ANATHEMA

chapter three: glowing eyes

"So, this is your room!" Dr. DeLonge presented.

It was nothing special; gray, carpeted floors and white, concrete walls. There was a window on the far wall, like the doctor promised, but it was about a foot in length and half that size in width, and it was placed up high, near the ceiling, so I couldn't see anything out of it.

A small, metal bed was pushed against the bed, with a thin mattress thrown on top of it. A scratchy-looking, paled blanket was folded and on the bare pillow.

They had also provided a wooden desk on the opposite side of the bed, which had a stack of paper and a cup filled with mechanical pencils.

"Well, that's nice of them," Strings said, dragging a finger across the top page of the stack. "Maybe I'll leave you some nice inside jokes on them for when you wake up."

I shuddered, but, luckily, Dr. DeLonge had turned his back on me.

He turned back and said, "Why don't we get you to the main room? I'm pretty sure they're having group time right now, so maybe you can make some friends before dinner."

I wanted to protest, but a guard took me by the arm and led me back to where we came from.

/~/

The guard dropped me off at a group of people my age that were already talking. Well, two of them were talking to each other. The third was the boy from before, the one with the notebook. He was completely silent, staring absentmindedly at his hands. The other two, however, looked up to me as I came to the table they were all sitting at.

Besides the silent boy, there was another guy and a girl.

The girl was absolutely gorgeous, with short blue hair and the sides shaved and colored pink. She had freckles sprinkled across her face and plump, pink lips. She was actually beautiful.

The second boy had unruly, dyed red hair, dark brown roots pushing through. He also had a small, silver ring in his nose, and how he managed to be able to keep it in here, I didn't know. He looked up at me with deep, brown eyes that seemed friendly and inviting, a vibe I definitely wasn't getting from the silent boy.

The silent, dissociative boy had close-cropped brown hair and skin that seemed tanner than I could ever accomplish. The nails on his fingers were bitten to the nub, but he kept playing with them, nonetheless.

"Hi!" the girl chirped, smiling wide. I got weak in the knees. "Are you joining us?"

"Um, I think so, the guard didn't exactly tell me what to do," I said, rubbing the back of my neck.

"Well, go ahead and sit down, ma'am," the red-haired boy said with a smile, gesturing to the seat across from the girl and next to the other boy.

The girl crossed her arms on the table and leaned forward, saying, "So, tell us about yourself!"

I could feel my eyes widen and my breath come short at the thought of talking about myself, but I muttered, "Um, my name is Ophelia Jones, I'm twenty-six, I came from Indiana, and I am constantly haunted by a gender-less demon-like being named Strings."

Instead of looking terrified, like I would have expected, the two sitting across me just nodded.

"Well," the girl says, as if my mentioning of an unseen demon didn't faze her, "my name's Ashley. I'm twenty years old, I forgot where I came from, and I was admitted here because I killed a guy by tying him to a stake, dumping gasoline on him and setting him on fire. I was guilty, obviously, but his parent's lawyer deemed me insane." Hm, not my type, I suppose.

"I don't blame her, though," the red-headed boy fumed. "As soon as I get out of here, I'm gonna go find that son of a bitch and just-"

"You're not getting out if you keep talking like that," Ashley scolded.

"What'd he do to you?" I pried. I realized halfway through that sentence that I was asking for too much, but Ashley answered anyways.

"He raped me," she sighed, a sad, empty look in her eyes.

My mouth fell open, and I managed to force out a, "I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to-"

"It's okay, it wasn't your fault," Ashley assured me, a slight smile gracing her lips.

"It wasn't yours, either," the nose-ringed boy murmured. I couldn't see over the table, but I was pretty sure he had placed his hand over hers. I did see, however, the look of longing in his eyes when he looked into hers.

"Anyways!" he cried, breaking away from their mental conversation. "I'm Joshua, but, please, call me Josh. I'm twenty-seven, I come from Ohio, and I robbed a bunch of places because God told me to."

I simply nodded, not knowing exactly what to say.

I looked to the boy next to me, hoping that he would speak up next, but he remained quiet.

"Oh, that's Tyler," Ashley said. "He doesn't talk much."

I nodded, still wanting to know about him, though.

I saw that his notebook was sitting in front of him with a mechanical pencil placed on top of it. I grabbed at it and began writing a note. Tyler started at my sudden movement, and his eyes widened when he saw that I took his notebook, but I returned it to him after I wrote my note:

'Hi! I don't know if you were listening or if you care, but I'm Ophelia. Can you tell me about yourself?'

The two in front of me seemed shocked and a tad bit cautious, but continued watching me interact with Tyler.

He never made eye contact with me, but he wrote back:

'Hi, I'm Tyler. I was listening, you're Ophelia Jones. I'm twenty-six, too, actually. I came from Ohio, too, but I didn't know Josh. I'm here because-'

The last part was scratched through, so dark, I couldn't read it. When I looked back up at Tyler, I noticed he was rocking back and forth slightly.

I was about to reassure him that it was okay, touch his shoulder, something, but I was interrupted by a guard shouting, "Time for dinner!"

"Here, follow us," Ashley said, grabbing my wrist. "You should sit with us, I like you." I looked to Josh, who nodded and smiled in confirmation. Ashley dropped my hand, but made sure to keep close to me.

Suddenly, I felt a tap on my shoulder that felt more like a butterfly beating it's wings on me. I turned around and saw Tyler with his finger still outstretched.

"Um," he whispered. "I'm sorry if I'm bugging you, but, ah..." he drifted off, looking around the room. His voice was so small and quiet, but it was still low and slightly raspy. "Do you see them now?"

It took me a minute to figure out who he was talking about - and get over the fact that he had broken his silence - but then I asked, "Do you mean Strings?" He nodded slowly, trying to avoid my eyesight.

"Yeah, I always see them, I think they're..." I started, but, I soon realized that looking around the room, Strings was nowhere to be found. "Actually, I don't think they're here, right now."

Tyler finally looked into my eyes. His were big and brown, like Josh's, but they were...different, somehow.

They seemed hopeful, yet...sad, at the same time.

He didn't keep the eye contact for long. His eyes whipped back down to his shoes.

"That can't be too good, then."