Tales of the Travellers

2

Something you had to understand was that I didn't have too many friends. Not to begin with and certainly not ever after that.

Not since what happened to my last friend...

I laid with my arm stretched out on my bed. My mind was a little numb from whatever drug I had, allowing it to wonder to such awful thoughts. My fingers seemed fascinated by the small circular scars my arm seemed to have a collection of. Rolling onto my side, my nails dug into them, not enough to break skin, but enough for me to wince. I counted up to 8.

If you ask me where I was, I wouldn't be able to tell you. Going outside was as dull as the inside. The whole place was like some mental hospital prison camp. The walls were either reinforced with silver metal or decorated with lobby whites. The only parts outside I seemed to be allowed was a small courtyard armed with tall wire fences.

There were other kids here, not just me, and when I went out there it was littered with drugged out of their mind kids like me. I'd be lucky to get a word out of any of them, whatever they were on seemed to be different to what I was on, but half the time I was just as bad as them.

I forced myself to sit up and looked around my room. Two years of this place and I still looked around for a clock.

I had never been to school, but I knew I wasn't stupid exactly. I could read and write and tell the time...

I looked at my hands and slowly moved my fingers. I couldn't see them in the darkness, but I imagined I could. I imagined they were a tent when I pressed them together, glasses when I wore them, a mask when I wanted to hide, and my friends when they patted me on the back and embraced me.

The light suddenly came on, startling me in my thoughts, and honestly sending fear running through me again.

The door opened and I watched as two doctors came in, each armed with clipboards and shielded by white lab coats.

I gasped at their presence as I backed as far away from them as possible. I shook my head to them when they tried talking to them. "No! Please! No!" I pleaded. I could feel myself crying as they approached me.

They tried saying soothing words like;

"It's okay."

It won't be.

"We're not going to hurt you."

That's all they did.

"You'll be okay."

Would I ever be okay?

They attempted to grab me, but I pushed one back, sending him flying across the room and hitting the door. "Not this again, Goldie," the other man snapped at me as he attempted grabbing me. I didn't push him, I just attempted fleeing. But he managed to grab my arm and stabbed something into it.

It had come to the point where they just temporarily paralysed me to get me out of my room in the morning. I was still aware of everything as I fell over, as they picked me up and balanced me on an odd box mover and started wheeling me down the hallway.

I couldn't move...

I didn't know what it was, but every time I couldn't move.

It was a huge escalation I never understood why it was necessary for me.

I tried so hard to move every time though.

I tried to thrash, but would be luck to move a finger. I tried to ask them not to, but to open my mouth to say a word was an impossible task.

Every day I was greeted by the same endless looking hallway as the doctors chatted to themselves behind me like I wasn't frightened out of my skin.