the sunrise and your sins

𝓎𝑜𝓊'𝓇𝑒 𝓃𝑜𝓉 𝒶𝓈 𝓊𝓈𝑒𝓁𝑒𝓈𝓈 𝒶𝓈 𝒾 𝓉𝒽𝑜𝓊𝑔𝒽𝓉

Osiris Idona Reine

MOST ALONE PATIENT

MIDNIGHT MEADOW PSYCHIATRIC HOSPITAL

The guards had Arny in handcuffs as I happily skipped next to them, humming a tune I heard on the radio. The sharp blades of the knives were digging into my skin ever so slightly, the pain becoming more uncomfortable than anything else.

"This isn't the way to our cells," I say as the guards pulled Arny in the opposite direction to where I was heading.

"Sorry, doctor's orders." He grunted, continuing to pull Arny away.

We're going to kill that bastard.

I knew where the guard was taking us. We're heading back into the cold, dark room we were originally put into - Solitary Confinement. Not even the worst-behaved people deserved this, with its damp floor and cold walls. It seemed irrelevant that Arny and I were the worst-behaved people in here when all that was happening to us as punishment after punishment. Hadn't we just done our time in the kitchen? Cleaning all the filthy pots and pans and reorganising the pantry shelves.

I casually strolled into the room, the freezing temperature immediately brandishing my asking with goosebumps. The dampness seeped through my socks and onto my feet, causing them to ache. I hovered around, watching the guards as they removed the shiny, metal bracelets from Arny. They then roughly shoved him into the darkness before turning around to exit the room. The nurse that stood behind them took one look at Arny's angry face and my dirty look before slamming the metal door shut with a loud bang.

Arny waited a few seconds, making sure that the coast was clear and that there were no listening ears, before grabbing my bicep and dragging me into the darkest corner of the room. He kneeled down onto the broken stones beneath us, pulling out a few of the bricks from the wall in front of us.

"What are you doing?" I asked, but there was no response from Arny.

The boy just held up one finger in front of my face, telling me "one moment" with that simple gesture. After a few moments of him fumbling around on the floor, the curly-haired boy stood up suddenly. Just as quickly as he stood up, Arny plunged his hand into my gown, snaking his hand into my bra, pulling out what I'd stolen from the kitchen.

"You missed." I winked, but Arny was too focussed on what was in front of him to pay any attention to what I said; the concentration had gotten the better of him. Arny bent down once more, starting to put the bricks back the way they were when we entered this room earlier.

In one hand, he had one knife and a single toothpick. I furrowed my eyebrows in confusion, wondering what he had planned. With his free hand, Arny pulled me into the centre of the room, to give us a little more light. He then lowered his gaze, looking me directly in the eye.

"Do you have any idea how to pick locks?" Arny asked, showing me a small padlock that was placed in the palm of the hand that I thought to be empty.

I rolled my eyes at him, grinning widely. It had been ages since I last picked a lock, but with all the experience I had, it would be muscle memory.

"Stand aside." I laughed slightly, taking the objects from his hands.

I snapped the little wooden stick in half, sticking one half into the keyhole and then the other half. After wiggling both bits around for a while, I heard some of the mechanisms start to break. I continued with my activities, noting the look of pride and amazement on Arny's face. After a few more seconds of turning the sticks different ways, the lock popped open. I handed the wooden sticks and the lock back over to Arny, my face smug.