Mental

The Outbreak

Hey guys! Hope you enjoy this new chapter of Mental. Ryan begins to learn more about Ash's past as she starts to show him the true side of schizophrenia. As always, vote this chapter, comment new ideas below, and follow my page.

Pops

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Ryan was looking forward to his mother, father, and sister visiting. When in a sanitarium it is very hard to get visitation privileges because anything could trigger a set-back in your mental health, but Ryan's family pushed through. They were coming on Tuesday, today was Sunday or Rest Day. So he would have to wait three days to see them.

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Come Tuesday early morning, Ryan was so excited to see his family he was practically bouncing on the balls of his feet. When the door to his room opened, at exactly 9 am., Ryan downed his medications an hopped out down the hallway. Before pausing, remembering that he didn't know where the visitation rooms were.

At 9:30, after some complex directions, Ryan burst through the doors to the visitation room. Looking around, he saw three familiar faces sitting on waiting chairs at the far corner of the room. Their faces lit up as soon as they saw him.

"Rye!" They yelled in unison an ran up to him, enveloping him in a giant hug. His dad clapped him on the back while his little sister, Riley, hugged him from behind. His mom took his face in her hands and spoke.

"You look so much better. We've all missed you so much," gesturing to Ryan's family.

"Good enough to go back home, perhaps," Ryan said hopefully. Ryan's mom eyed his dad knowingly, as if they both knew a secret they weren't going to divulge to him yet.

"Oh sweetie, we don't know when you'll be released, but we hope it'll be soon too," she said. But Ryan could tell she was hiding something. A doctor came over and told her that time was up. She rolled her eyes and said, "The doctors are strict about family here, they think that familiar faces are going to trigger later issues in the patients. It's stupid!" Ryan nodded and said a heartfelt goodbye to his parents and sister. "We'll see you every week on Tuesday's at 9 am. on the dot," his mom called over her shoulder, lazily waving goodbye.

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The next few weeks went by with Ryan only half content. His parents visited every week at exactly the time they proclaimed, but Ryan never seemed to see Ash anymore. She was poised at the recreation room at the exact moment that he was supposed to leave. This was the same with all the other activities he attended too! She was also never at the visitation room either (Ryan wanted to introduce her to his parents and sister). He thought this weird because: Where was her family? Didn't she have some? With these new thoughts in mind, he decided he needed time to get to know Ash before he jumped to wild conclusions.

It just so turned out that at the exact time he needed it, he and Ash found each other in the recreation room on a bright Sunday morning, alone. He sauntered over to her, she was writing in a big, black composition book and chewing on a yellow pen. She was wearing large, silver glasses that enlarged her eyes and covered almost half her face.

"Nice glasses," Ryan said smiling. She looked up and closed the composition book, took off the glasses then stood up. She was short only about 5'2" or 3" so Ryan's tall frame towered over her.

"What do you want?" Ash asked. Ryan didn't think his smile could get any bigger, but it did. Ash was very sassy and probably always would be, schizophrenic or not.