow. "It all started a few weeks ago. It was the weekend, just another Sunday, and I was in my room."
"What were you doing?"
"I was drawing."
"Really? But you haven't been taking part in arts and crafts at all while you've been here."
"I don't like to draw, not anymore, not since…"
"What were you drawing?"
"Weapons mostly, you know, like axes, knives, swords. My friend and I have been talking about drawing a comic together, so I was practicing."
The doctor looked down at his clipboard and started writing. "I see. Please go on." I frowned, but kept going.
"Anyway, I got this idea for a monster that we could use in the comic, so I began drawing, but something felt different."
"How do you mean?"
I shrugged. "When I put the pen to the paper, it didn't feel like I was drawing. It was like I, ugh, I don't know. It's hard to explain."
"Take your time."
"It was like, I thought about it and there it was, fully formed on the paper."
"What did the monster look like?"
"I had blackened the whole page except along the outline of the monster. It was catlike almost, but with this long neck, and I made the whole thing out of blades and scrap metal."
"What happened next?"
"That was when my dad called me to do the dishes…" I hesitated as I remembered that moment. I almost didn't want to say what happened next, but he already knew.
"In your last interview, you told the counselor that your father was angry with you."
I turned my head away. "It wasn't like it was my turn or anything to do them, but he didn't care, he just wanted them done. We yelled at each other, but it didn't mean anything. I still had to do the dishes and after that I just went to bed."
"You were angry?"
"Yeah, so what?"
He jotted down a few more notes. "Your state of mind during all of this is very important. What happened after that?"
"I had a nightmare."
"What about?"
"You know those dreams where something is chasing you, but you just can't seem to run, right? Like you're running through mud or something?" he nodded. "Well, it was one of those, and when the monster caught up to me, I woke up and I heard a scream, but it wasn't mine. It was my dad."
"Go on."
I glared at him. "He was dead! He was already dead by the time I got to his room. All I found was a… a bloody mess."
"Was that all you found?" I didn't answer him. "Damien, this is important. What else did you see?"
"It was… it was the monster… the one I had drawn, the same thing that was in my nightmare. It was there and had killed him."
"But that's not all you saw that night, was it?"
"Are you asking me what I saw, or do you want to tell the story?"
"Damien, I am just trying to see these events through your eyes. The police report has photos enough to tell a fairly graphic story."
"I didn't kill those people!"
"No one is saying that, but you must have seen something. That's all the police want from you, just some kind of statement that makes rational sense."
"Rational?"
"I'm sorry, that was a poor choice of words, but you can see the problem, can't you? It's not like the authorities can arrest a monster made of knifes and um," he looked at his notes, "scrap metal?" There was a knock coming from the other side of the mirror, and the doctor frowned. "If you'll excuse me."
I watched him go and just sat there. There was so much about that night that I didn't want to think about. My father hadn't been the only one to die that night. Everyone in our apartment building, every single one, was dead… everyone but me. I tried not to think about that, but… why was I still alive? Why was this shadow thing following me everywhere? This was the third institution they had transferred me to in as many weeks, because every time I had fallen asleep, people around me died. What was I supposed to do now? The only thing I knew was how tired I felt. If only they would let me have some coffee or one of those obnoxious florescent energy drinks that my friends were always guzzling. I always hated the smell of those things, but I would drink ten in a row right now if they'd just let me.
The door opened again and this time someone new walked in. He didn't look like a doctor or a nurse, or at least not one from this hospital. He had a mess of short wavy blond hair and was wearing a dark-green tweed jacket with leather patches on the sleeves and a red shirt underneath. His pants were a shade of charcoal with a set of polished boots beneath. He looked like a teacher from some stuffy prep school, complete with a dark purple pocket square emblazoned with a diamond.
"What do you want?"
"Hello Damien." He had a slight accent, something vaguely European, and he leaned forward in his chair and rested his elbows on the table. His hands curled around each other as he smiled at me. "Do you want to get out of here?"
I blinked at him. "What?"
"Don't worry, this isn't a trick question. My name is Lucian, Lucian Klein, and I host a camp for troubled young men and women like you."
"A camp?"
"Yes, think of it as… a free-range facility. Fewer walls and bars and more green grass and sunshine. Would you like that?"
"Do I have a choice?"
"Of course."
I glanced at the mirror. "If I say yes, when can we leave?"
"We can leave right away."
***
We walked from that harsh room through the halls of the ward and soon I was being checked out of the facility. They gave me a shallow box carrying my belongings, but the only things in it were my wallet and a worn, pink eraser that I'd had in my pocket from when I came here. Everything else I owned was now considered evidence, including my torn and bloody clothes that I'd been wearing, so they let me keep the hospital clothes. I stepped outside and felt the cool night air press against me and I almost wept. They never let us outside, not even once. Every common room in these institutes had tall windows that would let in the light. But to see the outside and kept from it, to be held hostage against your will, even for such a short time, was criminal.
Bright floodlights hung on the outside of the building, holding back the dark, and I just took deep breaths. I looked to the sky and witnessed the stars as if for the first time, but I didn't have long to enjoy the feeling, as a white van soon pulled up. The black windows looked reinforced with metal wire crisscrossing across it. As the sliding door opened, I saw they made the interior out of some awful turquoise pho-leather.
I stood there for longer than I hoped was comfortable for anyone present, as a sort of protest, but Lucian just stood there with me, not saying anything. Eventually, I got cold and hurried into the van.
No one else was in the van and as Lucian closed the door, the light from the floodlights vanished. I immediately panicked, but at once the interior lights came on and the clinging dark vanished. A short metal divider separated the driver's cab from the rear of the van. Lucian turned back to face me from behind the narrow window at the top of the divider. "We'll be traveling for some time, so rest or lie down if you wish."
"You're not going to turn out the lights, are you?"
"No, so long as you want them on, they stay on."
"Thanks. I'm… I'm not tired though. So, can you maybe turn the radio on or something?"
"Of course."
Some gnarly guitar number filled the air and as the van started up, almost instantly I felt myself drifting asleep.