MADELINE

09|| r.i.p

~requiescat in pace; rest in peace~

[Heavily unedited]

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      The harsh wind nipped at Lillian's bare skin as she hurriedly walked up towards the gate of the hospital. Holding the files and tapes close to her chest, she blew out a fuzzy breath, letting her finger press the buzzer. She knew that deep in her mind, what she was about to do may be futile. Madeline may not remember her; most of the patients in the hospital never remembered anyone. And she always wondered why. A rumour had once started; that the head of the hospital instructs nurses to inject the patients with a drug that makes them hardly remember their pasts and even if they do, fragments of it.

The gates noisily opened and upon showing her ID, Lillian marched past the security guard, her heels moving against the ground noisily. Her thoughts have been all over lately and beads of sweat gathered on her forehead as she reached the main office. Noises and patients hovered around her, tension and discomfort from visitors were in the air; so thick that you could cut through it with a knife. She dropped the files on the table and held up her ID to the head nurse, moving away from a girl the security officers brought from the glass doors. The security grunted as they pulled a thrashing girl to the head nurse.

"Let me go!" the girl shouted as she bared her teeth towards the hands holding her captive. She bit a hand. One of the securities whose breast pocket had the name Glint shouted.

"You little piece of..." He raised his hand at her and Lillian saw a glimpse of fear in the girl's face but it disappeared.

"Glint" the head nurse said calmly. "Go get yourself healed. A bruise is forming"

On cue, the guard looked at his hand that now held a reddish swelling. He grunted. "I'm certain she's in type A", he said through clenched teeth.

"Just get yourself treated Glint", the nurse said. As Glint walked away, the nurse looked at the other security who now held the girl in a looser grip than before. She raised an eyebrow.

"New patient, case 245, type unknown. Found her at the back of a dumpster"

The head nurse ignored Lillian and looked at the girl with boredom- as though she was used to seeing cases like this every day. "And why was she at the back of a dumpster?"

The man held the girl in a firm grip. "She was barking at nothing and kept rolling over in the dirt. She almost attacked Glint"

"I didn't attack anybody! He's saying nonsense" The girl screamed as she shook and pulled herself towards the nurse, trying to convey her message. The man pulled her back roughly.

Nodding understandably, the nurse directed the security man to an empty room with a single chair. "You know what to do. I'll record this one" She quickly opened a file and scribbled something down. Lillian saw a glimpse of 'suspicion of type C' from the woman's scrawl. She averted her eyes away, a nudging pit at the bottom of her stomach as she caught sight of the injection in one of the security's rear pockets. The nurse cleared her throat noisily. Lillian looked back forward.

"You should be used to this by now. You work here", the nurse said. She put a stamp over Lillian's files and slid it to her. "It shouldn't really come as a surprise"

Lillian nodded, wordless as she collected the file. It wasn't about how usual it was to be seeing these cases but how scary children could become. As she walked to the psychiatric room, where she was sure Madeline would be waiting for her, she heard the girl's ear-piercing screams and somehow, Lillian knew the girl had forgotten about everything that happened before now. Including herself.

She knocked at the wooden door, hearing the faint rattling of chains she suspected to be handcuffs and a slight grunt. She knew that was her cue to open the door. What she saw didn't surprise her. Madeline had her uncombed hair down, as though she was sleeping, her skin pale and her frame bony. She nodded at the security man as he walked past her. He stopped beside her and whispered. "Be careful with this one, she may not be as willing as last time" Before Lillian could respond, he was out the door, gently shutting it behind him.

Sighing, Lillian sat down on the white chair, facing Madeline. She cleared her throat but Madeline didn't look up. Lillian furrowed her eyebrows. She opened her mouth to call her but Madeline had risen up her head, hollow eyes staring questionably at Lillian. "What do you want?" Her voice sounded scratchy.

"How are you feeling today Madeline?"

Madeline waited. "Peachy. I answered your question, now answer mine. What do you want and why are you here?"

Lillian opened her mouth to respond but was cut off by Madeline. "Oh wait, that's two questions" She cocked her head to the side and drummed her fingers on the arm of the chair where her wrist was handcuffed to. "Two questions because I answered your question first when I asked you a question first. Now, answer"

Lillian bit her lip and bent her head forward to dig her hand in the file. Her fingers felt the silky surface of a picture and she pulled it out, looking at it proudly. She looked up at Madeline. "I want you to identify something".

Madeline raised a brow. "Why?"

Lillian didn't answer, instead pushed the picture towards Madeline, hope expanding in her chest. This needed to work. It had to work.

Madeline looked down at the picture her eyes narrowing. "I see you, a fat man, and a girl" She looked up at Lillian. "Why are you showing me this?"

The hope in Lillian's chest shrunk. "Who does that little girl look like Madeline?"

Madeline looked down at the picture and back at Lillian. "She looks like you"

Lillian smiled. "I know. Do you know who she also looks like?"

Madeline's eyes narrowed. "This is none of my concern"

"She looks like you Madeline"

Madeline sighed as she leaned back on her uncomfortable chair, eyes studying Lillian's features and that of the girl in the picture. Her mouth curved upwards as she smiled. She shook her head in mock concern.

"Are you colour blind Mrs Lillian?"

Lillian's face fell. "What?"

Madeline inclined her head towards the picture. "The girl in the picture has dark hair. I'm blonde. And below the picture, you signed something; something that looks like 'R.I.P Sarah'. I'm Madeline."

Lillian's brows furrowed as she snatched the picture, seeing the face of her daughter, a big smile on her face, her blonde hair frizzy from the wind

She looked up at Madeline."Her hair is blonde"

Madeline shrugged."Ok, but what do the words in the picture read then?"

Lillian's eyes lowered further. Below, it read words in faint cursive letters that made her smile drop and heart accelerate wildly.

R.I.P Sarah.

The picture fell on the floor silently.

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-Ada