Catch Me (Synacky)

Chapter Twenty-Five: Brian

I spent my time in isolation worrying about Zacky. Johnny told me that his pet had been left behind, and I was frantic about it for a while.

But Zacky had gotten along without his pet before. He should be just fine.

Really, isolation wasn’t so bad for me. Sure, the white drove me crazy, made me want to scratch the walls and bang my head against the door, but I had company. Johnny kept me occupied, telling me stories that only 5 year olds could come up with. He mentioned something about Jimmy, and I froze.

Where was Jimmy?

Come to think of it, I hadn’t heard a peep out of him in weeks. I called out to him, and he didn’t reply.

‘I don’t know where he’s at.’ Johnny said, ‘I haven’t talked to him.’

Strange. The longest I had gone without an appearance from Jimmy was probably four days or so. He was always begging to be let out, or at least spitting out snarky comments at me. Where had he gone?

I’d have to ask Steph as soon as I got out of here. After I had checked on Zacky, of course.

I counted the tiles on the floor (there were 68, by the way) and traced patterns on the floor with my finger. When food was delivered through that slot in the bottom of the door, I ate it. It was only ever white stuff, white rice, mashed potatoes, things like that. I wondered if they were trying to make my mind go crazy.

Then I sat on the floor and hummed a tune. When that got boring I sat upside down, with my feet against the wall and my head hanging off the bed, and stared at the wall.

Did I still have that crayon?

No, I wasn’t even wearing my own clothes.

There were no sheets on the bed. I guess so that kids couldn’t find a way to hang themselves in here. I thought about Zacky and I thought about Kenna and I thought about taking a nap.

When the aid slid my next meal through the slot, I slid it back, feeling very proud of myself. The aid pushed it back in, and locked the little slot so I couldn’t open it.

I sighed, lying on the ground.

It looked like this was going to be a long day…

~*~

One strange thing that they did in the isolation rooms to further advance my madness: they left the lights on. I didn’t know whether it was day or night because the lights were on all the time. So I slept when I was tired, and even when I was just bored. Meals were delivered at times that seemed strange to me. I ate them when I was hungry.

How long had I been here? I didn’t know. A couple hours, days, years?

“How old are you, Johnny?” I asked aloud.

He replied, ‘Almost six.’

He had been almost six ever since he had arrived.

The next meal they delivered was white rice. So had the last one. And the one before that.

When Johnny took over, he bashed his head against the wall repeatedly. Sometimes I’d come around from blacking out, and there would be blood on my forehead.

Red is a wonderful color.

It was a stark change against the white of the wall, the white of the food, of my clothes, of everything. And it was always silent, so silent. Sometimes I would scream, just to remind myself that I was still here.

Maybe this was the afterlife?

No, because the trays slid under the door were tossed with little finesse. I began to keep them, instead of returning them through the slot.

They’d have to come in here at some point. They’d be needing these trays back.

Even my dreams were white.

I didn’t dream of anything, just sleep, pure nothingness that didn’t even swirl around as dreams often do.

I collected seven trays. I stacked them, banged them together, balanced them in different ways.

I was sleeping when they barged in, jarring me from my dreams (or lack thereof). I watched, wide eyed, as the aids collected the trays, looked around the room. They saw the blood on the wall from Johnny. They didn’t speak.

By the time I could get my vocal chords to work, they were closing the door.

“Hey!” I called out. “Hey, wait! Don’t leave me here!” I threw my weight against the door. “You can’t! This is abuse! Torture! Please!”

I sunk to the ground, eyes fluttering closed.

“Zacky,” I whispered, “I sure hope you’re doing better than I am.”