The ambulance doors open and I blearily watch as I am moved out on a stretcher. The hospital. The dreaded hospital. All my fighting was for nothing.
My head spins as I am placed on a gurney. The lights are flashing. Straps bind me across the chest and legs. I give up and close my eyes. What will be will be.
“How did you manage to get yourself into this soup?” starlight demands.
“It’s your fault, you know,” I snap. “You made me do this.”
“Sydney,” asks the doctor, over steepled fingers. “Are you talking to someone?”
“Of course I’m talking to someone, you fool. Why else would I be talking?”
Mistake #1. Do not call your enemy a fool when they wield all the power.
The doctor leans forward. “Who are you talking to?”
“This kind of idiot explains the sad state of the world,” whispers air.
“Um, you?” I try to feign innocence.
“Well done on pretending to be a similar idiot,” air continues.
“Sydney,” starts the doctor after a long pause where I do nothing but stare, figuring out how to look composed while starlight throws tantrums in my mind. “Why did you break your dorm gates? The guard said you were raging and ranting about starlight piercing your eyes, and I am wondering what you meant by that.”
“He’s raging and ranting, the lunatic,” huffs starlight.
“No, I am not,” said the doctor.
What. Did he hear it too? Did I hear that wrong?
“Look here, doctor,” I said. “You and I both know I don’t need to be here. I broke the gate down because I was drunk, and I was angry, and you’re an idiot if you believe otherwise.”
Oh fuck. Same mistake again?! Exactly what will keep me here.
“Nice job,” says fire. Is it strange if I can’t tell if my own voices are sarcastic?
“How about you think about this for a bit?” said the doctor
Thud.
“What was that?” I spin around.
“What was what?” the doctor asks, with a strange not-quite-smug-but-smug face.
Thud.
“There! Again! It’s from the next room!”
“Sydney, there is no next room. This is the end of the building.”
Am I hearing things again? Or rather, am I hearing new things?
“Sydney, are you hearing something?”
“No… Can I sleep for a bit? Can we speak later?”
“Of course.”
I wake up to the sound of soft thudding – the sound of someone gently hitting their head on the wall, wanting to feel the pain but not quite wanting to cause brain damage. I know. I have been there. And then I hear a voice.
“She keeps asking about me.” Plaintive. Pitiable.
And then I hear another voice. Familiar.
“There is no one in that room.” The doctor.
“But that’s not what you told me last time.” Desperate now.
“She’s not real, honey.” The nurse, the one kind person in this entire place.
I want to thud back and show I am real, but I have been chained to my bed and I have a strap across my chest and another across my legs. When did this happen and why? This has been planned. They knew I would wake up.
“Hi Sydney, how are you doing?” The doctor sits with one leg crossed over another, the picture of calm and competence.
“He’s hiding something,” says water.
“Something dark,” says starlight.
“You sound suspicious, Sydney,” he says.
But I did not say anything. I frown at him.
“Listen, doctor,” I say, “I am not aggressive. I was drunk and broke a gate. That is all.”
“Where is the fire in your voice?” asks the doctor, cool as you please. “Would that say something different?”
How does he know?
“Aw he knows me,” preens fire.
“He can’t know you, you idiot,” snaps water.
“Shut up!” I scream.
Oh dear.
“No no no,” I rush, “please trust me, I am fine.”
And the doctor only stares smugly.
I hate that smug face! There is something really wrong with him.
“You’re tired, Sydney, how about we get you some sleep?”
“No!” I cannot let them mess with my head. I do not need sleep. I need to get out of here. I try to get away, but I am still chained.
I fade away into nothingness.
A different sound wakes me up this time. Metal dragging on the floor, like someone has broken off the bedrail they were chained to and are dragging it along as they walk.
“Stay away from me!” a voice screams. It is a different voice, not the one I heard last night.
“Shhh shhh,” says the doctor. I’d recognise that voice anywhere at this point. “I’m not coming any closer. Can you describe the voices?”
“They aren’t voices.” Sobbing, almost.
“What are they?” asks the doctor, and somehow I know he is sneaking closer to the person.
“Instructions.”
“From whom?”
A long pause.
“From her.” A thud on my wall follows.
And I say, “Kill him.”
A different doctor sits before me. He looks kind. Almost… trustable. But if there is one thing I’ve learnt, it’s that you can’t trust anyone when you are chained.
“Well, Sydney, what would you like to talk about?”
Thud.
“Do you hear that?”
“Hear what?”
“The thud from the room next door!”
“Ah, Sydney, I do. I hear it. We have an agitated patient next door. I hope it is not bothering you too much?”
I laugh in relief! So it is real! The relief spills over.
Into oversharing.
“I broke my dorm gates because my starlight voice got frustrated at the light pollution in the city and demanded I destroy property so the world takes note of mankind’s stupidity.”
I notice the doctor is smiling. Oh no.
“Sydney, I’m glad you have acknowledged your voices. They are trying to convince you that you cannot trust us, and that there is a room on the other side of this wall. There isn’t. This is where the building ends.”
“Don’t listen to him,” I hear from the next room. In my own voice.
He’s not any better than the previous doctor. He’s worse. And I fell for it.
There is a scratching on the wall, like someone is trying to get my attention in a subtle manner. I bolt awake immediately.
“What do you want!” screams the person. This time it is a woman in the next room.
“Honey, you are alright, you are tired.” It’s the kind nurse.
But she’s in this too. She’s in this with the doctor seeing the real-not-real neighbour of mine, and it’s all a lie. They’re both in this together.
“I need to speak to the person next door, she is the one I am looking for,” says this new unknown neighbour of mine.
She’s looking for me?
“Honey, listen,” says the nurse. “You cannot speak with her. She thinks she’s the patient, not you.”
But I am the patient? I’m being seen by doctors?
“Can’t I just speak to her once?”
Maybe this person can listen to my instructions too. This nurse, this nurse needs to go.
I whisper again, “Kill her.”
I wake up this morning feeling strangely refreshed. And not drugged. I am not chained either. I am thinking more clearly than I have in days and I am not quite sure what is happening. I open my eyes.
A nurse is standing over me.
“Welcome to your first day here.”
What?
“Is she out of her mind?” asks starlight.
“You shut up,” says sunlight. “You got us into this.”
“I’ve been here for three days,” I say.
The nurse smiles.
“No. You arrived last night.”
And I think back to last night.
The ambulance doors opened and I blearily watched as I was moved out on a stretcher. The hospital. The dreaded hospital. All my fighting was for nothing.
My head spun as I was placed on a gurney. The lights were flashing. Straps bound me across the chest and legs. I gave up and closed my eyes. What would be would be.
The nurse is right. I came in just last night. Have I devolved to a stage where I imagined three whole days?
Then from behind the wall, a frightened voice, my voice, whispers, “Don’t let them convince you you were not here before.”