Listen to me

I shouldn't even be here. I'm not crazy. I'm just a girl trying to get the truth out. Everyone else here has valid reasons like alcoholism, mental-illnesses, drug use, etc. For being locked up in here. Why am I even here?

"Daniela? Would you like to share your story?" asked Ms. Hanley, my therapist, snapping me out of my thoughts,

"My story? What story? I'm just a normal girl who tried getting the truth out and got locked up instead of being listened to. I have no story." I responded to her.

It's true. I'm not lying. Everyone thinks I went crazy just because I got mildly too interested into an uncommon topic. It all started last fall at the beginning of junior year. Jonathan, my only friend at school, and I were eating lunch outside when he sparked up an odd conversation.

"So, last night I was scrolling across my feed when I came across with these things called conspiracy theories." Jonathan said.

"What's that?" I asked.

"It's basically a theory of events that result in a secret plot usually made by powerful influences, like how there's a theory that the movie Alice in the Wonderland is really about the effects of drugs and that each character represents symptoms of a certain drug." replied Jonathan.

"No way, that is not true. I love that movie. I always thought it was just simply about Alice's adventures from falling through the rabbit hole. Tell me more." I was genuinely interested but Jonathan didn't want to get into it. He said it was a bad idea to even bring up the topic. Apparently the government was looking into these things and shutting them down.

I should have listened, but I didn't. That night I went home and decided to do some researching of my own since Jonathan wouldn't tell me more. I typed into my search bar "conspiracy theories" and suddenly thousands and thousands of results showed up. Millions pages and forums dedicated to these things. I never realized what a big deal this was. I didn't know which ones to read so I joined a chat.

Daniela456: Hey guys! I'm sort of new to this thing and don't quite know where to start? What do you guys recommend?

Sk8erbo1: Hey Daniel, welcome to the family! Hmm, let's see, there's so many. One of my personal favorites is the Mandela effect if you want to check it out?

Butterfly01: Agreed! The Mandela effect is a heck of a rollercoaster. Just don't get too caught up in it. It messes with you. Be careful. This isn't a game this is real life things we're talking about here.

Sk8erbo1: She's right, you need to be careful with these things. Good luck!

Daniela456: Haha! Thanks guys, I sure will!

I should have stopped and listened to them. After leaving the chat I decided to listen to their recommendation and research the Mandela effect for a couple minutes, but then a couple minutes turned into hours. Before I knew it, it was already 3am and I never stayed up past 10. I went to bed and only had three hours of sleep.The next day I woke up late and ran to the bus to find Jonathan I had so many things to ask him.

"Jonathan! Wait up for me!" I yelled to catch his attention before he got on the bus. We both climbed on and sat in the back, "So I went home yesterday and I searched up conspiracy theories like you said, and you will not believe what I learned about the Mandela effect."

"Woah hold on, I never told you to do that. Daniela, that's dangerous. Do you have any idea what these type of things do to people? They go crazy and end up in crazy houses. Did you even get any sleep you look tired. Did you even do Mr. Kores essay due today? You're a straight A student, you've never slacked off before" Jonathan went on to ask millions of questions.

"What do you know Johnny? It's not like it's the end of the world just because I missed one due date. So what?" I was mad.

I really did forget about the essay and was worried that it would affect my grade but I wasn't going to give Johnny that satisfaction. I faced the other way and ignored him for the rest of the ride. I couldn't stop thinking about what I had learned last night. I zoned out a lot and couldn't remember what was assigned for homework.

Once I got home I quickly ran up the stairs to do more research, but I couldn't find anything new. There were less websites than there were yesterday. I got up and walked to the neighborhood library to see if there were any books dedicated to conspiracy theories, but I couldn't find anything. I couldn't find anything on Nelson Mandela either. I went up to the librarian and asked her about it.

"I'm sorry miss. We had to get rid of anything and everything to do about them. It's quite dumb I say. Between you and me the government is foolish if they think they can rid of it all. If I were you sweetheart I would stay clear of those things or stay low about it before the government stops you too. You saw what happened to sweet ol' Gracie. Got too caught up in those things and got locked up in a crazy house." The librarian seemed really concerned but I couldn't quite believe what she was saying. I thanked her and left.

I got home and looked up who Gracie was. It turned out she had gotten too caught up into these things and was taken away by the government who believed that Gracie knew too much and was a danger to others. I ignored it. It wasn't going to happen to me I was going to be careful. I logged into another chat forum only to find out they had been deleted. It was nowhere to be found. I started writing an email to them when my mom called me for dinner. I told her I was doing homework so that I could finish my email. That reminded me of all the unfinished homework I still needed to do. My grades were dropping fast. I had never had one B in my life and now my grades are filled with D's and C's. I was also getting bags under my eyes and losing weight. I wasn't the same, but I choose to ignore it. Why did I ignore it?

I finished my email at 4 in the morning. I knocked out afterwards and didn't quite check over to make sure I didn't say anything I would regret. I woke up before my alarm clock sounded, so I had enough time to eat breakfast with my mom before she left to work. We were eating a nice bowl of cereal in silence when we heard a knock at our door. My mom got up to go check who it was I could hear their conversation from the kitchen.

"Does Daniela Pier live here?" asked a deep voice. My mom nodded they continued "National Security has a right to believe that your daughter is a threat to society. We need to take her in for questioning."

They didn't wait for my moms response they walked to the kitchen and took me without saying a word. I was scared. I should have known this would have happened. I should have listened. I'm too deep in this. After all the questioning I was committed into a psychiatric house to help me forget everything I learned, but what I saw could never be unseen.