Letters to the Crazy

PROLOGUE

Port Birch Mental Hospital was a plae for troubled teens. They didn't have an adult physch ward. They had a place for the teens who had attempted suicide and self-harm. Then you have the place for teens who were addicted to substance or had anger issues or nearly caused harm to someone else.

That was all the government thought it was. Port Birch had a very big secret hidden beneath the surface of its "the only thing we want is for you to get better" facade. Beneath the surface of Port Birch Mental Hospital was Hallsome Court Asylum. I wasn't supposed to know about it. No one above the surface of Hallsome was supposed to know about it. When someone gets a piece of sandwich paper with a letter scrawled on it through their heater, you are bound to listen.

After the letter came Nurse Marissa. She was a super genius about my age. She had already graduated medical school at seventeen. Nurse Marissa was a child prodigy that soon turned into a teenaged prodigy. She always stayed within eye view of my room. I knew she wasn't mine, but I felt extremely possesive of her.

Nurse Marissa worked in Hallsome too. I knew because they recruited her in front of my room. I always had my door open and I always sat with my back against the door jamb. I never went to therapy with the others because they were stupid compared to me. I only went to Nurse Therapy. Correction. I only went when Nurse Marissa was doing it. Only then. The other nurses hated me. I was too "sassy".

Once, Nurse Marissa crouched down and looked me in the eyes. Despite the no-physical-contact rule, she held my hands in her cold, fairy ones. "Tell me Cameron. You've been getting letters in your heater haven't you?" I nodded holding her hands. This distracted her for a minute. "If I helped you with actual letters, would you write with the person?" I replied with kissing her hands as I've wanted to for so long. She pulled them away from me and folded them in her lap while her cheeks turned as red as her glimmering ginger hair. "Don't tell anyone." She said pecking my cheek. I nodded and kissed her back on her feverish cheek.

My mind was blown when Nurse Marissa delivered my first letter from my heater, I nearly cried. What Hallsome was doing was inhuman. They were monsters.