Little Dark One

Chapter 5: Bad News

Judging from Alison's facial expressions, Ciara believed that she would tell her something like she had to go to jail for physically hurting someone or maybe for taking drugs. Spontaneously, Ciara felt like she had to say something, she had to defend herself somehow.

"I never wanted to hurt anyone, I wasn't conscious... Someone put drugs in my drink and I didn't know what I was doing, please trust me... It's not my fault. I've never even thought of doing drugs." She pleaded.

"Ciara, darling" Alison approached her, "There are things that you should know, it's very important, so please listen to me carefully and trust me, I'm here to help you, there's no way I could do anything that would hurt you in any way." She let out some documents and continued. "Your mental health has been deteriorating for years and not getting the required professional help has only made it worse. The drugs have triggered your mental illness which resulted in Drugs induced psychosis, and that made you act out for days. Not only that but you've been diagnosed with psychotic depression, anxiety, paranoia, and mania. We never know when will your next psychotic episode happen. Ciara, you can't manage to live on your own especially at this specific period of time, that's why you're gonna have to spend some time at the mental hospital where we will all be there for you and help you get through this tough chapter of your life."

"What?... No, please don't do this to me, I'm not crazy... I just wanna get out of here, I will never go to any kind of parties, I will never hurt anyone or do anything bad, just please, please let me go, I'm not crazy, don't lock me up in a psych ward.." Ciara begged.

"Darling, calm down. Please don't do this Ciara, you don't realize the depth and danger of your situation... You're not a crazy person you just need help, and we're gonna help you. You're gonna be fine okay? You can trust me, right?" She tried to calm her down.

After her appointment with Dr. Dubois, two people drove Ciara to the hospital and made her wear scrubs as soon as she got there, they took her backpack, her diary, and even her hair tie, she couldn't help but silently be in shock at what's happening to her. She was so scared and didn't know for how long she was going to be locked in there nor what was waiting for her.

A nurse took her to a room full of people, they kept asking her loads of questions about herself and then they discussed things and finally lead her to a section, they explained to her some things that she couldn't even understand about sections and other stuff using medical terms, she was too distracted she didn't even listen to them. Two nurses lead her to her room asking her to take some rest until dinner time which was in less than an hour.

One month later

"Diary, I'm glad I'm finally allowed to have you but I can't write for too long because I'm being supervised and a nurse will take my pen soon. I spent around one month in this jail-like hospital hoping I'll be discharged every single day, I've been living in a tiny room with two girls whom I barely knew their names, I'm not close to anyone, in fact, I don't want to talk to anyone or be close to anyone but they made me join these group therapies where everyone gets to rant, and that's one of the things that I hate the most about being there, although they told me that I can be comfortable and talk about everything that is bothering me, I just couldn't open up, I'm constantly feeling uncomfortable, constantly wanting to run away and my suicidal thoughts have been getting more intense and aggressive than ever. Alison was replaced by another psychiatrist that I can hardly open up to. One of the girls in my room would spend every night crying and although they give us sleeping pills every night before bedtime, her crying noises would always wake up in the middle of the night. I'm living in a hell diary, and I don't know what to do about it, I have no option or access to anything. There is a specific time for everything, for meals, for reading, for going out, for watching tv, for exercise and even for writing. I only had access to your diary and a pen for 30 minutes a day and this is the first day they let me have you.

Everyone is so sweet but I just feel like I don't belong in here, the voices in my head have been reducing due to the medication and that's the only positive thing about being locked in this jail-like hospital, the food is the worst but I have to eat it anyway because otherwise, I'd be starving."

One month was enough for Ciara to make her decision, it was enough for her to decide that she didn't want to be there anymore, that she had to find a way to get out of there so she started planning to run away for weeks. She fought the temptation to write everything in her diary for fear of getting caught in case someone reads it.

After weeks of planning, Ciara finally figured out a secret shortcut to go to the rooftop, and from there she could get to the rooftop of the nearby building and finally get her freedom.

She figured out that the best time to run away was right before bedtime when everyone would be taking showers and getting ready for bed. The most challenging mission was to get away from the nurses and secretly sneak her diary out with her from the reception, everyone in the psych ward was being watched, no one would get enough privacy not to even take a shower. One of the girls over there had arachnophobia, she would freak out every time somebody would even mention the word "spider", it wasn't so nice of Ciara to use that but it was the only way to get her freedom back. She managed to get a fake spider from one of the kids in another section last time they took her out for a walk and made sure to hide it so well so she doesn't get caught

While getting ready to take a shower, Ciara quickly got in first, threw the fake spider in a not very obvious corned then pretended to have forgotten her towel so she asked the nurse if she could go to her room and get it, she was about to go with her when a scream was heard all over the building, someone screaming in the bathroom, the nurses got distracted and hurried up to the bathroom to see what's going on and that was her cue.

She carefully sneaked out in the middle of the chaos and since everything was carefully planned, her attempted escape was a success.