Love In A Dark Place

Chapter 1

Isaac remembers very well the day she was brought in. She wasn't one of the ones who had to be dragged, kicking and screaming, nor was she walking alone, peacefully murmuring to voices silent to everyone else. She was unconscious, also not unusual, with drying blood gluing dirty strands of hair to her face. She looked as though she'd lived her whole life someplace dark and cold, with her translucently white skin and the bruiselike purple shadows around her eyes. She was tiny, like a rag doll, limp in the arms of the blue-uniformed constable who carried her in. He would have put her at ten, maybe eleven, if it hadn't been for the telltale development of her body.

“What's wrong with this one?” he asked as the constable transferred her to a stretcher and began wheeling her down the hall. “There doesn't seem to be anything obvious.”

“Oh, you know, the usual. She hears things, she hallucinates, and when she's not acting mad, she's just simple.”

“Do you know her name?”

“Family said she's called Meredith.”

“Thank you, Officer. I'll take it from here.” The constable turned and hurried from the asylum, clearly uncomfortable with the moaning, screaming, sometimes even singing patients.

Or maybe the better word would be “inmates.” The asylum was very much like a prison, fortress-like on the outside, dim and damp on the inside, everything made of age-blackened bricks. There were bars on the windows that opened outside and each room only held a minimalistic white bed and a medicine cabinet.

As Isaac wheeled Meredith into one of these rooms, her eyes flickered open. They seemed abnormally wide, taking up about three-quarters of her face, with deep gray irises that held a distracted, otherworldly expression. Long black eyelashes framed them like ferns around a pool.

Though now awake, she didn't make any attempt to move, letting Isaac lift her carefully onto the bed. Her distracting eyes followed him soundlessly as he moved about the room, stocking the shelves of her medicine cabinet with bottles and powders from under the stretcher.

“I don't think there's any need to sedate you, is there...?” he murmured, mostly to himself, as he examined a small purple bottle.

“We'll save it, just in case,” he decided, placing it on a shelf.

“Now Meredith, honey,” he said gently, turning to the bed, “Can you tell me anything about these hallucinations of yours? Maybe a bit about the voices?”

She just looked at him.

“Can you speak, Meredith?” Giving Isaac a thin smile, Meredith curled onto her side and fell asleep.

Isaac stood there watching her breathe for a moment, then slipped out and closed the door gently behind him.

Okay, the title is a definite work-in-progress. If anyone has a better idea, please let me know. Remember, reviews are love! But don't give me crap about how good it is, I want constructivity! No, that's not a word. It's called creative license.