My Stranded Sanity: A Niall Horan Fanfiction

(Prologue)

                  - P R O L O G U E -

   My eyes shot open right when the clock ticked 8 A.M. I experienced the dreading change from 7:59 to 8:00. Strangely, no alarm went off. This would be a totally normal situation if one did, but one didn't and I'm not used to one, either. This wasn't an eye-fluttering, stretching and being able to do the entire "Hello world! I'm a happy person and am ready to take on whatever you throw at me!" get up. No, this was more of a disturbing coincidence that I didn't quite understand. My eyes shot right open, I was fully alert at exactly 8:00 A.M. sharp. No one woke me up, I'm alone. I'm always alone. I'm also usually a random wake up time kind of person, rarely on the dot, exactly on the dot in this case. 9:24. 10:42. 7:33. Yeah, those were the times I would wake up. Something tells me this is going to be an off day.

   Recovering from my rude awaking, I continued my boring daily routine in this boring room in this boring building. It went something like this: silently getting out of the dull bed, silently walking to my dresser that had to be inspected daily for things that would "cause trouble", like guns or knifes or blades or unperscripted drugs. Or my usual answer from Judith; "Just in case." I picked out some boring clothes that the boring people who work here chose for me: a white and gray baseball t-shirt, jeans, and white versions of Adidas sneakers, probably from Wal-Mart or Payless (They were a total rip-off, take my word for it.). My hair seemed extra unruly today, I already groan in frustration; something I predict I'll be doing a lot of today. I lay back down on the bed, and a hard buzzer goes off, telling me that Judith has arrived to my aid. Like it does every morning. She brings me a pine green tray that has a clear plastic cup filled with orange juice and a blueberry bagel on a paper plate,  cream cheese spread all over it, the surface nearly invisable. I hastily take the tray, I'm a lot hungrier than I usually am. Judith attempts a smile and sits at my bedside near my feet. I just barely glance through the forest of thin eyelashes at her, and she's rewarded with my silence. I down the entire cup of orange juice and practically shove the entire bagel down my throat.

   "Good morning, Nicole. How're you? Did'gya sleep well?" she aquaints me. She's always so perky. Well, I guess it's her job. Treating mental patients who aren't always "jolly good" can emotionally drag you down with them.

   "Hi," I mumble, feeling rather quiet, like if I'm not supposed to be talking to her, like I hate her. I don't, though. I'm just feeling rather pestered and am surrounded by people, or a person, trying to rush around me and cram everything in at once, much like my bagel. I guess I think in metophors. "Same as everyday." I sigh.

   "Good, good," she begins. She pauses for a moment, knowing she wants to say something (she always has something to say), but fishing for the right thing.

   "So you get out soon," she decides, "You excited?"

   "Yeah, kinda."

   "You have any place to go?"

   "Yeah. Home."

   "Great! Who's at home?"

   "Myself." I begin to grow annoyed again.

   "Oh. You don't seem that excited,"

   "Oh yeah. I'm just BURSTING with excitement. Can't you tell?" I sarcastically remark. She seems dumbfounded and at a loss for words.

   "Well I'll be checking in again later, okay? Bye Nicole." she begins to get up and leave. I mumble a response between "alright", "okay", "yeah", and "mhm", I don't pay attention to which one because they pretty much all mean the same thing and the message has got out; "I'm dismissing you and that's great, I don't care."

   The entire world seems dull today; it's gray and cold outside, it'll probably start snowing. I hope, anyways. It's kinda December. Probably mid December, I haven't been keeping track of days. To add on to the endless list of strange things that have happened today, I realized I haven't had one of my dreams. That's really one of the only reasons I'm in this Hell hole. Although, I'm pretty sure this is a pretty damn boring Hell hole. Everything's gray and black and white. It's seriously like one of those old mystery movies from the 50's, with the inspectors with their fedoras and their magnifying glasses and their tan cloaks that you could tell they were tan even if they showed up as gray on the screen.

   So I realize that I actually am being released soon from the New York City Mental Instatution (NYCMI for short) and I'm going home. My belongings are being returned to me that I haven't touched in 2 years. Things like my cell phone and my purse and my car and car keys and my liscence. I haven't even been out of this building in two entire years. I've been on balconies and when I was 16, on my second day here, I tried to break out and I got as far as the sidewalk. I'm 18 now, and as I've been informed my parents and my little brother and older sister moved to another state and left me the house for "when I got out", which they believed would probably be an eternity and a half. They are the one of the other reasons I'm here; when I was 15 I started doing this entire freaking out thing and I'd have these dreams based off of what they treated me like, I thought they were real so I treated them each and every day like what happened in my dream was real. Whether it be trying to kill them for something they did in my dream, or trying to do something weird and dangerous to them for something they'd do in my dream. It was weird, but if you ever experienced the things that I have, it'd make sense to you.

   So here's my family: my mom Charlotte, my stepdad Will, my 25 year old half sister Bianca (we have different dads and growing up she spent most of her time at her dads), and my 8 year old half little brother Aiden who has a different father than me or Bianca, that's Will. So, as you can tell, my mom did some sleeping around. She was dating Bianca's dad for about 6 months before she was pregnant. When she was born, Bianca spent most of her time until she was 19 at her dad's because they had broken up a month after Bianca was born. Then, while Mom was single and still 26 when Bianca was sent to her dad's, she met my dad, married him, got pregnant, had me, got into a fight, divorced when I was 3, and he moved to another state or country or whatever. I don't even remember him. So I grew up alone with my mom mostly, and when I was 9, I found out about Bianca. Bianca was about 16 at the time, and she said her dad dumped her here. I know because I answered the door. Neither of us knew who either of us were, and mom has a shit load of explaining to do.

   Turns out, she was pregnant at the time with Mystery Guy #3 (who we eventually found out was Will) and sooner or later, we had an Aiden.

   So my lovely family has put up with my insanity forever, called the police the 4th time this happened, I ended up in here, and here I am, in this boring Hell hole surrounded by boring people and boring rooms and boring meals and a boring life in this place for crazy people. That's what I am, I guess. Crazy. Insane. I have some sort of normal in me somewhere, but for now, that's tucked in an envelope that I cannot unseal in a locker I don't know the combination to. That's where my sanity is and I'm gonna find it. Until then, I'm here.

  With my stranded sanity. Hopefully, someone will find it with me.