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“Bed check, Alex. Open those pretty blue eyes, girl. Breakfast will be served in a few minutes.”

Two bangs on the metal door and I cracked my eyes open to a dark room that slowly brightened with the flickering of electric light secured behind cages in the ceiling. My throat was dry to a point where I coughed out dust from my barely breathing lungs.

The medications they forced down my throat every eight hours had to be made of salt. They sucked the water from my body almost as quickly as they sucked the life from my veins. Constantly in a cloud, I walked through my days like a zombie not knowing what time it was or what I was doing. I wouldn’t know my name if it wasn’t repeated every time a person approached me or wanted to grab my attention.

They didn’t need to use my name. A simple touch would do as well; anything that was different than the plain white walls that surrounded the residents of the nuthouse I called home.

Two more metallic bangs and a tray of food was shoved inside my room, scraping across the floor with a sound only recognizable to a person who’s been in this place. Sitting up in bed, I reached to push away the blonde hair from where it hung limply in front of my unfocused eyes.

“Eat up. You have an appointment with your new doctor today and you also have someone coming to see you in the afternoon. Your meds will knock you on your ass if you don’t eat food when you take them and we don’t want you shitting yourself by the time your guest arrives.” Nurse Joe called from the other side of the heavy metal door. His brown eyes peered in through the small window, eyeing me with the intent of a desperate man. I knew what Joe did to some of the women here, but not because they screamed when he visited them late at night. Their meds were enough to keep them semi-lucid and complacent. Instead of screaming or lying there like logs, they responded to him with muffled moans when he violated their bodies. Even with their faces shoved into whatever it was that made them quiet, the moans were still audible in the halls if you were awake and listened intently enough.

“I’ve been thinking of you, girl. But you’re not ready for me yet. Never let yourself think for a second it’s because I’m not thinking of you.”

I cringed at his whispered words. Spoken with his lips pressed closed to the window in the door, he knew I would be the only person who could hear them. He was right, though, I wasn’t ready for him. I hadn’t yet been convicted of the crimes they claim I committed, so the drug cocktail they were prescribing me wasn’t at full strength.

They reserved that toxic combination for the damned: the ones condemned to this hell for life, the ones tossed away by society and family, never to be heard from again.

I once wondered why the women he abused never said anything to the female nurses or doctors. However, after three lucid nights in this place, I quickly learned a valuable lesson:

There’s no point to telling anybody the truth. We’re crazy and they wouldn’t believe us anyway.

I was lucky that my brother, Dain, or my guest as Joe referred to him, visited me regularly. Because of him, they stayed light on the drugs they gave me. I wasn’t yet so far gone that I couldn’t speak in a somewhat intelligent manner. Even still, I didn’t know much about what was going on and I couldn’t remember last Tuesday, much less the men I’d been accused of murdering, but I was lucky for Dain. He was helping me remember. He was going to help me prove what I suspected all along:

I’m not a murderer.

Throwing my legs off the side of the bed, my feet met the cold floor just as my gaze came to rest on the sodden gruel they’d stirred up and called breakfast. Beside the unrecognizable lumpy substance sat a roll that I knew from previous experience would be stale and hard to swallow. I’d be lucky if the milk in the carton on the tray wasn’t old enough to have curdled already.

Slipping from the bed, I picked up the orange juice from the tray and decided to sip the only thing that could be considered safe out of the entire meal. I drank it down and relished in the feel of the cool liquid pouring along my parched throat, gulping it in large swigs that polished off the bottle in a few seconds flat. Wiping my mouth on my sleeve, I tossed the empty plastic container back on the tray and moved to the bed to wait for the thick metal door to my cage to open.

I didn’t have to wait long before Terrie, an older nurse who was as forgetful as she was kind, unlocked the formidable door to poke her greying head inside.

“Alex, dear. Is that all you’re going to eat this morning?” Nodding my head, I didn’t bother to voice what she already knew. I wouldn’t eat, not until lunch when a somewhat recognizable sandwich was offered to me at the long stretch of table where we all were gathered together in the afternoon.

“Well, alright dear, but you will still need to drink some milk when you take your morning medications. Let’s get you in the bath now and we’ll move on from there.”

Reaching into the room, she offered me her hand. I stood from the bed, sidestepped the tray of food and accepted her caring gesture. Terrie was the kindest of all the nurses and she’d spent many hours telling me about her career in the nursing field. She was a tall woman, standing above me at six foot-one inches in height, her grey hair was carefully combed back and clipped into an attractive netting that reminded me of the pin up models from the 1950s. Her high cheekbones that rested beneath the wrinkled lines around her brown eyes spoke of the beauty she must have been in her younger years. She had three children, all grown and raising kids of their own. It wasn’t until the last of her brood left home that she decided to go to school for nursing. Her career ultimately led her to the Statham Asylum for the Criminally Insane, also known as my new home.

Stepping into the bathing rooms, Terrie moved aside to allow me behind the curtain where I could undress. I hated these rooms. Cameras were set in the ceilings, disguised by round, black casings and I knew that every minute I spent in the tub was recorded and monitored by the security team. I didn’t understand the use of the curtain behind which I could remove my clothes because privacy was completely abolished when one realized that their time spent in here was being documented through digital technology.

My arms were useless to shield my full body from those cameras so I walked with them at my sides, using my hands to balance myself as I slowly lowered myself into the steaming water of the bath. As usual, Terrie took no time washing my hair.

“Would you like to shave your legs? Not all girls are allowed to do so for obvious reasons, but your behavior since you’ve arrived has earned you the privilege. I’ll have to monitor of course, because that’s the rule, but I can grab you a razor if you want one.”

Nodding my head, I watched as she smiled and crossed the room to retrieve a cheap, blue disposable razor from a locked cabinet. She handed it to me when she returned to take her seat by the side of the tub.

Quickly, I got to work dragging the blade over my legs, thankful to shed the unwanted hair from my body. Terrie hummed where she sat, singing a quaint song that I’d heard dozens of times from her lips. However, the song was interrupted by a passing thought that she expressed to me with a voice that was as melodic as the tune she’d finishing humming.

“I met the new doctor this morning. You’ll be meeting him soon as well.” She smiled and folded her hands in her lap. “To be honest, I’m glad he’s taken over the ward. I never did like that Dr. Keppler. It’s hard to find good people willing to work in this environment, but I think we’ve finally found our man. He seems very interested in assisting you young ladies, despite your terrible pasts.”

Glancing up at her, I couldn’t hide the confusion that was so obvious in my eyes. Terrie reached over to pat me on the shoulder. “Don’t you worry, dear. You’ll remember what happened some day. It’s odd that you have no memory of those four years though. It’s like everything having to do with the reason you’re in here has vanished like a puff of air. I’ve heard of selective amnesia, but yours takes the cake. I know most people believe you are lying, but not me. I happen to think something really awful must have happened to you, especially when considering the state you were in the day they brought you here. Do you know how long you’ve been with us?”

“A month.” I spoke the words with all the certainty I could muster. I hadn’t been here that long, I was sure of it, but what Terrie told me next threw me into such a tailspin that nothing was certain in my head.

“No, Alex. You’ve been here much longer than that. I think it’s been a year at least since I first laid eyes on you. Poor thing. When you were dragged through those doors, you could barely stand on your own. You had to be escorted in by five men. Your pretty blonde hair hung down over your face and your eyes were vacant when I pushed that hair away. You were so scared then, but look at you now. You’re gaining strength, and with that strength your memory should return. Let’s just hope your brother, Dain, keeps showing up as often as he does. I think he has your best interests at heart.”

My head shook slightly in response to her words. Refusal enshrouded me. It couldn’t have been that long. “No, Terrie…it’s only been a month. I haven’t been here that long.”

Her mouth turned down into a sympathetic grimace. Reaching over, she stroked her hand over my hair in the same manner a mother would to soothe a child.

“You’ll remember, Alexandra. I know you will. You’re not like the other patients here. You’re not bad. I’ve heard you screaming from those dreams you have, the ones that get you locked up in that horrible room every night. You’ve lost people that you love. Quite frankly, I think you’ve lost a lot more than that. But I think your new doctor will be the one to help you. He cares. I can tell just by looking at him that he cares. And he’ll care for you most because you’re such a special girl.”

Standing up, she grabbed a towel from the pile on a nearby table. Opening it, she motioned for me to step out of the bath and into the warm confines of the terry cloth. “Now come on. You don’t want to be late for your appointment. We’ll have to medicate you first; then you get to meet the new doctor yourself. After that, Dain will be here to see you. What a lucky girl you are to have someone that loves and cares about you so much.”

After briskly drying my body, she stepped aside again so that I could grab a clean set of clothes. I didn’t bother going behind the dressing screen because there was no point. Quickly pulling the thin cotton pants and shirt onto my body, I waited by the door for her to unlock it and lead me through the long dim hallways to the medication window.

We approached and I stumbled over my steps to see Joe working the window. Terrie’s hand was on my lower back, gently pushing me forward as Joe leered at me through the glass partition.

“Come on, Alex. You need your meds before meeting the doctor. We want you to make a good first impression, don’t we?” Terrie’s kind voice echoed through the halls as she guided me toward the medicine window.

“Could you give me my meds, Terrie? I don’t like taking them from Joe.”

A short burst of laughter broke from her lips as she continued guiding me along. The pads of my bare feet stuck to the linoleum floor, but I wasn’t able to slow our pace. With the drugs that were still in my system from being dosed the night before, I didn’t have much strength to fight against her.

“Don’t be silly, dear. Joe will only give you what’s been prescribed. They are the same little pills that I would give you if I were behind that window.”

“But…please Terrie,” I begged. “Just look at the meds for me. I want to be clearheaded for the new doctor and sometimes he gives me the wrong meds.”

Terrie nodded her head as we stepped up to the window. When she reached for the small paper cup, Joe initially pulled it away from her, his eyes narrowing when he had to concede and hand them over. Terrie gasped as soon as she counted the pills.

“Joe, what is this? Why are you giving her three different sedatives?” Her voice raised an octave when she finally discovered what I knew Joe had been doing to other patients all along. He constantly kept women doped up on downers in an effort to keep his midnight practices silent. The women were like walking zombies, running into walls and blankly staring out windows. Their hands shook at their sides and their knees gave out when he walked by them, but they never spoke about him to anyone, not even other patients.

“Give me the doctor’s orders for Alex. Let me check that you got the rest of this correct before she takes them.”

“I can read doctor’s orders, Terrie!” Joe’s voice shook with indignation, but Terrie refused to back down.

“Apparently not. You can kill a patient by giving them too many sedatives and what you have in this cup is a cocktail that would have her laid out in seconds, unable to talk much less function. Now give me the damn orders!”

Joe turned around and I breathed out a sigh of relief when he snatched the binder of doctor’s orders from the shelf behind him. Throwing it through the window, he pitched it with enough force that it only brushed across Terrie’s hand before hitting the floor. She bent over to pick it up and he gave me a look of absolute hatred. I smiled. Fuck him and his night visits, I refused to be like the other women who weren’t sure why they woke up in dirty and wrinkled sheets.

By the time Terrie stood back up, his face had returned to a neutral expression. “There was no need for that, Joe. We’ll discuss this later while not in the presence of our guest.” Her admonishing words didn’t appear to faze him. “The rest of the meds appear to be the proper dose, so I’ll just remove these extra sedatives.”

Handing the paper cup to me, she walked to the water fountain to retrieve another paper cone cup. I downed the pills and washed them down with the water, thankful to know that I wouldn’t be unable to function after what had been administered.

“Let me check,” Terrie said.

I opened my mouth, lifting my tongue to show her that the pills had been swallowed. Once she was satisfied that the pills were now settled in my stomach, she took both cups away, crumpled them and tossed them in the trash receptacle on the side of the hall.

“Let’s go, beautiful girl. You have a date with Dr. Hutchins.”