This Is How It Ends

Welcome to my nightmare

“Madness as you know, is like gravity. All it takes is a little push.”

-The Joker

His eyes were soft but the gun in his hand and the threats toward my life spoke differently. I 

could see he was at his wit’s end and so desperate. The exhaustion and pain he carried would drive 

anyone to this point, answers were the only thing that could soothe him. But I didn’t have them and 

deep down he was starting to feel no one had them. Madness was inevitable, and I was once in his 

place. Now, I am apart of the insanity.

My head felt fuzzy as I raised it from the table to look at the doctor and an orderly staring at 

me. Cold air circulated around me, nipping at my skin. Then, the piercing fluorescent lights met my weary eyes. My ragged black hair hung over my shoulders and a warm trickle of blood began coming down my face. My eyes felt overly tired and my face sweaty. In the room sat my doctor and the orderly, I suppose I ‘became violent’ from the blood on my head and the way they were acting. It felt as if the room was becoming increasingly cold within a few short minutes, but when I went to rub my forearms, my hands were stiff, a crude fabric swaddling them. The overwhelming feeling of panic flooded me with a ratchet tiredness pulling at my thoughts. And within seconds I realized I was in a straight jacket. “Vinessa?” asked my doctor, both him and he orderly looked as if they hadn’t slept in days. I looked at him and could feel my bloodshot eyes blur with tears, “My names not Vinessa, its Alice!” I said as I cried with exhaustion and desperation, my voice crackling as I said it. They really didn’t know who I was, we did this so many times, I couldn’t even bare the thoughts of electro shock. But that treatment was more and more becoming for me in the eyes of my doctor. I am who I say, my memories are real and abundant. I have hobbies and likes and dislikes that don’t come so common. If they only knew.....

I laid my head back down on the table and let my hair fall in front of my face. A small pool of blood beginning to form on the table. I lost count on how long I had been in here, the Montgomery Heights Asylum for the criminally insane. And it was all the same: I think I am someone named Alice(which I am Alice Krueso), I see the future, I see ghosts who hurt me, and I’m a murderer. They’ve told me a hundred times over ‘who I am’. I’ll admit I need some sort of help, but they’ll never understand whats really wrong with me. 

“Its okay, she needs rest, put her back in her room.” Said my doctor calmly. He told me his name when I first came here, but I forgot it as soon as they gave me my first electro shock treatment. Not as an actual treatment, but more or less to see how I reacted and to get me to understand how serious they were here. He was about 43, his hair was beginning to turn gray and straw-like. He wore round glasses and had a wide nose. There were little gores in his sun-burned skin, obviously he had bad acne as a teen and didn’t take care of it right. Despite his appearance, he was an intellectual, but was growing tired of my ‘insanity’. I didn’t even batt an eye when the orderly grabbed my waist and threw me over him shoulder. I was so emotionally drained I couldn’t find the fight in me to demand to walk on my own. We came out of the interview room and walked down the hall. Long, white walls and doors with small windows that led to grey, padded rooms filled both the insane and those deemed unbelievable. The orderly’s foot steps hit across the cheap linoleum as we were getting close to my room. I glanced at a bar covered clock, 12:09 am. He always puts my patient interview in last, I suppose I’m the most delusional patient. I tensed a bit as I realized my medication would wear off soon and my mind would sink me down into a hell, as it does every night. 

They sat me down in my room, unbuckled my straight jacket and shut the door behind me. I 

didn’t say a word or look him in the eye. Instead, I walked to the corner and slid my back down 

until I was curled up in the corner. My bed was freshly made and I thought about climbing in for the night but I knew what was coming. And I deserved every minute of it. An erie laugh of a little girl came and I began to cry. “You’re not real!” I yelled, even though I knew how wrong I was. I could feel my breathing get fast and uncontrollable. My warm tears streaming down my face.  I sat my hands in my lap and when I looked up, there she was. She looked as if she was floating, she was grey and very pale. Her long, straight red hair lay on her arms, she was no older than six. She laughed an evil laugh. “I’m real, you know that. That medicine turns your gift off, but know you can see me, lets play!” She said creepily in her little girl voice. “I’m sorry! I never meant to-” I sobbed, but was cut off. Her white dress turned bloody and her face even more pale. Her smile dropped and she now looked clouded with a deep resentment. I could feel the veins in the side of my head pound while they pumped hot blood. A few cold sweats ran down my back just as panic ceased my mind. “I’ll never forgive you” She whispered and a crazed smile stretched across her face. Her little hands unraveled to reveal a small knife. “Time to play!” 

        After a while, I fell asleep. My dreams were congested with more of these angry 

‘delusions’ as my doctor might call it. And when I woke up, another bruise on my face, blood on my clothes, scratches and cuts all over my body, but it was just another night. I ate the crap food they serve for breakfast, then I went into the day room. I stood in the corner with my arms crossed and paced a few feet back and fourth, trying to concentrate my thoughts until I got my daily medicine. I watched the others go about there day, I never once bothered to surround myself with any of them. They didn’t interest me, and I didn’t even consider getting attached to them. I did not need one more person in my life to disappoint.