Everything was white. The linoleum floors were white, and so were the walls. But not insane-asylum white, like you might have expected. The walls here were eggshell white, a color my doctor once told me was meant to be soothing (like lilac. Or salmon.) Looking around, I was pretty sure this place had once been white white, and that the color had simply faded over time. It smelled too clean and looked exactly like the asylums in the movies; unfriendly, unwelcoming, and unearthly white. Always white.

The nurses who manned the reception desk were dressed in white; white blouses, white sweaters, white trousers, white tennis shoes. They even had white hair. I wasn’t sure if that was intentional or not, but one woman had to be in her seventies, and the other looked about my age. Her curly locks were ungodly white, and I wondered if they had been bleached that color, or if her hair was just an unnatural shade of blonde.

I drummed my fingers against the plastic coating of the chair I was sitting on. Beside me, my dad was flipping through an ancient issue of Home & Garden. He wasn’t reading the articles, or even looking at the pictures, really; he just needed something to keep his hands busy. I caught his eye once, and he offered a small smile that didn’t do much in the ways of reassurance.

Staring around the sparse waiting room, people scattered throughout, I tried to figure out what was wrong with each of them. One girl kept tugging at her sleeves, wanting to keep her arms covered. Cutter. Huddled in a corner, taking up no space at all, was a girl who couldn’t have weighed more than sixty pounds. Anorexic. I studied the bags under her eyes and the way her cheeks puffed up slightly, the way she tried to stifle a string of continuous yawns, and amended my diagnosis. Bulimic.

I moved on to the twitchy kid sitting across from me. His eyes kept darting around, and any time he caught me staring, he’d cover his face with his hands and scream. His mom would spend a few minutes calming him down, and then the process would repeat itself, since I had nothing better to look at.

Once, Twitchy Kid’s mom got up to go to the bathroom, and I just sat and stared at him as long as I possibly could. It took him all of five seconds to start screaming again. My dad shot me a disapproving look, but I just shrugged.

“It’s not my fault he’s crazy.”

“I’m not crazy!” Twitchy shouted, banging his hands against the side of his head. “Not crazy! Not crazy!”

His mom ran out soon after, and I settled back against the plastic, feeling victorious. The kid was clearly nuts; I wasn’t.

“Sherwood?” a nurse called out, glancing around the waiting room with a blank stare I found slightly disconcerting. Did no one in this place exhibit any emotion?

“That’s us, kiddo,” Dad murmured, slinging my coat over his shoulder and standing up.

“Awesome,” I said with feigned enthusiasm.

I grabbed the magazine my dad had been reading and carefully dislodged myself from the chair. Despite the cool spring weather, I was wearing shorts, and the back of my legs stuck to the seat, making a weird squelching sound as I stood up. I had a flash of grimy truck seats held together with duct tape. They were hot beneath my skin, too, and as I was thrown forward, they made that exact same noise.

A cold sweat broke out on my forehead, and I glanced around to see if anyone had noticed my hesitation. Twitchy was screaming again, and everyone’s eyes were on him; I was safe. Careful not to trip over my untied Converse sneakers, I shuffled after my dad. The two white-haired nurses were going through numerous manila envelopes, extracting a paper here, signing and dating one there.

“Good morning,” the youngest of the pair said, her voice carefully modulated to sound neither threatening nor friendly. “We’re very sorry about the wait. It’s Mia, correct?”

I didn’t say anything.

“That’s right. Mia Sherwood. We’re checking in.” I felt fingers curl around my shoulder as my father tried to offer his support, and I was again reminded of the fact that he would soon be leaving; leaving me here in this rotten, miserable, godforsaken hellhole of a place. A good parent would never subject their child to something like this.

“We’re not checking in,” I muttered, eyes focused on a scuffmark that I was trying to make worse. “I’m checking in. And against my fucking will.”

The women at the reception desk didn’t even blink.

“File, please,” the older one said, holding out a gnarled hand. I was surprised by how gruff her voice was. I’d always pictured women with wrinkles, hunchbacks and white hair to have soft, lilting voices; the kind that put grandchildren to sleep. This woman sounded like she had gravel stuck in her throat, and I took a step back, unnerved.

My dad handed her the file my doctor had prepared, and I scowled at it, wondering what kind of secrets were inside. I hadn’t been allowed to look at it, which didn’t make any sense, considering everything in it was about me. I’d spent days trying to find the damn thing, but my mother had been sure to hide it where it could never be found.

We waited while Gravel Woman picked up the phone, dialed a few numbers, then waited patiently for someone on the other end to pick up. “Flo, it’s Nettie... Yes, I’m fine... Mia Sherwood is here… Her father brought her… Okay, I’ll send them up... I brought egg salad for lunch… Yes… Bye.”

A short, high-pitched buzz came from somewhere to my right, followed by the distinctive click of something opening.

“You can go on in,” the younger girl instructed, pointing to a door I had missed earlier. “Someone will meet you at the gate. Enjoy your stay, Miss Sherwood.”

I refused to acknowledge her ridiculous comment. Since when had Two Rivers Psychiatric Hospital become a hotel? This wasn’t a vacation; it certainly wasn’t a five-star resort. I had no desire to be here, and the only reason I was here was because of my mother. Dad had sided with me, promising her I wasn’t a threat to myself anymore, that I was finally starting to get past “the incident.” Unfortunately, Mom and the doctors didn’t agree, and after three nights in the hospital’s psych ward, being carefully scrutinized by numerous professionals, they’d decided that the best course of action would be to lock me up. So now I was here, at Two Rivers, and Mom hadn’t even been able to bring herself to come along. She’d said her goodbyes to me earlier this morning.

“Honey, it’s for the best.” Her eyes were watery, but I felt absolutely no sympathy for the woman. She was, after all, the reason I was leaving.

She stroked my greasy black hair, and wiped a few dark smudges from beneath my eyes. I could feel her hands trembling as they brushed against my skin, and I wondered what she had to be upset about. She’d won, hadn’t she? I was going to be locked up with a bunch of crazy people, and who knew when I’d be coming back?

Dad put his hand on her shoulder, and gave the woman a sympathetic smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Lynnette, we have to get going.”

There was a loud sniffle, and then Mom threw her arms around me, my breath coming out in a loud whoosh. “I love you, Mia. Take care of yourself, okay?”

“Whatever.”

I’d listened in on some of her conversations with my dad. They always started off blaming themselves for what had happened. Then Mom would cry, Dad would comfort her, and promise to talk to me. He never did. He knew that, no matter what he said, things would never be the same.

After that, they’d talk about Ella, about me, and what they could do to make things easier. Mom complained about how close Dad and I were, and there’d be some more tears. By the end of their little discussions, she’d always ask him if he thought it would be best to lock me up. The answer was always ‘no,’ but I could hear the exhaustion in his voice. He was just as tired of dealing with me as she was.

“Screw you, Mom.” That was the last thing I’d said to her before Dad led me out to the car, tossing my single permitted suitcase into the back seat.

I bent down now to retrieve my battered valise, the old fashioned one that looked like something out of the forties, vintage travel stickers plastered to its faded leather covering. Dad held the door open for me, and with a final glance in Twitchy Kid’s direction, I slipped beneath his arm and stared ahead at a gate that stood at the end of a long, white hallway. A woman was waiting for me, a pleasant smile on her face, one I suspected she’d perfected over the years. She, too, was wearing white. On the chest, in forest green, was the hospital’s name and a poor adaptation of a river. It was a shitty insignia, and I wanted to wipe the smile off her face with a sheet of sandpaper. She wouldn’t be smiling after that.

“Mia, I’m Nurse Florence, but you can call me Flo. Everyone else here does. We’re very happy you’ve come to stay with us.” She shook my father’s hand, who looked about as unhappy as I felt. “If you’d both like to follow me, please.”

I gave the handle of my suitcase a yank, but the woman held out a hand to signify that I should stop. “I’m sorry, dear, but you’re going to have to leave that at the nurse’s station.” She pointed to a hole in the wall beside the gate, where another woman in white held out her hands for my things. “It’s procedure to go through your personal affects, just to be sure you didn’t smuggle in anything illegal. You understand, of course.”

I hugged my precious suitcase to my chest, unwilling to hand it over. The few remnants of my life that were still in tact were packed away in there, and I wasn’t about to let a group of strangers weed through my things, looking for any excuse to take them away.

“Mia, dear, I need your suitcase,” Flo said, just in case I hadn’t heard.

But I wasn’t giving up without a fight. Before now, I wouldn’t have thought it a big deal to have brought picture frames or a baby blanket, but there was a big sign tacked to the wall beside the nurse’s station that read:

None of the following allowed:

Drugs

Alcohol

Glass

Rope

Pills (including aspirin, tylenol, mydol, etc. Prescriptions allowed upon authorization by qualified personnel, to be kept with a nurse.)

Knives, or sharp objects of any kind

Everything else is open to interpretation.

What if they thought I would try to slit my wrists with the glass of my picture frame, or hang myself with the blanket? I couldn’t let them take those away. I glanced over my shoulder at the gate, down the hallway towards the heavy metal door we had entered through. Freedom was so close, yet so very far away. I thought about making a run for it, but I’d seen a guard in the lobby, and probably wouldn’t even make it outside. So far I hadn’t seen any windows, and it wasn’t like I could jump out of them, anyway. In all respects, I was trapped. Fucking hell.

My palms had grown sweaty, and I nervously wiped them on the side of my shorts. My eyes continued to dart back and forth between my suitcase and the exit, and I jumped back a step when the nurse made a move to take it from me.

“I wouldn’t try it, dear,” she warned. “You won’t get very far.”

But I was willing to risk it. I whirled around and got about halfway down the hall before my dad caught me. He was gentle but firm, fingers wrapped around my upper arms, as he marched me back to the nurse, who was still smiling. “Your suitcase, dear.”

I wanted to spit in her face.

“Mia?” It was my father’s voice this time, and I felt tears prick my eyes as his fingers curled around mine.

“Dad, don’t,” I muttered, my voice cracking. “Please.”

“I’m sorry, honey, but we don’t have a choice.” The sadness and guilt that flickered across his face meant nothing, not when he tugged the suitcase from my hands and placed it on the counter.

“If we can’t find anything you might use to hurt yourself, or anything illegal, all of your belongings will be returned to you after dinner,” Flo promised me, though I had a feeling the pictures I’d brought with would be confiscated; or, at the very least, their frames. But what about my art supplies? Or my books? What if they tried to take those things away? I didn’t think I could survive in this place without them.

As we made for the next set of doors, I heard the lock click as someone opened my suitcase. A few seconds later, there was a loud crash, and the sound of glass shattering. I froze in my steps as fear washed over me. The tinkling sounds of broken glass filled my ears, and I could see it raining down on us. I felt it tickle my skin, just scratching the surface. Ella wasn’t so lucky. A larger piece had wedged itself into her abdomen, but she couldn’t even scream.

“No!” I cried out.

The nurse who’d been going through my things had knocked over the suitcase, and both picture frames had shattered. She apologized profusely, though I had a feeling it didn’t mean anything. It was one less thing she’d have to confiscate.

Fighting back tears, I dug my nails into my wrists and bit the insides of my cheeks to keep from screaming. Ignoring the apology Flo sent my way, my gaze followed the nurse as she scooted around me, locking the gate behind us with a resounding clang. Escape was impossible now, and I swiped angrily at my eyes. Ahead, all I could see was white, and even behind the blur of tears, I knew there wasn’t much else to look at; places like these were often so bare that it was like being in complete isolation. The smell of bleach met my nose, and I shivered, wrapping my arms around myself as we made our way through yet another metal gate that was immediately locked behind us.

The hallway was long and unending, but finally opened up to a spacious room, a place Flo called the lounge. “Everybody hangs out in here,” she explained, pointing out the ancient baby grand in one corner, and the television that looked like something straight out of the fifties. The box was old and weathered, and the remote, which was attached by a thick cable, probably didn’t work. There was a baby-shit green couch in front of it, covered in plastic, and on it sat two girls, neither of who turned to look at me. The girl on the left was cuddling something to her chest, while the other rocked back and forth, humming to herself. The same four notes floated back to me, and after hearing them repeated so often, I was tempted to go over and ask her to kindly shut the fuck up, but Flo kept walking.

“This is the cafeteria, where you’ll be eating all of your meals. Now, I know what you’re thinking – that the food’s going to suck – but we do all right. We have waffles on Fridays, and pancakes on the weekends.”

I poked my head in, surprised to see a splash of color. The floor was still white, but one wall was covered in a mural of rolling hills and puffy white clouds scattered across a gorgeous cerulean sky. I was disappointed to note that the other walls were all eggshell, along with a battered old popcorn ceiling covered in ancient, bulbous light fixtures. A few kids sat around a circular table playing cards, and I guessed that they couldn’t be more than ten or eleven. I wondered what they’d done to get themselves locked up in a place like this.

Next was the library, which really wasn’t much of anything. It was a big, (again) white room containing no more than one shelf of books that appeared to be untouched. I scanned the titles as we passed: Anna Karenina, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Tom Sawyer, Great Expectations. All of them were literary classics that people here would be less than inclined to read. The top shelf contained a few children’s books, and they looked about ready to fall apart. Beside them was a large pile of coloring books and a see-through pencil case full of Crayola markers that were probably dead and dried up. I wanted to sit and glance over the rest of the titles, but what I wanted didn’t matter anymore. My dad gave me a sympathetic smile as Flo continued on to the next room, which turned out to be another waiting room.

“Doctor Kutcher isn’t here right now,” she explained, pointing to the name on the gold plate above the door, “but you’ll be meeting with him later this week to discuss your therapy schedule.”

“Therapy?” I asked, itching the back of my neck. “Nobody said I needed therapy.” I’d gone to therapy once or twice. After kindly telling the first doctor that I thought he was a fucking lunatic, my mom had continued to switch me from psychiatrist to psychiatrist in attempts at finding one I would actually connect with. It was completely useless, because all they had managed to do was make me feel stupid and crazy (which I wasn’t).

“Oh, it’s required, dear. Everyone has weekly sessions with Doctor Kutcher. Then there are group meetings three times a week. The people here say it really helps.”

I had to wonder about that. If group therapy was supposed to be so helpful, why were these kids still locked up?

As we continued our little tour of the nuthouse, a growing sense of impending doom washed over me. All of the doors to the bedrooms were closed, but every once and a while someone would peer out at me, following me with their beady little eyes.

From somewhere down the hall came the sounds of muted screams, and I cringed, shrinking even further into myself. I’d only heard sounds like that once before, and it wasn’t a memory I wanted to relive. The truck was spinning uncontrollably, and the sound of a child screaming rang in my ears. As I blinked, bringing myself back to the present, the ringing continued. My head twitched to the side once, twice, trying to rid myself of the obnoxious buzz.

A door slammed. The terrified shrieks I’d just heard were accompanied by frenzied yelling and a few loud bangs, and I wondered what the hell was going on. Flo must have noticed that I’d stopped walking, and shot me a dazzling (albeit fake) smile.

“Don’t worry, dear. That’s just Annalise.”

Just Annalise? What was she, a human time bomb? “What the fuck does that mean?”

“She gets a little violent sometime. Schizophrenia. Today hasn’t been one of her better days, so my guess would be that Peter and Ian are trying to get her to isolation. No harm done.”

No harm done? My doctors used to say that to me, and it was always a lie. ‘Oops, your sister’s dead, but you survived a massive car wreck. No harm done.’ ‘Oops, you lit yourself on fire. Here’s a skin graft. No harm done.’ It got old. And real fuckin’ fast.

I got a glimpse of the therapist’s office, along with the big room where group was held. Flo told us about a gym that was located in the basement, but was reserved for level one patients. I was starting off as a level five, and had to work my way up from there. Good behavior and cooperation, I was told, was key.

After making a complete circle of Ward A, we found ourselves back in the lounge, some action flick blaring from the TV. A girl stood in front of it, hitting the box in excitement and clapping her hands. A few others had gathered to watch as well, and I recognized Jason Bourne immediately. A year ago I could have watched that movie (and enjoyed it, too), but no longer. I remembered seeing it in the theaters and having to leave after witnessing a rather extravagant car chase that ended in disaster. Cars triggered thoughts of Ella, and that was when I usually lost it.

She hadn’t even been able to protect herself. There had been a look of petrified fear on her face right before a spray of red hit me square in the chest. My fingers tore at the stained fabric, yanking the shirt over my head. I reached across the seat for her, but when I’d pushed the mop of hair away from her face, I wish I hadn’t.

I turned my gaze away and focused on the speckled ceiling instead. I vaguely heard Flo chatting with my father, but paid them no mind. Nothing the nurse had to say so far had been of any importance, since I didn’t give a fuck about the gym, or art class. This whole place was a fucking joke, and I wanted nothing to do with it.

I was still counting ceiling tiles when my father gave my shoulder a gentle, but firm shake. “Kiddo? I hate to say this, but I’ve got to go.”

My attention was immediately brought back to the present, and I felt my shoulders stiffen. “Why?”

“Rules are rules,” Flo responded. “It’s time to get you settled in, dear, and we can’t do that if your father is here.”

“I want him to stay,” I said stiffly, turning to the grey-haired woman. She wasn’t very tall, and I figured that, if I had to, I could easily take her down.

“I’m sorry, Mia, but that isn’t an option. I’ll let you say your goodbyes, and then I’ll take you to your room.”

“No.” My voice was firm, and I glared at her, daring her to cross me. I wasn’t backing down without a fight.

“Mia, honey,” I heard my dad whisper quietly in my ear, “I have to go. I can’t stay here, you know that.”

“Not with crazy people, you mean.” I gestured to the small crowd no longer watching the movie, but staring directly at us. They were all silent, except for Twitchy, who started screaming as soon as I looked at him. “Well, guess what? I’m not crazy! I’m fine! So let’s get my shit and go home.”

I headed for the nurse’s station, surprised when a firm grip pulled me back almost immediately. The fingers were too thin to belong to my dad, so they could have only belonged to one other person. Angrily, I whirled around and belted her across the face. The grip on my arm went slack, and I took off as Flo stood there, momentarily stunned.

I was stopped before I’d even reached the gate. Two muscular, unfamiliar arms wrapped themselves around me, pinning my arms to my side. Terrified, I lashed out with my feet, hoping to kick him where it would hurt the most. I didn’t get a chance, though, because soon another unfamiliar set of hands had grabbed hold of my ankles, and I was being dragged off down the hall, my father watching me with sad, tearful eyes.

“Let go of me!” I shrieked, sweat pouring down my face, mixing with the salty tears that had begun to flow. “Get the fuck away from me!”

Having recovered from my not-so-impressive blow, Flo advanced on me, syringe in hand. “It’s for your own good,” she said, and I screamed as a sharp, burning sensation invaded my upper arm. It felt as though molten fire was coursing through my veins. My arms burned, and I twitched as flames leapt across my skin. Hands reached out for a familiar face, but I was alone. I felt my mind grow hazy, my eyes heavy. Fighting to keep them open, I focused on my dad.

“Love you, Kiddo.”

All I could manage was a muted “Fuck.”

As the two guards continued to drag me away, I caught sight of a tall, thin, rail of a boy. He was watching me with twinkling eyes, laughing to himself. As my consciousness fell away, I could have sworn I heard him call, “Welcome to the funhouse.”

Copyrighted by SamanthaNicole