This story is written for the Ficathon Challenge.

Challenge 30

Genre: supernatural/romance

Rating: Teen (or older)

Likes: Characters that have character. The end of a friendship. Imperfect people. Names that have meaning. A weather scene. Symbolism. Good (not forced) dialogue. Originality. Making unrealistic things seem natural. Humor. Plot twists.

Dislikes: CLICHES (plot or characters). Underdeveloped characters. Chick lit. Pages of description. Overly worked plot lines. Annoyingly happy couples. School (the characters can go to school, just don’t show them in it). Angst.

3 Quotes/Phrases: “Don’t be nice, I don’t wanna have to like you.”/ “some poor village is missing their idiot.”/ “You have no clue what the hell you’re supposed to be doing? …Join the club.”

The characters in this story are loosely based on the British International School Istanbul Class of 2008. I love you all, really :-D

Since I'm not a psychologist the unprofessional nature of my psychiatric evaluations may have to be overlooked

“In a mad world only the mad are sane.”

---- Akira Kurosawa

PSYCHOLOGICAL EVALUATION

Rivera Psychiatric Hospital

Admission Report

Blaze Taylor
Case No.: 9,641
Building No.: 1
Admission Date: 13/11/08

PATIENT ADMISSION DETAILS: Fifth inpatient admission for this 21 year old, single, white male who has 13 years of formal education and has then proceeded to retain an erratic pattern of constantly changing employment. He has been admitted for a previously diagnosed multiple personality disorder. Other personality is thought to be named “Chaos” and has displayed violent, erratic and destructive behavior. Patient referred to us after attempted homicide.

MENTAL STATUS EXAMINATION: Individual remains stoic and unresponsive to all attempts at communication. He insistently remains silent and focuses undivided attention on the wall, avoiding eye contact with any medical personnel. The patient’s attire is overly casual and posture indicates a lack of respect for social norms. Appears that he is unconcerned by the opinions of others; impression further emphasised by dress and lack of grooming. Behaviour may indicate a potential antisocial personality disorder or may be directly linked back to the multiple personality disorder the patient already possesses: further research will need to be conducted into this theory. Transfer of subject to Rivera Psychiatric Ward appears to have been a suitable idea although observations will continue; current situation will remain temporary depending on interaction with other patients; isolation is possible. Attempts to speak to “Chaos” will be pursued as soon as patient has settled in.

TRANSCRIPT OF VERBAL EXAMINATION (patient’s responses underlined):

Tell me, Blaze, how do you feel about your transfer to Rivera Psychiatric Ward?

[OBSERVATION: Patient remains unresponsive and stares at the wall.

Do you feel anxious? Happy? Angry? Resentful towards those who put you there? You must have some kind of emotion towards this change?

[OBSERVATION: Insistent uncooperative behaviour.

What about Chaos? How is he feeling about it?

[OBSERVATION: No appearance of second personality “Chaos” at mention of name.

Thank you for your time, Blaze. I will be talking to you again soon to see how you’re settling in. Nurse Hillsburg will escort you to your room now.

[OBSERVATION: Patient stands and leaves without a backwards glance.

Evaluation by Dr. Henry Freeman

Psychologist, Rivera Psychiatric Hospital

Date: 13/11/08

The day that Blaze arrived started out just like any other for the patients in the closed ward of Rivera Psychiatric Hospital.

It was a cold November’s morning. The light hit the window, pouring its sterile rays into the dim lounge, bouncing off the pastel blue walls. They were scattered around, formless and unaware of anything outside their own little bubbles of existence. Confusion was the theme of the day. It was the theme every day. They still hadn’t completely understood their reasons for being there in that particular moment, but no longer did they care. They distinctively remembered vague conversations held by powerful figures. They remembered the manifestation of these peoples’ ideas in their brains. They remembered resistance, torture, pain. Ultimately, they remembered nothing of consequence. They were living in the here and now, though there wasn’t very much to it.

No one lifted a head when the doors opened. It was ritual by now. 10:00 A.M on the dot. The locks turned – their metallic screech echoing around the virtually silent room – the doors opened, and in walked the head nurse. The short, stocky Nurse Hillsburg walked in wearing the same outfit as always, her hair in the same uniform bun, and the same information charts clutched tightly to her chest. It was all ritual.

Though, on this particular day, the first in the last three years, Nurse Hillsburg didn’t enter alone.

Kevin who, upon hearing the door open, scurried out of his room in a hurry, desperate for the attention the other patients refused to give him, was struck dumbfounded by the sight before him.

There was someone with Nurse Hillsburg!

“Who are you!” He asked, eyes wide with surprise.

Heads swiveled, eyes scoured, each eager gaze searching the room for the source of Kevin’s alarm.

Seeing what Kevin did, they froze.

There, for the first time in three years, stood a new patient. His black hair fell in disarray atop his head, flecks falling into his piercing green eyes. He stood, towering over the short nurse dressed in torn jeans and a vintage burgundy ripped shirt with a grey cardigan stretched over broad shoulders, barely concealing hard-muscled arms: the kind one acquired not from working out, but from that one extra fight he fought.

Standing casually with his hands in his pockets, no one failed to notice the slightly glazed tint to his eyes which remained unfocused, unaware of the close scrutiny he was receiving from every person in the room, bar one.

Riley Summers sat in the corner, curled up against the side of the sofa, her blue eyes dull, staring at the floor, her face half concealed by the cascades of caramel hair that fell over her shoulders. She paid no attention to the noise of the television before her or the spectacle which had drawn the attention of every other patient in the room. She was lost inside her own world, wrapped up in a cocoon of indifference. Today was a bad day. She knew it was going to be a bad day because why wouldn’t it be? It had been the same for the last four weeks. She almost craved the manic phases. At least they broke the monotony of depression.

If asked about the nature of mental illness, Riley would tell you that it’s like drowning in slow moving quicksand all alone in heat of the Amazon. You struggle feebly against it, knowing that it won’t result in freedom; know it won’t result in anything but a faster descent into its depths. So you are forced to succumb to a slow death of suffocation… The worst part? Knowing that it’s going to consume you and eventually kill you, and having to wait for that fate to catch you. It was to this fate that she had resigned herself.

“Everybody, this is Blaze. Now I want you all to say ‘welcome Blaze!’ Nurse Hillsburg spoke, her low scratchy voice – the result of fifty years of chain-smoking – boomed out, cutting through the silence of the room. She’d always insisted on treating them all like children and they mysteriously never argued.

Quiet murmurs were heard, chorusing half-hearted words of welcome.

“Blaze will be joining you here from now on and I want all of you to make him feel right at home, okay my little chickens?”

Without waiting for Nurse Hillsburg to finish, Blaze had already turned and wandered off down the wide corridor in the direction of the rooms, leaving everyone staring after him. Everyone but Riley.

That was the day that Blaze arrived.

The day that everything changed.