Unheard

My eyes flutter open and the feeling of paranoia begins to settle in almost immediately. Where am I, and who the hell am I? I feel a cold sweat begin to break out across my forehead. I can't seem to remember how I got into this little room, but I figure it’s just the confusion of sleep. I sit up in bed and bring my left hand up to my temple, hoping that memories will flood back into my mind. But I stop, startled by the condition of my skin. I am amazed its translucence, most of the veins in my forearm were visible. As they are on a terminally ill person.

I swing my legs over the side of the bed and lean forward, willing my feet to feel the ice cold tile flooring of the small room I have awoken in. I look around at the floor and notice small streak marks covering the tile, whoever cleaned this floor was quite sloppy with their work. I notice a mirror on the side of the wall and wonder why there would be a mirror in such an empty room. Maybe a look at my face could trigger my memory? I debate taking a look for a while, afraid of who might stare back at me.

I decide to stand, despite the chills of fear still sending waves through my body. Looking down I notice I am wearing a pair of scrub-like pants and a tight-fitting shirt and for whatever reason this calms me a bit. At least I’m not in a hospital gown right? I take a step towards the mirror and my mind suddenly clouds, my head pounding. I fear I am unable to stand, my mind being completely blank and my knees growing weak.

Somehow I know that this happens quite often. I stumble backwards and fall onto the bed, thankful I hadn't moved too far away from the bed. I grab both sides of my head with my hands tightly, squeezing my head and crying out silently for help. I sit like this for a few seconds willing the sudden throbbing in my head to cease. Once the pain subsides I stand once again and successfully make my way over to the mirror.

 Placing both my hands on either side of the small sink in front of the mirror I take in the young girl in the reflection. She has an angular face with a small nose and hazel eyes rimmed in black sloppy eyeliner. It seems as if she slept in her makeup. I am a bit surprised when my eyes scan the sink and find there are no makeup products of any kind. Looking back up at the reflection I notice her small mouth turned down slightly at the corners as if she carried a burden that wasn't hers to bear She has straggly black hair parted sloppily towards the right side, the bangs were a bit greasier than the rest and it seemed as if she ran her hands through her hair a lot. How pale her skin was was quite alarming, she had dark circles under her eyes and a very depressing aura about her. It took me a while to notice that this poor girl was me.

 I decide to now take in my surroundings, now knowing what I looked like but having had no memories return. The room was small with a white bed with white sheets in the corner and a bedside table that was absolutely clean; I concluded that I haven't been here long. There was also a tiny window next to the sink and mirror. One more sweep across the room brought something to my attention. There was a small clipboard attached to the end of the bed.

I walk towards the clipboard slowly, amazed at how loud my footsteps were in the silent room. I could hear nothing but my pounding heart and the dull slapping of my bare feet across the tile. As I reached the clipboard, I began to wonder what it could possibly be. I figured it could only be about me, as there was nobody else in the room. I concluded that I couldn't be in the hospital because I could see no physical wounds and I had no roommate.

I picked up the clipboard and sat back down on the bed and flipped quickly through the pages to see how many there were. Satisfied at the fact that there weren't too many pages, I started where anyone else would. The top of the first page. What I learned didn’t shock me, not really. It made more sense than anything else I had been imagining.

My name was Elianna Roberts, I was 16 years old.

And I was a patient in an Insane Asylum.