Mentally Disturbed

Chapter Three

"Next!", calls the nurse as patients line up. It's 8:00 AM, and I was woken up by a man nurse telling me it's time to wake up and take my daily medication. "My what?" I asked but I was ignored, as always.

I'm given a blue pill, I ask what it is, and I was answered a pill to keep me calm and in control. Probably an anti-depressant. I gulp it down.

"I don't like the pills" says Annabelle, she was behind me. Is she now my best friend here?

"But they force you to take it, so sorry to break it to you but you've got no choice," I say, a bit too bluntly. She smiles though, a menacing grin. Then she opens her mouth, and there lying on her tongue is the blue pill. The blue already coloring her tongue due to sitting there for so long.

"You didn't swallow?" I ask in a whisper.

She shakes her head no. She creeps over to the trash bin and spits it out.

"Do you do that everyday?", I ask.

"No, only on the days I don't feel like it. They make me feel dead sometimes. Like I can't feel anything. I can't be sad, but I also can't be happy. I'm just lost in the middle. And I'm in love with my sadness because sadness is free while happiness comes with a price."

I'm set back as she says this, suddenly not knowing how to response. It makes sense, crazy makes sense. It's creepy.

"Come, I'll show you the universe," she says, taking hold of my hand. I startle to the foreign contact, but let it happen. I let life happen.

She drags me up to the roof top, where there's a staircase that leads down to the very bottom of the hospital. That's got to be 20 floors, and I'm not sure if I'm down for the exercise.

"The stairway to heaven, you've got to learn how to fly to get there.", she says. Then she bolts down the stairs, leaving me behind. I neglect my thoughts of turning back and follow her, flying.

It took us half an hour to get to the very bottom, we're both panting in pain and dehydration.

"We've...earned...our....wings...", she says, taking a breath after every word.

"You're...-breath-...crazy...", I say, panting as well.

There's a water fountain near the staircase door, and we drink from it like stray dogs.

"Now that we've drank from the fountain of youth, we explore the kingdom.", she says, wiping the water dripping from her chin.

"The what?"

"The Celestial Kingdom of Heaven of course!", she says proudly.

Before I can question, she grabs my hand again and leads me to the entrance of the hospital. We're actually leaving the hospital, I've never felt like a rebel, I've never felt so bad-ass.

We cross the street and hop onto the bus. We hold onto the same bar, hands still touching. She's smiling at everyone she sees, she's looking out the window. It's like her mind is elsewhere while her body is planted here. Like she's time traveling. Well, we actually are traveling.

We jump off the bus without paying and the driver yells at us. We run. We enter every shop on the street. She puts on scarfs, hats, sunglasses. She forces me into a straw hat, a blazer, and a necktie. She shapes her hand into a camera lens and pretends to take a picture.

"Cheeeeese!"

I smile. For the first time in months, I smile. And I stop after only a second, as the guilt sinks. I don't want to smile, it feels wrong smiling. I don't deserve any happiness. And I suddenly hate her for making me smile.

She stares into my eyes, like she knows every thought humming through my mind.

"It's okay to be happy, it's okay to be sad. But please don't be mad, I just want you to be glad.", she says with a pout on her face.

"Why do you always talk in rhymes? Why do you always talk so weirdly." I ask, a little too adjectively like an asshole.

"Why do you always look at me like I'm weird. You're just as weird as I am, other wise we wouldn't be sent to the same dungeon," she says. This shuts me up. She just called me weird too, just as harsh, she also called the unit a dungeon, which means she must feel torturous there.

We put the items back onto its hangers and shelves and leave.

She walks ahead of me, no longer holding my hand. Her head is down, as she stares at the pavement. I suddenly feel bad for calling her weird. I know how it feels like to feel out of place, and I hate myself for making other people have to go through that feeling, despite that I know how horrible that feeling is.

"It's good to be weird you know. Everyone else is overrated, and I think being underrated is the top-rated on the rating list.", I say, trying to cheer her up, also as an alternate apology.

She looks up to me, blue eyes shining in this beautiful Celestial Kingdom.

"You're God's favorite," she says. Then kisses me on the cheek. I embarrassingly blush. It was a genuine kiss, one I wasn't expecting. When things come unexpected, that's the best feeling of all.

The next bus arrives and she swiftly hops on, leaving me on the sidewalk. I'm too frozen to move. I travel through space back down to earth when she yells "Fly Arnold, fly!", gesturing me to get on the bus as she drives away. I run, holding out to reach for her hand, I finally do and she pulls me in, heading back to the direction of the hospital.

Every moment is happening fast, as if I'm high on adrenaline. Then I think, am I high on the drug?