Forgotten l.h

Chapter 6

Entry #4

It's October 22nd and it's almost Halloween. Ariana tells me it's the best holiday ever in her opinion and her description has me pretty excited. Last Tuesday during downtime me and Ariana went to the lounge and look at pictures of costumes online and different movies. She's convinced she's going to be a skeleton for the Halloween party. She keeps bugging me to find a costume but I've had bigger things on my mind. My night terrors have come back, I think my flashbacks triggered then. My nights have been haunted with images of men with terrifying mask on. Each dream ends the same. Luke never came to rescue me. They end up burying me alive in the woods, left for dead. Each time I wake up gasping for air as if my lungs had been filled with dirt. Matthew has noticed that I haven't been sleeping, he's caught me dozing off in the sun room on multiple occasions. I haven't been going to group therapy either, during sessions I sneak off to the sun room for some extra sleep. No one has said anything either, probably because I forged a note from my doctor excusing me from group sessions. Luke has been avoiding me as well, I can't tell if its been intentional or not or if he's just doing his internship duties. His words have been re playing over and over in my head "What is it like not being able to remember, not knowing who you are?" I've been thinking about it a lot.

With love,

Jane Doe

~*~

I put down my diary and lay it on my bed side table, folding out the crease in the pages and wiping the dust off the surface. I've have been thinking about it a lot. Maybe too much. I stand up and walk over to the window giving my legs a much needed stretch. I peer out the window, wrapping my hands around the cool metal bars placed in front of the glass. I hate those metal bars. They always make me feel like a caged animal. I longed to be outside those damn bars, to be able to walk along the streets of Boston and to visit the art and coffee shops by myself. Thinking of this life I couldn't had left my heart feeling heavy. I closed my eyes and let out a long sigh, feeling my hands slip away from the harsh metal bars.

I turn around and stare at my room, my barren landscape. The only splash of colour provide by my painting behind my headboard. I walk up to it and run my fingers along the emerald green brush strokes depicting a forest scenery. It's almost as if the meaning of my painting has changed, what once was a memory I clung to as a beckon of hope now was a memory of hurt and suffering I wish I could erase. My hands trembled as I traced the image of the log cabin I had recently added to the image, my fingers stopping their path once reaching the door. I pulled my hand away as if the image had burnt my skin. I shook my head and turned away, not able to bear anymore. The beige walls of my room felt like they were encroaching towards, sucking my breath from my lungs. I needed to get out. I turned towards the door and pushed it open and walked out into the dimly lit hallway.

The cold ceramic tiled floor against my feet sent chills up my spine. We aren't supposed to leave our rooms without supervision due to protocol which went into effect after an unattended patient got access to the roof and jumped off. I silently crept around the corner, the old walls were rough against my touch, trying to conceal all those years with a fresh coat of paint. I knew full well that if I was caught with an attending I would be in serious trouble and would go with out lounge visiting rights for a week. The standard protocol is to with draw visitation rights but as no one visits me, they had to put in place a special punishment for me whenever I broke the rules. I could hear whispers, people yelling and screaming and talking to what appeared to be no one. I sometimes forgot that there were so many people who called Freshwater home, it was only on walks with Matthew that I remembered this.

As I past by a analytic room on my way to the Lounge I could faintly hear a conversation going on between two doctors. I wasn't a stranger to eavesdropping on conversations, but this one payed me no attention. This was of course until I heard my patient number mentioned.