Longnecker 1

Alara Longnecker
Mrs. Rutan
Creative Writing
16 May 2019
The Girl from Nowhere

I killed her. It could have been the cloud of depression that lived over her headー or perhaps it
was the need for constant reassurance from the meaningless people in her life. Either way, I wouldn’t
take back a second of it. All the hysteria she experienced made me desensitized. That night even the
moon didn’t visit her, the stars hid away, and only the terror showed up for the away party. I helped her
shallow down the truth, it became so easy; almost like a possession. So many tears escaped that night,
we cried for the first time in a long time. The both of us, staring at each other in the mirror until even
the mirror looked back with curiosity. They said in the hospital that she lived, but she died when she
swallowed all those pills.

I t​ ook over that day.

Psych Wards are made of four different units; the psychos, suicidal adults, suicidal adolescents,
and the old people who can’t remember their name, let alone the fact that their family has forgotten
about them. If you’re lucky, then your room are placed at the end of the hall, next to the entryway, that
way you can hear the crazy’s yell from being off their happy pills for too long. Other than the screaming,
it’s the definition of monotony with the only sense of time being the mental clock ticks away all the time
you waste in your cell while becoming a more “stable” individual. Stare at the white walls, count the
number of tiles in the bathroom, count the number of bars over the window of your beautiful view of
the dying patients under you, peel the flesh off your nails, force down the tasteless food, take the pills,
and repeat, and repeat, and repeat. I feel like one of the looneys next door, but don’t worry because the
therapist will tell you how to think and give you their list of your “quirky” issues to overcome. Bumps in
the long road called life, you know, just a little pit stop before the wonderful wonders life still has to
offer. One hell of a pit stop.

The purgatory I was stuck in was alive. It wasn’t the people there一 or the lack of patients if I say
so myself一 it was the asylum itself. A old shithole that truly made the religious bimboos get on their
knees to thank their God for the second chance at life. Why should people like us receive a second
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chance; ​people like me. There’s fam​ilies losing their loved ones, children getting killed in wars, cancers
wiping people out, do I have to continue?- Wasting life away wasn’t fair to them, wasn’t fair to anyone
around who had to deal with how she一 I acted. They didn’t get second chances, but I did.

Why?

I find myself asking when everything I now know is this place I’m in. The screams from down the
hall, the lowered voices of doctors talking, the bare walls, and the disoriented feeling, the hospital bed
itch, the repeated claustrophobia, the preventative measures, the loneliness. It’s weird一 this is what I
wanted, but sometimes I miss my other half. But I’m the lesser of two evils, believe me. Or don’t,
nobody does. It won’t matter anyways because I’m leaving tonight, now all I need is a name. Emiko
sounds nice.

The world had outside had become foreign to me. A dark, enchanting place that held answers. I
didn’t want to reconcile with the old me, I wanted the world in my hands. To take a bite as if it was the
forbidden apple. I was hungry. After getting out of the hospital, I walked for what felt like eternity, soon
finding something from my dreams. A forest. The forest was dense, thick with fog and rain poured off
the leaves of the shadow of the trees. They seemed to follow me, holding out their branches for help. I
was enchanted by the mystic behavior of the forest, so I followed. It was the right choice.

… to be continued.