Clockwork Minds

Chapter 9: Origins of Madness

The psych ward became my sanctuary in a way, a place where no one tried to tame the storm brewing inside me. Here, with walls of sterile white and eyes that watched us all like vultures, I was free to explore the depths of my obsessions, and the intricacies of my creations. Every night, I lay in my bunk, envisioning new machines, and new ways to bend the world to my will. My mind was a furnace, forging plans and devices that could outwit, overpower, and outlast.

My grandfather's words echoed in my mind, carving themselves deeper each day: "Machines don't lie. They don't falter." His presence lingered, like a shadow cast over every part of me, in every choice I made. I'd seen him as invincible growing up, his obsession with precision and control both unnerving and awe-inspiring. He was the closest thing to a god I'd known, demanding discipline and obedience. And even though he was gone, I still carried his lessons like scripture, each word strengthening the iron bars of my psyche.

I remember dismantling that first clock in front of him, feeling my small hands work their way through the gears, the springs, and the intricate details. I glanced up, waiting to see if he'd approve if he'd allow me to keep going. His stern expression softened for only a fraction of a second, a brief nod permitting me. "Good," he'd said. "Learn how the world works, Elmara. Learn to be its master."

By the time I was twelve, I knew I wanted to be something more than a tool for someone else's use. I wanted to be a weapon, one I could wield as I pleased. My devices went from simple traps to far more elaborate designs, things that could snap, pierce, and crush. They started as harmless little gadgets I would slip under my bed, but they evolved into machines of precision and control. My fascination with gears and wires became an obsession with mechanisms that could twist, slice, and snap back.

Then came the Muay Thai lessons. At first, they were another tool, a way to reinforce my control, to train my body like a machine. But they turned into something darker. I pushed past every limit, bent every bone, and honed my reflexes with a brutal dedication that scared my coach. I saw it in his eyes every time I fought harder and faster, taking hits that would have stopped most. He couldn't understand why I kept going, why I wanted to push so far. When he transferred me to the psych ward, he said it was for my own good. Maybe he truly believed he was doing me a favor.

But he didn't know the truth of what I'd been hiding. That my mind was already wired to break down human limits and reassemble them into something else, something new. He didn't know that the psych ward would become the place where I'd refine everything I'd been taught, and add to it new skills—skills shaped in darkness, skills that would never be acceptable in any society.

Now, I stood among others who, like me, had broken in ways that couldn't be fixed. Luan with his fractured mind, piecing together his personality like components in a robot, his cold calculations interrupted by bouts of manic glee. Safestia, whose obsession with order was matched only by her need to inflict precision suffering. Kyewlli, drawn to pain with a twisted love for agony, volunteered for any test the doctors dared to throw at him.

And me, Elmara, the girl they'd called a machine, a freak. They'd misjudged me. Machines were soulless and unthinking. I was something more: I was the product of every hard lesson my grandfather had taught me, of every piece of pain I'd inflicted and endured, every rule I'd broken to see how the world would bend.

I knew then, in that ward, that I wasn't meant for their games of control and obedience. I was here to rise above, to learn the limits only to break them again. My grandfather's voice became my inner anthem, his doctrines my guide. With every new creation, with every calculated strike in our twisted games, I edged closer to my own brand of freedom—a freedom not given but taken, earned in scars and fractured minds, in machines of twisted steel and blood.

When I finally left this place, they would all know what I'd become. They would all remember my name. And the world would tremble beneath my touch.