Am I, Or the Others Crazy?

Chapter One - Arya Mally is the New Girl

I sat in the back of the Taxi cab, mindlessly staring out the window as the city turned to a thick forest. I was on my way to St. Mary’s hospital, a mental institution. I glanced down at my lap; my hands were folded over my pale white sundress. The sweat jacket I wore was twice my size and my fingers barley was showing through the arms.

I looked back at the window, wondering how far away this hospital was. I knew it was out of the city, but I didn’t think it was in the middle of nowhere. I let out a sigh and looked at the back of the passenger seat.

“What’s a young girl like you going to a place like St. Mary’s?” the cab driver looked at me through the rear-view mirror. I looked up surprised at the sudden question. I moved a strand of my wavy honey brown hair out of my face and simply shrugged.

“I don’t think straight.” I mumbled with a slight sarcastic grin. I wasn’t lying though. All I knew is that I had a severe thought disorder. They said it was because I get lost in my own head more than other people usually do. To be honest they wouldn’t tell me any details on it. They gave me a diagnosis and said I was to be sent to the hospital for an indefinite amount of time. I started thinking about more and more about what the therapist had said.

“I think everyone doesn’t think straight at one time or another.” I dazedly looked up at the cab driver who had responded to my response. It took me a moment to actually process that he had said something. I nodded.

“Uh, yeah I’m sure they…” I felt my sentence trail off. To be honest I have no idea what I was going to say, and in about a second I forgot entirely what we were talking about. I saw him look at me confused then shake his head slightly.

About 10 minutes later we got to a large gate. A woman in a white dress came out to confirm why we were here. She looked over at me and nodded, motioning for the cap driver to continue on. The gates opened and I saw the large hospital building. There was a large field in front, with benches and tables. The building its self was quite intimidating; there were metal bars on all the windows. It was about 3 stories high and went pretty far in and was very wide. We drove on the gravel road to the front of the hospital were 2 nurses were waiting.

I got out of the cab, my single suitcase in my hand. One of the nurses smiled and led me into the building as the other paid the driver. To be honest I don’t remember much of what happened, I signed papers, I was given a rule’s packet, and a lady told me about my counseling meetings.

After all the intake stuff was finished I was taken to the ward I would be staying in. the nurse who took me was a tall blonde girl, who looked about 50 years old at most. She told me she was the head of the ward, and everything had to go through her. She had a mole below her left eye which was all I stared at when she talked to me. We walked up a flight of stairs and she opened the large metal door into a long hallway.

“This is the girls side, though this is a unisex ward, and both guys and girls stay here, girls have this hallway and the men have the other.” I nodded. Her voice was quite shrill, but she was softly spoken. Her heels made clicking noises on the linoleum floor. I simply tried to keep up with her long strides. She pointed out the rooms, a class room, a reading room, and the nurses’ station. I nodded, saying nothing. I was trying to memorize everything so I didn’t have to ask anyone for help, especially the schedule that was written on a white board next to the nurses’ station.

At the end of the hallway there was what the nurse called the rec room. On the left of the hallway there was another hall that I assumed was the men side she was talking about earlier. It seemed like most of the patients were in the rec room rather than their own rooms. Some were watching the old television set, others were playing board games, and some were just spacing out on the couches.

“Fresh meeeaaat!” a girl, who was sickly skinny and wearing loose sweatpants and a blank black t-shirt. Her brown hair was up in a bun and she was smoking a cigarette. As she yelled the others began banging on whatever they could and howling.

“Stop, stop!” the nurse yelled and they quieted down, laughing.

“How do you expect us to obey the ‘no boys allowed in the girl’s room’ rule when you bring in little tarts like this around” a relatively thin man with bright red messy hair leaned back in his chair and shuffled a deck of cards. He had a thick leather jacket with black skinny jeans on. He began moving his lip ring with his tongue as he stared at me. The girl sitting across from him began laughing. She held her head up with her hand. Her lips were perfectly painted red and her brown short hair was messy, falling over her dark lined eyes. She had multiple rings on her thin fingers.

“Mr. Day, you are already on thin ice. You don’t want to be confined to your room again do you?”

He simply smirked, still shuffling cards. He began dealing the cards between him and the girl.

“Come this way.” the nurse said, motioning me back down the girl’s hallway. We got to a white wooden door and she opened it. Inside was two twin sized bed. On the left side it was decorated with a few mirrors, clothes on the floor, and small floral decorations on the wall, as well as a large British flag. On the bed a girl sat cross-legged, with various makeup products on the bed in front of her. She stopped applying makeup and glanced up at us when the door opened.

“Miss. Smith, this is your new roommate, Arya Mally.”

“Sup,” she said, going back to applying her makeup. I shifted where I stood. Someone approached the nurse, whispering in her ear. She nodded and turned to me.

“I’m sorry, I must go take care of something.” I nodded and she left with the other nurse out of the large metal door we had come in through. I walked into the room and placed my suitcase on my new bed.

“How do you like Nurse Kelly?” the girl said twisting the top back on her mascara. I looked over and shrugged. She just chuckled.

“I’m Eva.” She held out her hand and I shook it. I sat down on my bed next to the suitcase. I looked over at the barred window as the tree right outside blew in the wind.

“What do you suppose she had to go do?” I asked out loud. Thought I meant to ask it in my own mind. I looked over at her as she fixed her hair in the mirror she held. Before I could say I didn’t mean to ask she actually had an answer for me.

“Kalen’s back again.” she looked over at me and nodded towards the window. I looked from her to the window, confused. She laughed and got up, pulling me up and towards the window. It was facing the front, towards the gate I came in from. Coming up the drive way was a police car. It stopped in front and about 4 nurses were there to greet the cops. The cops got out and took out someone from the back, which had handcuffs on. The nurses and cops quickly walked into the hospital’s front doors.

“Come on.” She said walking to the door of our room. She pulled out a pack of cigarettes from her blue sweatpants and lit on up, leaning against the wall. I stood at the threshold, confused at what exactly we were doing. The same girl who had yelled ‘fresh meat’ before came over from the rec room to our room.

“So? Who else did you see come in?” she asked Eva who looked from the metal door to her.

“Take a guess Chloe” she nodded and laughed.

“Took longer than usual.” She said crossing her arms watching the door. I stood, leaning against the door frame obviously confused at what was going on. A few minutes later the door opened and a cop with Nurse Kelly came through the doors with the same person from down stairs.

He had long black hair, all the way down to the middle of his back. He wore a loose t-shirt and ripped up skinny jeans. His pebble eyes looked around until he saw us and began laughing. I saw a cut on his cheek and many scars up and down his exposed arms. 

The three of them walked over to the nurses’ station as the cop signed a few papers and took off the man’s handcuffs. He began biting the air around the cop’s head and when he glared at him he just stuck out his tongue. The three of us began slightly laughing. The cop walked down the hallway escorted by one of the many nurses that were working on our ward. He disappeared with Nurse Kelly into one of the many counseling rooms.

Chloe looked over at Eva and they began snickering.

This whole hospital was confusing, but I guess that should have been expected.