by Elsy Green
Nothing’s jumping. No one has come in. No one has even walked in the hall outside my door. I’m all alone. Sitting on my cot, staring at that stupid ugly green door, willing it to open. I don’t know how long I’ve been staring at it. An hour, maybe two. I’m not sure at this point. I’m not sure of anything. I could be in a dream and not even know it. That would explain why I can’t move my body, why I feel glued to my bed. This all must be a dream. Or I’m severely drugged.
That would make sense too. My mind is slow, my mouth is dry, my body stuck and the room is spinning, or moving. I can’t really tell; I just know it’s not staying put. So, I tell myself I’m drugged, but still there’s something in the back of my mind, a feeling, a nudging, a voice, telling me this isn’t real. Telling me to open my eyes. Only they are open. They’ve been open for hours now and I’m still as lost as before.
As if the universe is listening to me, that green door swings open and in walks a very big, intimidating man. He’s wearing green scrubs that seem to match the door and has his head is completely shaved, showing off his perfectly shiny scalp. He dominates the space around him with his power stance and large muscles. Lifeless beady eyes suck the air from the room as he looks around, inspecting my barren room. And when they find me, I hope with everything inside of me that I’m dreaming.
“The doctor is ready to see you now.” I swallow down the lump that’s formed in my throat. My limbs making no attempt on their own to move. I’m not getting up, I’m not doing anything, I’m just staring helplessly at the scary man in front of me. I let out a terrified gasp as realization dawns on me, this is no dream.
“Let’s go. She likes to keep a tight schedule.” He huffs impatiently from the doorway. I stare at him in disbelief, unsure what I should do at this point. I’m still so confused and everything is so foggy.
He mumbles under his breath and comes into my room, taking two gigantic steps to reach me. He grabs my arm and lifts me to my feet. My stomach drops at the quick movement and I feel like I’m going to vomit as I steady myself on wobbly legs. This can’t be right; this can’t be real life. Everything inside of me is screaming in protest, my head is throbbing, my limbs shaky and my brain still slow as a moving sloth. I must be dreaming; I have to be.
Before I can analyze it, baldy is dragging me down the hall, my feet stumbling underneath me as I try and keep up with his huge steps. It feels like we are moving at hyper-speed, but that can’t be right, the walls and carpet all around me as moving in slow motion as I pass them, stretching out like they are trying to reach me and then snapping back in place. I squeeze my eyes shut and open them again, shaking away this weird fog. This isn’t real, just stay cool. This isn’t real.
Baldy stops abruptly in front of a set of white doors. He puts his key card up to the black pad on the door. The light turns green and the doors make a sound like they’ve just unlocked. Swinging open the door, he grabs onto my arm again and we are talking off down the hall, except this one is much different from the others.
It’s doesn’t have the standard greenish-blue carpeted walls that continue onto the floor. Or the harsh fluorescent lights and oddly terrifying paintings that look like melted crayons running down a paper. No, this part of the building is much different.
Pure white walls, plush white carpet under our feet, soft calming lights, tranquil music overhead. Big windows looking out into a peaceful green garden. It’s almost relaxing as we walk down the hallway at an inhumanly speed. I find my lungs filling up with a silent breath, ready for whatever is coming my way.
Then we turn the corner and a bright red door comes into view. I don’t know what it is about this door, the fact that it’s totally out of place here, or that it reminds me of something I don’t want to think about. Either way, this door has all my relaxing vibes racing out the windows.
We make it to the door in milliseconds. Baldy stops and let’s go of my arm as he raises his hand to knock. He taps gently on it, leaving me confused. Where was this gentleman when he was dragging me from my room? Stepping back, he straightens his scrubs and waits calming for something to happen. I watch him in horror, wondering who in the world could be behind this door. Someone with a lot of power obviously, someone even baldy fears.
“Come in,” A stern feminine voice directs him. He opens the door and motions for me to enter first. The office is nothing like I expected. It’s colorfully decorated with soft blues and yellows. There is a bookshelf against the wall adjacent to me with books of all genres and sizes. A modern black couch sits opposite it, a colorful painting behind it of a young girl running through a field of daisies. And right in front of me, an impressive glass desk sits in front of a massive window that looks out onto the garden.
The woman who invited us in is turned away from us, staring out into the garden. She’s sitting in a rather tall, red leather chair that veils her face from me and for some reason I get the feeling like that is her intention. She doesn’t want to be known yet.
Baldy trails in behind me, placing a large file on her desk. “Allie Davis, she was involuntarily checked in after a psychotic episode. Been here three days.” I turn to baldy surprised. That information is all news to me. I have been in the dark since the moment I opened my eyes.
“Thank you.” The woman waves him off and he backs out of the room without another word. She stays facing the window her chair not even moving as she offers me a seat. “Please sit.” She motions to the sofa with her long slender fingers and for a minute I think I’m having déjà vu. I close my eyes and shake the thoughts away, obeying her as I take a seat on the nice leather couch.
“So, psychotic episodes? That’s a pretty big order.” She swivels her chair in my direction, finally showing herself to me. My entire body goes ice cold as I stare at her, my heart practically stopping inside my chest and my lungs struggling to take in air.
There sitting in front of me is a beautiful, well composed blonde, with long flowing silvery-blonde locks, tantalizing long legs, piercing blue eyes, crushingly high cheek bones and perfectly painted on lush red lips.
“Ryss?” I whisper. She raises an eyebrow at me, her face contorting into something that’s not quite confusion. It’s like she’s startled. Like I’ve solved some riddle she didn’t think I would, but the look disappears as quickly as it came, replaced by a sympathetic shake of the head.
“No, my dear, I’m Doctor Nora Melden, but you can call me Nora. How about we get started.”
C.15
“It says here you are having vivid dreams to the point of sleep walking and hearing voices…tell me about them.” The Ryss look alike shuffles through my paperwork, all the while avoiding eye contact. I can’t be positive, but I think she’s feeling just as dazed and confused as me. I mean she’s a little more composed than I am right now. I can’t help that my mouth is hanging open and that incoherent syllables keep escaping. I’m in shock. How is this possible? How have I seen her in my dreams? It’s just like Ethan. I saw him and then he was there. And now so is she. This can’t be happening, not now.
“Allie?” She snaps her fingers in front of me bringing me out of my stupor.
“I’m sorry, it’s just…do I know you?” She turns her icy blue eyes on me, studying me intently as she purses her lips together. That’s probably not the answer she was looking for, but I can’t move on from it. I have to try and find some sort of explanation. Or I’m left with the only one I won’t accept.
“I don’t think so.” She shakes her head. “Why would you ask that?”
“I…I…don’t know,” I stutter, not sure what else to say to this woman. She’s terrorized me in my dreams for months and now…she’s here, supposedly the doctor who is trying to help me. For what I’m not sure. I can’t even remember how I got here. How am I supposed to know what to say to this woman? She could be Ryss after all, this could all be a trap. I could still be dreaming. My eyes dart to hers and I take in slow, deep breaths as I stare into those familiar heartles
s eyes.
No, that’s not right, if this was a dream I would have a lot less control. Usually in my dream episodes I’m simply a tag along. Right now, though, it seems like I’m in charge, it seems like…I’m awake.
“Do I look familiar to you?”
I swallow down the bile that pools in my mouth at her question. “I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?” She narrows her eyes on me, her forehead creasing with confusion. “How is it you don’t know? Only you have that information, Allie.”
I look down at the floor and swallow down, suddenly too embarrassed to answer. I’m being silly, completely silly. Ethan isn’t Jaxon and Nora isn’t Ryss. I just need to calm down and cooperate, maybe if I do, they’ll let me out and I can go home.
“The episodes…they are more like dreams. Some when I’m sleeping, a few when I’m awake, I’ve seen you in one or two.”
“You’ve seen me in your dreams?” she sounds surprised.
“Yeah.”
“Tell me more about these dreams.” She turns towards me in her chair and crosses a leg over the other. I meet her cool icy stare and suck in a deep breath. I’ve got her full attention now.
“I don’t…there isn’t much. I mean one day I was normal and the next I was waking up in the middle of the night covered in sweat after having a vivid dream about me and some boy.”
“A boy?”
“Yeah, Ethan. He’s a boy in my class, he looks like the boy I dreamt of.”
“That’s not uncommon. The characters we develop in our dreams are often based off of someone we’ve seen or met in real life.”
“That’s the thing.” I swallow down unsure if I should tell her more. She quirks an eyebrow patiently waiting for me to continue. There’s this knot in the pit of my stomach, one that’s warning me of danger, telling me I should just keep my mouth shut and wait till she sends me back to my room. But there is this other part, this scared part that wants to go home, a part of me that knows I’m locked up in here and the only way out is to get better. And that starts with Nora.
“Yes?”
“Ethan…he moved to Greenville three or four weeks ago. I started having the dreams two months ago. I’d never met him before in my life. I’m sure of it. And now, there’s you. I can’t recall ever seeing you before yet I know I’ve dreamt of you. I mean you’re a different person and so is he, but it just doesn’t make sense. How can I dream about people I’ve never met?”
She frowns. “Are you sure you have never met either of us? Greenville is a small town. It’s possible you saw Ethan the day he moved in, or maybe when him and his father were looking for a place to live before moving down. I’m sure you could have bumped into either of us and not even remembered, but your subconscious did. Again, it’s not uncommon.”
I look up at her curiously. “His dad?”
“Excuse me?”
“You said Ethan and his dad. How did you know he moved here with his father?”
She scoffs and gives me a carefree smile. “Like I said it’s a small town. I just assumed you were talking about the same Ethan that goes to the farmer’s market with his father every weekend.”
“Oh.” I clench my fists at my sides and take in a deep breath. Right that makes sense, everyone has a dad. Of course he moved with his dad. Why am I being so paranoid? “Sorry.”
“No, it’s fine. I would be a little suspicious of people too if I was seeing things I couldn’t explain. Let’s get back to that. So, we’ve established that you’ve seen Ethan and myself in your dreams. What or who else do you see?”
“I don’t know, they’re strange. They don’t follow a timeline or make any sense. It’s all just a bunch of jumbled dreams that take over my mind and body. Sophie thinks it’s some kind of reincarnation. Like I’m remembering my ancestor’s memories because I have unfinished business. She thinks Ethan is fate, like maybe he’s the unfinished business. That’s why he looks like the boy in my dream.”
“Huh. And Sophie is?”
“She’s my best friend.”
“Ah, well she sounds smart. Reincarnated memories aren’t out of my realm of practice, but I don’t’ suppose that’s what’s going on here. I mean that would insinuate that you have unfinished business with me too. I don’t think that’s true, do you?” She gives me a patronizing smile and then glances back at my paperwork before I can answer. “But don’t let me sway you, tell me what do you believe is going on to cause these dreams? Do you think it’s unfinished business?”
“No. I don’t know. Sometimes, I think that I may self-projecting. Graduation has stirred up a lot of questions in me. I don’t have a clue what I want to do and I feel like I won’t. I mean I’m not very good in school, none of the subjects really make sense to me. And, I don’t know how to explain it, but there are times when I don’t think I belong in this world. Where I feel like this outsider, cursed to walk this Earth until I figure out the truth. Always wondering if there is more out there. Always wondering if this is really it.”
I shrug. “I think the dreams are just self-projections of my anxiety and doubt. Maybe my subconscious is trying to tell me something, but I’m not getting it.” I shake my head, feeling slightly dazed. Where did that come from? An outsider? I mean sure I’ve thought those things, but how did she do that? How did she get me to open up like that?
“Hmm. Interesting theory. That could be true, but in my experience self-projection is usually fixed by making peace with your anxiety. And if you already know what is giving you anxiety,” she gives me a pointed stare, “why are you really here?”
I swallow down a lump that’s starting to form in my throat. I don’t know why, but I’m all of the sudden nervous. The way she asked that question, it makes me doubt everything I thought I knew. It makes me feel like she knows something I don’t, like somehow, she knows why I’m here and I don’t.
“I don’t know. I woke up here. It wasn’t by choice.”
“Don’t lie to yourself. Why. Are. You. Here?”
“I…I…”
“Come on, think Allie, what has brought you here? What is keeping you from waking up?”
“I don’t know, I guess I don’t know how to fix it. I can’t seem to figure out when I’m awake or not. I have these vivid dreams and then I wake up thinking I’m still asleep. I ran out in front of oncoming traffic the other day because I thought it would wake me up. I was already awake. If it wasn’t for Sophie and Ethan, I probably would be dead.”
“Ethan was there?”
“Yeah, we were on a date when I had an episode. And then he said he saw what I saw. I thought I was dreaming so I tried to wake up.”
“By running in front of traffic?”
“For some reason I thought if I was hit, I would wake up.”
“Interesting and Ethan? What does he think about the whole thing?”
“I don’t know. I’ve been in here. All I know is he showed up and things got worse and then he kissed me and it was like someone else took over my body. I couldn’t get the voices to stop, they just kept screaming at me, telling me to wake up.”
“Voices? Wait…what did you and Ethan see?”
“I was at a beach somewhere I’ve never seen before, but it felt familiar, it felt like home. He was there, but he had a different name and we were talking about…” I look up at her apprehensively. We were talking about stealing information from her, or at least my dream version of her.
“Yes?”
“We were discussing our future together,” I lie and I can’t tell you why. It’s like for that split second Riella took over and Allie isn’t opposed to it.
“And he saw that?”
“At least from what he told me.”
“And what are your names in these dreams? Are they consistent?”
“Yes, always the same.” She raises an eyebrow as I hesitate again for some reason. My mind and my mouth are fighting against each other, struggling to form cohere
nt words. Frustrated that I even let her in for a split second, I push Riella to the farthest part of my consciousness and let it all out. This is the only way I’ll get out of here; this is the only way I go home.
“Riella and Jaxon. I always dream about them.” Her eyebrows shoot up into her hairline, her eyes wide with something that resembles shock. Blinky rapidly she shakes her head and looks down at my notes to compose herself.
“Hmm. This is worse than I thought.”
“What?”
“Much more serious. I was hopefully you could go home soon, but it seems we are going to need to start you on a rigid treatment plan. You’ll need to undergo electroconvulsive therapy for a few weeks, maybe even a month. Extensive talk therapy and few other things. I’m afraid this isn’t something that can be solved in a few days, my dear.”
“Shock therapy?”
“Electroconvulsive therapy. We don’t call it shock therapy anymore. It’s very humane and has proven effective in cases similar to yours.”
“Cases similar to mine? You haven’t even told me what’s wrong with me and now you want to restart my brain.”
“You don’t’ have to do it. I was under the impression you wanted to get better. This option allows me to rewire your brain and stop the dreams, help you live a normal life in Greenville without the side effects of your disease.”
“My disease?”
“I belief you are suffering from Schizophrenia. We’ve caught it in the early stages, it’s a good thing you came in when you did. Your teenager years are a common time for onset of the disease. The dreams, hearing and seeing people in your dreams and while you’re awake not to mention the paranoia. It’s textbook.”
I scoff and shake my head. “I don’t feel Schizophrenia.”
“Allie you ran in front of oncoming traffic. I’m afraid if you don’t consent to treatment, I’ll have to get a court order to keep you safe.”