Remember: Alex and Aro (boyxboy)

Chapter 1

June 2017, Present Time

"Hey, doctor, have you given him his last dose yet?" Dr. Shaheen's voice rings out over the ward as she and the newbie doctor -the ginger freak I call him- discuss the rest of the paitents medication programmes as we recieve our last pills of the night.

That's right. I said we. The deliquents of society, the ones who can never be released. The ones who parents cross the road to get their child away from when they see us in our bright orange uniforms on weekly walks outside.

Those are the moments I live for. Being outside and trying to push everything to the back of my mind. "Paitent number #3871, here is your medication for the evening." Ginger Freak cautiously lays the tray of pills onto the bedside table.

I instantly snake out my hand and wrap it around his wrist. He gives me a nervous, twitchy look but stays frozen in place. He doesn't pull away or look stern with orders like 'let go, Alex'. He stands there frozen, staring at me.

I take in his flopping ginger hair, acne covered face. This guy is fresh out of medical school and he's got the nerves and demeanour to prove it. "Call me by my name, pimple face." I tighten my grip and he whimpers, weakening in his authority.

He looks overpowered. Afraid. So much for being a psychiatric nurse. "Sorry, Sir...um...Alex." He stammers, counting out the pills and dropping them onto the tray beside the shitty liquid that they call water. "I'll....be back in a minute." He rushes off, sheepish.

His white doctor's coat flaps around him as he walks as briskly as he can without it being considered as running. I stare at the stupid pills that are supposed to make everything okay again. The ones that are meant to make me nice, gentle and normal, which is nothing that can ever be achieved by someone like me.

You see, I wasn't always this way. I was a good person. Once. Though I can't remember why I'm here or what I did, Volterra's Mental Asylum has been home for the last eight months. My memories are unreliable and my thoughts are even more ridiculous and confusing.

They tell me I don't think the way other people do. That I don't function the way everyone else does. I know it doesn't make sense. Things sound great in my head but I'm shit at talking out loud. It's like I've forgotten how to communicate since I arrived here.

It's because of the voices.

Yes, voices. There are several of them. Some are cruel, degrading and offensive. Others are just plain annoying and persisent. Either way, I'm stuck with them and they're stuck with me. Stuck inside my head.

"What are you doing?" I look across the communal living room to see Carl, the only one of my voices to ever take form as a person, sitting on the windowsill, legs dangling casually, kicking his feet. He's got brown hair and green eyes and I've never asked him but he can't be more than fourteen.

But don't let appearances fool you. He can take many forms. An older guy, a baby...anything you can imagine. He is a manipulative, unpredictable little shit and no matter how much pointless medicine I take, he never goes away and always resurfaces sometime later.

"What's it look like I'm doing?" I huff, rising from the overstuffed armchair in front of the TV before making my way out of the room, but of course he follows. "Stop, Alex." He orders but I keep walking briskly ahead down the corridors to make it to my room in time before the bells symbol that playtime is over and it's time for bed.

I unlock my bedroom door with the unique keycard that stays around my neck on a loose thread. On it reads paitent number 3871, my age and gender, and these days, they are the only pieces of information that remind me of who I am any more.