BONETAKER

1.

The cell was white and bare, much like it's inhabitant. The walls were decorated by long scratches flecked with blood, inflicted by nails that had been dragged across the thick plaster in attempt to cure the boredom that was so apparent in the emptiness of the square room. Sometimes, the inhabitant of the cell would have nothing to do except sing at the top of their lungs for hours upon hours until their voice ran dry and hoarse like a little spring in the summer after days of endless heat. The inhabitant knew the singing got on the nerves of the guards, who had to stand and listen to it twenty-four-seven, and also knew they couldn't do anything about it.

The guards that stood outside the cell had been the ones who came and took away all of the inhabitant's books and drawings after they refused to comply with any of the treatment offered. The head of the Psychiatric Hospital had hoped to write another best-selling book about one of his captive 'Psychopaths' but this inhabitant was dead set against it. Perhaps it was because they didn't want to be any more in the limelight than they already had, but it was most likely just because they hated the head of the hospital and liked to see him squirm.

It had been the head of the hospital, in fact, that penned the tabloid name for this inhabitant- the name that the inhabitant hated so much. Every newspaper article was printed with BONETAKER in large block capitals across the top of it and the BONETAKER spent hours tearing the titles off each paper they had collected over the span of their reign.

The BONETAKER hated the name because it implied that they killed purely to take bones, but that wasn't it. The bones were just an added little touch to terrify the audience even more. BONETAKER preferred her real name, which was Dahlia Ashwell and was nowhere near as catchy or as 'scary' as BONETAKER.

Dahlia Ashwell thought of the world as her audience, though an unsuspecting one most of the time. They watched as she performed her part in the 'show' and reacted to the twists and turns of each episode. Despite hating the BONETAKER name, she couldn't help but smile every time she saw the papers in the shop on the corner. Of course, now she relied on the head of the hospital to bring her censored versions of the newspapers. They no longer allowed her to look at any pictures of victims or their families, which had pissed her off for a while until she realised she had the memories of the events in her head. And the memories would always be better than any shitty photographs taken by the reporters who told her story.

Today, Dahlia was singing to herself again, staring down at the bloody remains of her finger tips. 'They're coming to take me away, ha ha, they're COMING TO TAKE ME AWAY HE HE' echoed down the long stretch of empty corridor and the guards groaned as they glanced at each other. Last time she sang this specific song, it lasted for just short of a whole day. It ended when a nurse tried to get her to eat something and she bit the nurse's hand, leaving the poor woman several tooth marked scars, and Dahlia with what was essentially a muzzle for the next few days.

The singing wasn't awful, one guard had once remarked to the other, it's just repetitive. The other guard agreed, then they went back to ignoring each other. They often struggled to find things to talk about, resorting to just staring down at their phones most of the times, earphones in, attempting to drown out the singing.

Head of Hospital, Doctor Sean McGuire, was able to watch Dahlia Ashwell through the security camera's in her cell whenever he wanted, and on this day he sat making notes on her behaviour. He desperately wanted to write that book, get his share of money. 'DISSECTING VINCENT GREEN' by Doctor Michael Hanley sat on his shelf and he carefully removed it,holding the heavy hardback in his weirdly small hands. This book was somewhat of a bible to him; Dr Hanley had been able to capitalise off of Vincent Green's crimes and make himself a profit out of a tragedy. It was a despicable act, and that's why Dr McGuire admired him so much.However, Dr McGuire felt as though Dr Hanley's act was somewhat worse than his own ideas for a book, since Vincent Green was a severely mentally ill schizophrenic who was coerced into murder by his young and also schizophrenic friend. They both believed several demons were after them. Dahlia Ashwell had no motive for her crimes, that they could find, and seemed mentally stable.

His own book was halfway done, already having covered each crime and his first few psychological profiles of the killer. But what it really needed was interviews with the BONETAKER herself. An insight into the mind of'Britain's youngest serial killer' that no one else would have except him. Dahlia Ashwell had not only refused to talk to Dr McGuire at all, but everyone else as well. She talked to no one except herself and sometimes the guards; nothing of importance to Dr McGuire.

Dahlia Ashwell was either going to be the making or breaking of Dr McGuire, and he prayed that it wasn't going to be the latter. He had proclaimed in many interviews that he 'had a certain understanding of the girl' but that had been a lie. Most of what he had said in interviews about Dahlia Ashwell were lies.

The thing that pissed him off the most about the girl: he wasn't able to diagnose her with anything. At seventeen years old, she was too young to have anti-social personality disorder, and since psychopath and sociopath were words no-one had used in the psychiatric field for decades, they were out of the question. In his opinion, she was just absolutely mental, but was determined to find something to label her as to make himself look better. He was still recovering from the consequences of that last patient he'd try to exploit for one of his attempts at a book. Shuddering at the mere thought of not being able capitalise off of Dahlia Ashwell's murders, Dr McGuire turned his attention back to the girl in the cell.

She was still singing, but was now laying on her back staring straight up at one of the many camera's that Dr McGuire had installed without permission form her lawyers or family. No one knew about these camera's save for himself and his trusted assistant Janet. But somehow he got the feeling that Dahlia Ashwell knew. It fell silent for a moment and then the girl shouted directly to the man who had been illegally recording her everyday. (Oh yes, he had been keeping the tapes and stashing them in a locked crate in his vault- the same vault he kept memorabilia, of sorts, from the many infamous murderers that had stayed at the hospital)

"I'LL GIVE YOU AN INTERVIEW IF YOU GIVE ME MY THINGS BACK."

Dr McGuire was shocked for a moment and then smiled to himself smugly. It seemed as though the boredom had finally gnawed her down to the bone. Boredom was the worst kind of torture for people like her, and Dr McGuire was surprised she'd lasted this long.

"IN CASE YOU DIDN'T HEAR, I SAID I'LL GIVE YOU AN INTERVIEW IF YOU GIVE ME MY THINGS BACK."

Her tone was calm, as if this was a normal conversation. Though, thought Dr McGuire, what is normal when you're in a hospital full of nutcases.

"IF YOU DON'T GIVE ME MY BOOKS BACK I'LL TELL EVERYONE HOW YOU'VE BEEN WATCHING ME."