𝘚𝘢𝘷𝘪𝘰𝘳 | 𝘚𝘭𝘢𝘴𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘴 𝘹 𝘙𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘦𝘳

8. Paper Birds

2nd Person POV (You):

It's 8:22am. Currently, the patients are having their own isolation time. You find it a bit excessive, having hours of alone time throughout the day. If you were in their shoes, you would find it scary to be alone in your own thoughts for such long periods.

Your boredom begins to get the best of you, so you decide to wander. You find your way to Mr. Thompson's office, where you hear him and Anais are both discussing something. You hear Anais loudly mention your name, and she doesn't sound pleased. Pressing your ear to the door, you try to make out anything else that you can; it all escapes in a muffled argument.

After giving a firm knock on the door, the two on the other side go completely and instantly silent.

"It's me, Y/n," you call, in an unsuspecting tone. You see Anais open the door, a frantic look in her eyes. You smile. I can't let her know that I know.

"Hello," says Anais, looking down slightly. You nod your head formally before looking at Mr. Thompson. He seems very focused on your uniform, but you once again, ignore it. He's not checking me out. If he was, I would know! I would say something. Even so, this unnerving feeling still doesn't falter. And Anais' dark gaze doesn't make you feel any better.

"U-uhm, I was just wondering... is there any w-work for me to do?" you accidentally stumble over your words again, causing embarrassment to rush through you. Your nails gripping your arm from behind you. While Mr. Thompson gives you a bright smile of approval, Anais looks as if she might just keel over laughing. Her face is as red as a tomato, and a smirk is threatening to form. You can't tell if she's actually finding your stuttering funny, or she's just trying to make you uncomfortable.

"Aw, I appreciate the effort, but you can go on break for the hour," Mr. Thompson says with a light chuckle. Then what am I supposed to do? Of course, you had brought your main necessities, but you left everything else. Until you were to decide on if this job was good, you chose to leave the rest at your old apartment. That left you with no deck of cards, computer, boardgame, or journal.

"Yeah," Anais snarkily chimes in, "your hard work is really, reallyyy appreciated." Her voice is soft and sarcastic. She sticks out her bottom lip slightly and gives you an innocent look.

Smiling, you say, "Alright, thanks!" and happily walk off. Under that happy demeanor (which ticks Anais off immensely), you begin to feel some annoyance. You have high patience, but even now it's began to get pushed to its limits.

After being brushed off, you end up in the cafeteria, which the guards had forgot to lock up. You hold your notepad in your hand, thinking off what to write.

With a sudden idea in mind, not in relation to writing, you tear off a piece. With that piece, you make a small fold. Letting your mind wander momentarily, you make more folds until you're left with a small origami butterfly. You stare down proudly at this small thing. You haven't done origami in the longest time, so doing it once again felt a little odd. But once you got your feeling again, you kept going: you make origami hearts, stars, fish, birds, and even flowers.

Although your work is simple, it's amazing enough to impress the guards who pass by as they walk through the asylum.

BRRRIIING, BRRRIIING

The terribly loud alarm rings throughout the asylum once again. You turn your head to see the time. 10:00am. The patients get their time in the library now.

Standing up off the bench, you're now brought to a stumping question: What am I going to do with all of this origami? You glance over at the serving table and see an empty, plastic jar. Out of sudden instinct, you pour the assortment of paper into it, almost filling it completely. With your jar of origami in your arms, you trudge towards the library to wait for your patients.