Aight, so this is the first chapter of a new book i'm working on - Mind Games. I will tell you it's a bit slow at first but it will pick up. I don't know how long it will take me to upload, but i've decided to set a goal. If you read this story, get your friends to read it. And get their friends to read it. But until I have 5 votes or 20 reads I will not upload. (unless, of course, I get bored). I just need to know that people are actually reading this story before I will continue on with it. IN OTHER NEWS. Leave me comments? Please? Tell me how to improve? THANK YOOOUUU<333
-Sunny
Chapter 1 –
Dim light shone through the bars in the window above my cot. Although it didn’t provide much light alone, the white walls intensified it and practically blinded me as I sat up in my pure white flannel nightgown. Rubbing my sleep-clouded eyes with the ball of my palm, I yawned wide and slipped the snow white slippers by the side of my bed onto my bare feet. No nail polish in sight, unlike other girls my age. But they’re not stuck here, I thought bitterly. We don’t have access to anything remotely toxic or harmful. Making my way to the door, I opened a metal slot at the exact height of my mouth and spoke slowly to the Illuminati guard positioned to my right.
“Code: Amber, lilac, blue” He nodded and the door slid open, his bulky figure blocking my view of the Red Wing as he clasped silver shock-cuffs around my wrists and led me towards the washroom. We were required to learn the Codes within the first three days of our arrival here so that we may communicate with the guards without any problems or free-speak. Fortunately, I have a good memory and figuring out the different combinations of words wasn’t all that difficult.
“Stall four.” He unclasped the shock-cuffs. “You have ten minutes, 6-249. Best get started.” All of the guards were required to refer to us by our patient numbers.
“Puppet” I hissed under my breath. That earned me a red hot slap to my right cheek.
He merely smirked. “Serves you right, freak. ‘Least I’m not locked away to rot here all day. I actually have a life.” I heard his snarky chuckles as he went to his post by the door.
I felt my blushes burn hotter than the throbbing pain in my cheek. How dare him! I snarled to myself. Stepping into the pure white stall, I winced as I stepped out of my slippers onto the ice cold linoleum floor. Pulling my nightgown over my head and stepping out of my underwear, I kicked them into the corner of stall four. One step towards the shower head and room temperature water blasted out from a grate in the wall; they didn’t trust us not to wrip shower heads out. 3…2…1 I counted out in my head. I lifted my left hand just in time to catch the lavender-scented body wash squirting from a small hole in the wall.
Lathering myself with just my hands, I thought about how my day would probably go. Eat breakfast. Play Knights with Mumble. Eat lunch. Take my meds. Watch a movie in the Bee Room. Read a book. Eat dinner. Sleep. But something in the air told me that today would be different. I was so lost in my own contemplation of what could possibly be happening that the 2-in-1 lavender scented shampoo and conditioner squirted me right in the eye, making me jump. Today will be different. That thought lingered long after the water had stopped.
* * *
Making my way through the lines of kids in the Meal Room, I couldn’t help but notice a newer girl, no more than twelve, sitting in the far left corner of the room alone. New arrival, I said to myself, sighing. I always hated to see newbies during their first few days. They all looked the same: absolutely miserable, lonely, and terrified.
“Any info on the new girl?” I asked the boy in front of me. He looked to be about 14, with wavy strawberry blonde hair and piercing green eyes. He stood at about 5’6” and merely shrugged at me.
“Oh please, Lep. You’re always the first to know every waking detail about new arrivals.” Now, bear in mind none of us remembered our real names once we were Scrubbed. Lep, #6-257, always frowned at our nickname for him; Leprechaun. Within the first week the other patients give you a nickname, and you’re stuck with it. It can be anything from your appearance to your disorder to the way you act.
“Anx and Jill dubbed her Bloody Mary.” He nodded to the girl, pointing out her many scars and burn marks. “Anx says they’re from fighting, since she heard Mary really pissed the Illuminati in her sector off.”
I whistled. “Really? Them ‘luminati barely ever use the torches unless there’s a struggle.”
Lep nodded and slid his tray that’s magnetized to the rack down towards the waffles. “She’s from sector D. That’s all I know.” And with that he slid his tray off of the rack, walking over to a round white table and sitting; in fact, the whole room was white. Most of the rooms are, ‘cept the Bee Room and the Rainbow Room. I shuddered at the thought of the Rainbow Room. Flashing colors from different directions, never in the same place twice, blinding you…I shook my head of the memory. I hadn’t been in the Rainbow Room for a month now and I wasn’t about to cause any trouble.
I slid off my own tray and went to sit by Anx, a nerdy-looking boy with jet black hair and thick-framed black glasses, always trembling and wringing his hands, his mouse grey eyes darting around as if the walls themselves will come jumping out at him. Which would make sense, him being Anxious and all.
“Hey, Anx. I heard ‘bout Mary from Lep. Sad, huh?” Anx nodded, his voice coming out in a hushed tone only slightly louder than a whisper.
“She was only Scrubbed last night. Mr. Green was surprised how sudden it was.” Mr. Green was our Dad. Or he preferred to have us call him Dad. He always wore the same thing: black dress pants with shiny black shoes, a white polo, and a green vest, which is how he earned his nickname Mr. Green. He did everything for us, like it or not. He even did the Scrubbings.
“Have you seen Mumble? It’s almost time for Knights.” Knights was my sister and I’s favorite pastime. Based on chess, it was a four-by-four chessboard with two knights. The objective was to work with your partner to move over every square and turn the lights off, only using the knight’s move: up two, side one.
“Haven’t seen her. Jill said Mumble hasn’t come out for breakfast yet, either. And it’s her favorite too.”
I felt a lump in my throat and winced as some oatmeal slid got stuck but slid its way down after a moment of coughing. So this is what was wrong. This is what made today different. I stared at my bowl for a moment, thinking it all over.
“Anx,” I whispered.
“Yeah, Murm?”
“Anx…I’m afraid they took Mumble.”
