Asylum

Prologue

Beep

Beep

Beep

I can hear the distant yet familiar beeping, immediately placing me in a hospital setting. The dimly lit room still stings my eyes as I struggle to come to. The eye sting triggers every other sense, followed closely by the dryness in my mouth, the smell of disinfectant and the ringing in my ears from the... holy fucking shit... ear splitting headache.

Fuck.
Fuck.
Fuck.

I squeeze my eyes shut in an attempt to block out the pain but even with my eyes shut I can feel my head spinning, spinning, spinning. Wait, that's my stomach lurching—

Fuck I'm going to —

I turn to throw up, the nurse at my bedside is quick to grab a paper barf bowl and I hurl all the contents of my stomach into the horrible cardboard bowl. I cry out in pain; each gastric spasm shoots a searing pain through body. My head feels like it's cracked open, my ribs feel like they're going to rip out of my chest at any moment, and the contents of my bowel feel like they're going to come spluttering out... from which end I don't know.

That's gross.

"Who the fuck gave me tramal?" I gasp and the nurse holding the barf bowl chuckles. Except his chuckle is low, and almost like a grunt. It's familiar. And he smells nice too. It's a soft, citrusy scent mixed with more tobacco than I'm used to. I look up at the person holding back my hair, as I cling onto his other forearm and a pair of piercing blue eyes slowly comes into focus.

"Jamie?" I croak.

He looks at me with a fake, forced smile; relieved that I'm awake, but clearly horrified that I look the way I do.

"You alright, love?" His voice shakes, as he wipes the sweat off my brow and tucks a stray strand of hair behind my ear. He cups my face in his hand, rubbing my cheek. Great, my cheek hurts like a motherfucker, too. But I don't flinch. It feels oddly comforting.

My eyes feel puffy as I try to bring his eyes and face into more focus but I soon notice the bags under his eyes and as if it was even remotely possible, his pale Scottish skin is paler and whiter than ever before. There's definitely more of a tobacco whiff to him. He looks like shit. And even though he is opaque, unshaven, hair disheveled, and could do with a shower and a proper meal, he still looks like Christmas morning. How annoying is that?

James chuckles. "Really? Christmas morning, eh?" He smiles, the real one this time, the one that makes his eyes crinkle.

Fuck, did I say that out loud?? How strong are these meds?

"Let me ring for the doctor, clearly the concussion is more severe than we thought." He raises his eyebrows and kisses my forehead. "I'm glad you're awake, Ava."

James adjusts the electronic bed, allowing me to sit more upright as I slowly sip on some water. I look to my left and see my arm in a hard cast ending below my elbow. Fuck.

I start doing a bodycheck:
1. Concussion. I run my hands through my matted hair, feeling some staples on the right side of my head.
— That's when he slammed my head into the door.

2. Bruised cheek
— Punched me.

3. Bruised jaw
— Said punch.

4. Fractured ribs; there's a pipe sticking out of my chest. It's called an ICD. I must have a hemothorax. Great.
—When the motherfucker kicked me like a dog.

5. Radio-ulnar fracture
— When said motherfucker was kicking me like a dog and I tried to protect myself.

6. Stomach cramps... it feels like period pain.
—The dickhead certainly did a good job giving me the beating of my life.