The Mental Hospital

Five

I dream that I am dead. I dream that I am finally free. But this dream is not a dream. It is a nightmare. Because no one will let my dream come true.

I wake up in mine and Sadie's room. There is a nurse sitting at the little table in the back of the room. I clear my throat. "Excuse m--" I'm drooling. I wipe my mouth with my hoodie sleeve, which I don't remember putting on. My entire body feels weird. Numb. But I know what numb feels like. This isn't it. This is chemically induced.

"What the f--" drooling again. "The doctor prescribed you a lot of Klonopin. It's an anti-anxiety. One of the main side affects is drooling." She simply says, flipping through a magazine. I can't think properly. I can barely keep my eyes open. "W-whaa.." Was all I can muster. I fall back on my pillow. I feel like a zombie.  I fall back asleep.

I wake up to a crowd around me. A small crowd, but, still. It's Sadie and her friends.

"I feel bad," someone says.

"She looks horrible," says someone else.

"What every person wants to hear. And you wonder why you can't get a boyfriend."

"Shut up."

"I think she's waking up!"

I try to sit up, then quickly fall back onto the pillow. I feel four hands straighten me a bit so I can sit up properly. My eyes still feel like they're glued to my eyelids. But, I open then anyway. I mumble something incoherent.

"What did you give her?!" Sadie screeches. "We had to give her Klonopin. It's not my choice." Sadie filled with rage. "Klonopin?! Are you kidding?" I feel horrible. I blink slowly, as if my body--and only my body--is in slow motion. I can't exactly see what's going on clearly, but I can pretend. I pretend that the black blob I see is Alex. Alex says something to the nurse. The nurse replies. Another black blob with blue hair pretends to be Jake. He sits next to me and puts his hand on my shoulder. I shake my head as if to say, 'I don't do well with physical contact.' He gets this and moves his arm away.

I make a gesture with my hands to ask for a pen and paper, even though I'm pretty sure I can't even write correctly. They hand me it and I write.

What is happening

Although it looks like this.

Vnat i5 nopning

Amanda gets this. She speaks slowly. "Forest, you're under a lot of medication. You're also on suicide watch. In group today you said that you would kill yourself, and when a patient does that, they have to put them under twenty-four hour surveillance. The drowsiness and the drooling will wear off by tomarrow."

I only understand half of this. I shake my head again like I don't believe her, but I do. I put my head in my hands. Then I sigh. Although I feel like screaming and crying and killing everyone in this room, I feel so tired and worn out. I mumble "Time?" And a light blue blob pretends to be Taylor. Taylor says eight o' clock. They were missing media time to see me. No one ever does that. Sure, I have friends at school, but they were more aquantince- like. We only talked. We never associated outside of school. This makes me feel important. I remind myself to thank them when I could speak without drooling, but I'd probably forget.

Then I mumble "Tired," and lay down. Sadie blob tucks me in and they say their goodbyes. I fall into a dreamless sleep this time.