Oskar Leonard's Blog, page 7

Chained Soul – Part Twenty-Six

Welcome back to Chained Soul, my new serialised novel that I’m releasing right here on my blog, as well as on Tapas and Wattpad. Quick warning: this series does contain strong language, so if that’s not your thing, you’re free to skip this one!

Check out Part One, including a synopsis for the whole series, here!

If you missed Part Twenty-Five, you can read that here!

Day Twenty-Six

Patient Evaluation Form – Pre-Assessment

Patient Number: 0619

Patient Name: Robin Stephens

Question One: Would You Describe Your Mood Over The Last Week As Stable?

Yes.

Question Two: Have You Been Generally Feeling More Positive Emotions Or Negative Emotions?

Positive emotions.

Question Three: When Thinking Of The Word ‘Society’, How Do You Feel?

Happy.

Question Four: When Thinking Of The Word ‘Abnormal’, How Do You Feel?

Disgusted.

Question Five: Please Describe One Benefit Of A Privilege You Have Received During Your Time Here, And How It Has Improved Your Recovery

Access to the e-mail system allowed me to gradually re-accustom myself to normal communication and societal expectations.

Question Six: Please Describe A Negative Occurrence During Your Time Here, And What You Have Learned From It

Another patient acted violently in the group session room before the session started. I learned that acting out is negative, and leads to consequences for everyone, since the group session was unable to go ahead.

Question Seven: What Have You Missed Most During Your Time Here?

Seeing my family.

Question Eight: Do You Understand Why Your Treatment Here Occurred?

Yes.

Question Nine: Do You Feel That You Have Recovered Significantly During Your Time Here?

Yes.

Question Ten: Do You Consent To Undergoing The Assessment Process?

Yes.

Brief Final Report – Nominated Psychological Care Coordinator

Patient Number: 0619

Patient Name: Robin Stephens

Staff Number: 0012

Staff Name: Kathy Hume

Mental Health Notes:

Robin has shown remarkable improvement during time in facility. Mood is much more stable and Robin tends to present positively and politely. No longer reports delusions and no longer experiences emotional spikes leading to violent outbursts.

Medication Notes:

Robin has complied with medication treatment. Improvements in energy levels and mood have coincided with medication treatment.

Social Notes:

Robin shows no signs of return to delusions despite physical condition. Unfortunately, Robin has not been able to attend group sessions (see incident report no. 309), but I supplemented social treatment with additional one-on-one sessions.

Opinion Given For Assessment: Positive

Re-Introduction Category: C (Physical)

Signed: Kathy Hume

In case you couldn’t guess, I didn’t mean a single fucking bit of what I wrote in that questionnaire. Bit of a shame, really. It’s kinda cathartic to just get out all of my emotions in those things, knowing that someone, somewhere has to read it. Even if it’s just the psychologist lady – Kathy. It feels weird knowing her name. Like, it felt weird to not know her name, but now that I know it, it feels like I’ve learned some sort of horrible secret that’s gonna get someone killed or something.

Anyway, yeah, not my answers. Kathy coached me through the whole thing. At least it didn’t take much brain power, I suppose. She said that if I wrote all of that down, then they’d be guaranteed to take me for the assessment, pretty much. Well. She kinda said that.

She said a load of medical mumbo-jumbo and ‘professionalism’ stuff, and then she said that those were the right answers for them to let someone do the weird assessment that I still don’t know anything about. Then she said she hoped that it wasn’t too late, which was really fucking inspiring of her, and then she said it’d all probably be okay. Then she just kept going on about how I didn’t want to stay here when the changes happened, like she did before.

I don’t know. I guess I’ve got no choice other than to trust her, or at least believe her. I mean, what else can I do? She’s saying she’ll get me out of here, and that’s all I want. I want to be in my own room, in my own home, and have food that’s actually edible. I wanna go outside whenever the fuck I want.

That’s the first thing I’m gonna do. I’m gonna take a long, long walk, through some trees or some shit like that, and just breathe and relax finally. Or take a shower. A shower might be a better idea for what to do first, to be fair. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so grotty in my life.

And now, because she’s given me some hope of getting out of here, I’m getting all antsy. I can’t sit still. I keep getting up and pacing around, just waiting for a knock on the door or something. When Kathy left, she just said to be patient. She didn’t even give me a timeframe, just that things would happen ‘soon’ if they were gonna happen at all.

I fucking hope I don’t get stuck in here. I hope Helen isn’t stuck in here. She might be all paranoid and thinking that she’s gonna die in here, but I bet everyone’ll get out eventually. If they’re treating everyone then that must mean that there’s an end to the treatment, right? Otherwise they’d be shit doctors and they’d get shut down. Though I suppose they used to keep people in asylums for ages and just never let them go.

Shit, I hope this isn’t like that.

I mean, at least it seems like Kathy’s given it her best shot. That report was probably a lot more glowing than I deserve, if I’m being honest. I know that I’ve been nothing but a pain since I’ve been here, but at least I haven’t attacked anyone or anything. I could have been a lot worse.

Maybe they’ll interview me after I get out. Some news channel might want to know about the treatment, get an insider look. Won’t I be a disappointment? Yeah, sorry dude, I don’t know why the fuck I was in there or what the fuck they were doing. I was mostly bored and just took the pills they gave me – and I don’t even know for sure what they were, either.

Unless the assessment makes me remember stuff. Maybe they’ll just plug me into a computer and give me all my memories back, just like transferring a folder over. That’d be fucked.

If you enjoyed this, click here to check out some of my other books – free ebooks available as well as print books on Amazon!

(You can also tip me on my Ko-Fi page if you’d like to support a young author!)

Chained Soul – Part Twenty-Five

Welcome back to Chained Soul, my new serialised novel that I’m releasing right here on my blog, as well as on Tapas and Wattpad. Quick warning: this series does contain strong language, so if that’s not your thing, you’re free to skip this one!

Check out Part One, including a synopsis for the whole series, here!

If you missed Part Twenty-Four, you can read that here!

Day Twenty-Five

Something is very, unbelievably wrong today. I truly believe that I woke up and the entire fucking world decided to turn on its head for some reason.

Not in a way that would mean that I don’t have to be in this facility anymore, of course, because the universe still hates me every when everything is being weird.

No, it’s different to that. I’m still here, in my room that might as well be a fucking cell. The computer is still pinging and I’m getting up to check it like a zombie who’s had enough of the undead life going after brains – I know I have to, but I don’t want to and I couldn’t care less about what’s waiting for me every time I do. The food came through normal, without salt. I took the three-a-days. The psychologist lady didn’t come in.

But it was when I was in the middle of eating my lovely slop that I heard knocking on the wall. It was weird, like some sort of morse code, but then I realised that I don’t know morse code and maybe it wasn’t morse code to begin with. Anyway, you get what I mean. It was frantic and random and weird.

Now, Helen does not normally knock like that. My first thought was that she’d been moved out of the room and some other poor sod had been thrown in, and now I was going to have to be the mentor figure. Main big issue there: I don’t have a fucking clue what’s going on in here still. I can tell them to eat the slop and take the pills, but that’s about it. As soon as they ask ‘why?’ all I’ll be able to say is ‘fuck if I know’.

My second thought was obviously that I’d miss having my next door neighbour to talk to, even if she never really told me anything useful about this place and what’s going on and why I’m here – y’know, the important questions. Thinking about Helen being gone made me sad enough to ignore the knocks for a few minutes – the newcomer could wait for me to pay my respects for a lost friend – but then I heard her voice through the wall and I knew something was up, because she was always the one demanding secrecy and all that.

Conversation With Helen

-I can’t hear her voice properly at first because she’s whispering and I’m sat on my bed, so I go over to the wall-

Her: Robbie? Robbie, please answer me. Please say you’re there.

Me: Hey, I’m right here. You okay? You sound like… I don’t even know what.

Her: I’m scared.

Me: I kinda got that. For a second I thought it was someone else behind there, being all crazy.

Her: Well it’s not, okay? It’s me, and I’m freaking out. I’m losing it. I’m sure you’ve had your fair share of emotional outbursts, so now I’m having mine.

Me: I mean, I’ve never been one to stop an ‘emotional outburst’ – or I don’t think I have, anyway – so go right ahead.

Her: They’re going to take me away soon. I know they are.

Me: Oh – yeah, my psychologist lady was talking about some changes happening. Not taking people away or anything, but she’s trying to get me in the assessment thing to get me out before they happen.

Her: They’ve given up on me. They’re never going to let me out. I’m going to die in here, Robbie. My family will never know what happened to me.

Me: I thought our families knew? I got a letter from my mum.

Her: They know you’re here. They don’t know what’s happening to you. I bet they’re feeding them bullshit about sunshine and rainbows and therapy sessions and therapy dogs and all that fucking nice happy shit that they put on TV.

Me: We’re on TV?

Her: The news, I meant the news. They reported on this a lot when it was a new thing, and with every trial. We’re in the second wave of people who caught up in this fucking mess, so there wasn’t as much fanfare. You probably weren’t on the news.

Me: But I could’ve been? (not sure how I feel about that)

Her: Sure, whatever. You could be a home town fucking super villain.

Me: Damn, you’re really worked up.

Her: At least you’ve got a way out of here! I haven’t had a meeting with anyone for weeks. I did everything they wanted and it wasn’t enough. What makes you any more worthy of the assessment than me?

Me: I have no idea. I don’t even know why I’m here, remember?

Her: I can’t believe it. You’re going to get out still not knowing. How the fuck is that fair? I know! I know what’s going on and I can’t get out!

Me: I’m sorry, Helen, like I really am, but I don’t really know what I can do. Or what you can do. We’re just kinda stuck here and they just do whatever they want to us.

Her: Well, consider yourself lucky. And give that fucking assessment the best shot you can, because they’ll get rid of you if you stay here.

Me: … like murder get rid?

Her: They don’t want us. We’re wasting money every second we keep breathing. If we don’t pass the assessment then they can’t get new bodies into the cells. More press, more notice, more money. It’s all money, Robbie, all of it.

Me: Money for fucking what though? Locking random people up?

Her: I wish- fuck, I wish I could tell you, and I don’t think I’ve ever been closer to telling you, but it’s just… It wouldn’t be right. I can’t do it. I hate that they chose you, but I’m not evil. I can’t tell you before you find out on your own. It’d break you. You’d probably flunk whatever that assessment is if I told you, and then we’d both be stuck to rot in here until they decide they’ve had enough of us. And that’ll be soon – I know it will be.

Me: Look, the psychologist was kinda stressed out about the changes and stuff, but I don’t think they’re gonna resort to murder. It just sounded like it was gonna get a lot less fun around here, and I mean, it’s not exactly a picnic right now anyway. They’re probably gonna add in mandatory jobs or something, or like harsher punishments for stuff. Solitary confinement and all that.

Her: You think?

Me: Yeah, probably just gonna go the other way from the privileges. Maybe they reckon negative reinforcement is better. It won’t be nice or anything, but I don’t think it’ll be a death sentence.

Her: You truly believe that?

Me: There are still laws out there. We’ve got ID and family and jobs and all that shit. Criminal records, maybe. We can’t just disappear. Especially not if you’re as popular as I seem to be with the emails. People know we’re here – they’d notice if this place suddenly started offing us all.

Her: I guess, yeah. Maybe you’re right. I don’t know. I’m so in my head right now.

Me: Hey, that’s okay. Makes a change from you reassuring me all the time, huh?

Her: Ha, it certainly does. Thank you, Robbie. Seriously.

Me: Don’t mention it. We’re in the same boat and all that shit, right?

Or at least, I hope we are.

If you enjoyed this, click here to check out some of my other books – free ebooks available as well as print books on Amazon!

(You can also tip me on my Ko-Fi page if you’d like to support a young author!)

Chained Soul – Part Twenty-Four

Welcome back to Chained Soul, my new serialised novel that I’m releasing right here on my blog, as well as on Tapas and Wattpad. Quick warning: this series does contain strong language, so if that’s not your thing, you’re free to skip this one!

Check out Part One, including a synopsis for the whole series, here!

If you missed Part Twenty-Three, you can read that here!

Day Twenty-Four

One Of The First Non-Threatening, Non-Hate-Filled, Non-Angry Emails I’ve Got

Hi, uh… I’m not going to use the name ##### put on the website because I don’t really trust ##### to be honest, but hello anyway. I’m ##### – everyone says you won’t be able to reply, but I suppose you’re still a person on the other side of the computer, and it’s nice to have names to remember people by.

I just want you to know that lots of us out here ##### I mean, not everyone, obviously, otherwise I wouldn’t be sat here typing this out to you, but there’s still some #####. A little, but we’re here. Not everyone agrees that you should be in #####, especially not me, and everything about the ##### was so messed up. One of my friends said that she’s bets you were ##### by the ###### because you looked so tired and out of sorts on the #####.

But you probably don’t need reminding of that! I guess I wanted to bring some happiness into your ##### but I’m not doing the best job at that, sorry. Why don’t I tell you about my dog? He’s called ##### and seeing him curled up next to me every morning makes me so happy – I wish I could send you a picture or an attachment somehow, but I think text is the only thing this ancient ##### can handle…

It went on. The person, whose name was reduced to censored hashtags, talked about their dog, and their job at an advertising agency, and so many things that I can barely remember them without going back to the computer and reading through the email again. I have to rummage through the dozens of other emails that have come through since, but it’s worth it. There’s not an ounce of hate in that sender’s soul, proper pure-hearted and all that. Not like the other bored bastards who I swear are only sending me random shit and censored death threats because they have nothing better to do.

And yet I, the person in a situation with quite literally nothing to do at all, don’t have the ability to write any strongly-worded-and-censored emails back. Fucking inequality, huh.

Anyway, aside from checking on the emails – an apparently mandated task now, which I couldn’t fucking hate more – I’ve noticed something else that’s interesting. You know how in houses you get those cracks that run down the walls? You notice one in a corner one day and then suddenly they’re spreading across the ceiling and up the walls and you’re kinda scared that the room is gonna collapse down on top of you?

Well, my room’s got those. And as soon as my eyes fixed on one of them, another one appeared. And then another. And now all I can see are these bloody cracks and it would’ve just annoyed me, but then I got an idea.

I could scrape at the cracks and dig myself out, like in that movie that I must’ve watched at least once when I was a bit too young. Dig, dig, dig, and then I should come out the other side, right?

I’ve got to be tactical, though. If I go through into Helen’s room then all I’ll have done is relocated myself, but I need to get outside. I’ve seen that the room on the opposite side to Helen is just the same as hers and mine, at least in how the door looks, so I reckon my best chance is the remaining wall – obviously not the one that’s got a massive door in it.

While I’m thinking about all of this and wondering whether I should sit by the wall for a bit and listen out for any activity on the other side, there’s a knock at the door.

Conversation With Psychologist Lady

-she knocks and then lets herself in, like she always does, only this time she’s armed with a stack of papers that looks like it could be a weapon if you brought it down hard enough on someone’s head-

Her: Good morning.

Me: Is it morning?

Her: It is – you’ve not had your meal yet.

Me: The meals are actually at lunchtime?

Her: I- that’s not what I’m here to talk about. I want to have a calm, level-headed and serious discussion with you about your next steps.

Me: That sounds ominous.

-she comes to sit down on the bed next to me, and plonks the papers down on the other side of her-

Her: A place has opened up on the assessment pathway.

Me: …cool.

Her: The assessment pathway, or stage, is your ticket out of here. Your only ticket out of here.

Me: I thought you said if I fucked around I would get kicked out and sent somewhere worse?

Her: I didn’t say that exactly, thank you very much, but yes – the assessment pathway is your only option to leave the facility with your freedom. However, normally we wouldn’t dream of offering it to patients who are still experiencing their initial stages of memory loss caused by the transition into the facility.

Me: So that means me.

Her: You are very much an anomaly. None of your medical records or family history indicate anything that would lead towards complications with the process, but I suppose these things happen, and we’re just going to have to deal with that.

-she pauses here, and almost starts bristling or trembling or something, and it’s very weird seeing her all worked up-

Me: I’m getting the feeling there’s some sort of important reason that you’re trying to rush me onto this assessment bullshit and get me the fuck out of here, but you’re probably not gonna tell me what it is because of the memory shit.

Her: I couldn’t have put it better myself. I… I know this must be hard to believe when it comes from me, and especially when I can’t give you all of the information to make a proper, informed decision, but believe me, you have to take this opportunity now. There will be certain… changes made, after this latest group of patients go through the assessment stage. Out of everyone I see here, I can whole-heartedly tell you that those changes will absolutely impact you, and in my medical opinion they will be disastrous for your progress here and also your general mental wellbeing.

Me: And you promise this isn’t some shitty scare-mongering thing ‘cause you’re sick of the sight of me?

Her: I’d come up with a much better story if that was the case.

Me: That tracks. Might actually tell me something for a change.

Her: Anyway, there is no time to waste. I’ve already informed my supervisor of my recommendation for you to be put onto the pathway. Today, I need you to sit here, go through these papers, fill in the forms, and just… try to prepare yourself.

Me: Prepare myself for something that I’ve got no fucking clue about?

Her: Yes. Please. Mentally prepare yourself for the worst. The assessment might save you from a horrible time in here, but it’s no picnic itself. I’d lose my job if I told you any actual details but just try to imagine the worst case scenario and then multiply it by… by whatever number you like.

Me: So, papers, thinking about being tickled to death, and then you’ll come get me in the morning and I’m out?

Her: It’s not quite that quick. I’m hoping that if I get you into this latest group, then you might be processed out in the next few days, but it could take up to a week. The important thing is that you get out with this group, and that you’re not here when they move on to… well, the changes.

Me: Well… thanks, I guess? I think?

Her: You can thank me if you get through to the assessment, and you might not feel like thanking me after that, but I promise it’s for the best.

She left pretty soon after that. The papers were kinda shit – despite there being so many of them, half of them were censored so heavily that they’d only left in words like ‘The’ and ‘And’. Very fucking helpful.

So I moved onto the next stage of the psychologist lady’s plan: daydreaming about the worst ways I could be tortured, which means I’m probably setting myself up for the worst nightmare ever tonight.

If you enjoyed this, click here to check out some of my other books – free ebooks available as well as print books on Amazon!

(You can also tip me on my Ko-Fi page if you’d like to support a young author!)

Chained Soul – Part Twenty-Three

Welcome back to Chained Soul, my new serialised novel that I’m releasing right here on my blog, as well as on Tapas and Wattpad. Quick warning: this series does contain strong language, so if that’s not your thing, you’re free to skip this one!

Check out Part One, including a synopsis for the whole series, here!

If you missed Part Twenty-Two, you can read that here!

Day Twenty-Three

I know I can’t remember much of my life, so this statement probably doesn’t mean as much as it could do if I did have all my memories, but never in a million fucking years did I think that right now, I would be considering a digital detox in a weird prison-facility-cell-thing where I was locked away from the rest of world.

Seriously, it sounds like the stupidest thing ever. But I don’t think getting all of these emails is doing me any good, and I can’t even reply to them anyway. The sound of every notification is making me feel like one of them Pavlov dogs, salivating at the ring of a bell, and I can’t stand it. They’re just training me to be addicted to mostly garbled and nonsensical but viscerally angry messages from the outside world.

And what if they’re not actually from real people?

I’ve been thinking about that a bit today, to be honest. This might all be part of the treatment. Exposing me to the hate of supposed people from the outside world so that I buck up my ideas and act better. It could be some sort of weird psychology thing to make me want to be treated and be ‘better’ so that people don’t hate me.

I do want to stress, once again, that I think I’d be a lot more fucking receptive to their treatment if they told me what I was being treated for. Or if I remembered. Either would be great.

But anyway, that’s one of my current theories. They’re just inventing more and more nonsensical emails and sending them into my inbox, and I can’t reply because there’s no one to fucking reply to. There’s just some random staff member on the other end of the computer, or even a bunch of code from some AI thing. I wouldn’t put it past them.

Still, it’s so hard not to react to the notifications. Even if they’re not real, they’re something, just like Helen. I can’t do anything here. If I was an artsy person, maybe I could draw pictures or write angsty poetry or something. But I’m not. I just look at the paper, spill out my current thoughts in a huge mess, and then move on to the next day. I sleep, eat, write, then sleep again, with occasional trips to the barebones bog. My uniform is getting sweaty again but there’s no replacement in sight. My salt has vanished. I don’t know if Helen’s real and I don’t know if I want to hear the true answer to that problem.

Everything is somehow going even more tits-up than it already had been. You’d think that I hit rock bottom when they threw me in here, but the universe is still messing with me. All of the treatment bullshit and the weird pills and the psychologist visits are just wearing me down further and further. That’s probably what they want, but it doesn’t change the fact that I’m absolutely miserable, sitting here trying to deal with everything that they put onto me.

And there’s also the fear that one day, they’ll just forget about me. They’ll lose their funding or something, and all the staff and guards will just not show up to work one day, and they’ll leave me to rot with a cell neighbour who equally might be real or imaginary. Ain’t that a fucking depressing thought?

So yeah, today I might not look at the emails. There hasn’t been a notification yet, not since I woke up, but I haven’t eaten yet so the day can’t be too far along. I’m sure there’ll be at least one. There’s usually a landslide of them after I’ve eaten, pinging right up until I fall asleep, and sometimes I hear them in my dreams too. Ping, ping, ping, and another ping, then I wake up and there’s a little bit of peace, before another barrage comes in.

Ah – there was one. I knew it. Just one, a solitary ping, but I heard it, and my brain is moving towards the computer even though I’m keeping my body still. It’s such a fucking weird sensation, like I’m being split in two, but I’m determined not to move. I have to train this out of myself.

It’s just a digital detox, after all. And nearly every person who’s ever been on social media has tried one of those. They must all last for at least the first day – or even the first notification – right?

Notification Regarding E-Mail Privilege

Dear Patient 0619,

We have noticed a lack of activity being reported from your computer, which, as you know, is your method of communication with the outside world through your E-Mail privilege.

It’s important for you to remember that participating in your privileges is a crucial part of your treatment here. As well as attending group activity sessions, co-operating with your food schedule, and generally upholding a good standard of behaviour, you should also be regularly checking your computer.

E-Mails are not just a luxury that have been given to you. They are a necessary part of your treatment plan, which involves gradual increased exposure to the outside world. You are being monitored based on your reactions and ability to process emotions related to interactions with others. E-Mails are a safe and remote way to do this, which is why you have been granted this privilege, as well as for the recreational benefit of communication with a wide range of different people from different backgrounds.

If you persist in ignoring this privilege, then it will be taken away from you. The facility considers every privilege carefully, and they will be removed from patients who do not make full use of them and properly engage with their treatment plans.

If you are having technical difficulties with your computer, then you must bring this to the attention of a staff member as soon as possible. There may be a necessary period of seclusion while your device is checked for issues and potentially repaired or replaced.

Otherwise, you are expected to continue using your computer regularly and checking your communication from the outside world promptly. Furthermore, any attempts to alter, break, or otherwise destroy your computer will cause it to be immediately removed from your possession, and other privileges may also be stopped.

Fucking hell, they’re worse than bloody helicopter parents.

If you enjoyed this, click here to check out some of my other books – free ebooks available as well as print books on Amazon!

(You can also tip me on my Ko-Fi page if you’d like to support a young author!)

Chained Soul – Part Twenty-Two

Welcome back to Chained Soul, my new serialised novel that I’m releasing right here on my blog, as well as on Tapas and Wattpad. Quick warning: this series does contain strong language, so if that’s not your thing, you’re free to skip this one!

Check out Part One, including a synopsis for the whole series, here!

If you missed Part Twenty-One, you can read that here!

Day Twenty-Two

I managed to ignore ‘Helen’ for a good few hours today before I caved. Do you know how hard that is? Half of me thinks she’s just a figment of my imagination, which would be completely fine to ignore, but there’s still a part of me that thinks she’s a real human being behind that wall. A human being who is in the exact same shitty situation as I am. And I know how lonely it is.

I thought about her sitting there, knocking, waiting for me to respond. I wondered if she’d be worried that I was dead, so I paced around a bit and bumped against my bed to make sure that if she was real, she knew that I was alive. After that, I realised that maybe she’d think I’d injured myself or something, so I tried tapping on the computer a bit so that there’d be some other noises that proved I was okay.

Then the thought that she wasn’t real, and the memory of what psychologist lady said, came crashing down on me again, so I sat down on my bed with my back to the wall for a while. She kept knocking, but then she gave up. So we both sat in silence for a bit, or maybe just me if she’s not real. I guess I ended up taking the psychologist lady’s advice.

I sat, and behaved, and tried to think about the past.

It’s fucking difficult, though. Like, I know I’ve got snatches of memories that I haven’t really told her about, but now it’s difficult to even properly picture those. They keep changing and twisting in my mind until I can’t remember which version is the real version, unless I go back to this journal and read over what I wrote. But then I doubt myself.

If I’ve imagined an entire person living next door, then maybe I imagined the memories too, y’know? Maybe I really am crazy.

I’m sure that’s what they want me to think. I bet they’re just waiting for me to have a proper breakdown so that they can pump me full of the proper drugs that knock you out and make you sleep all the time so that you’re not a danger to anyone. They’re probably itching for an excuse. They might keep a guard outside my door at all times with a syringe cocked and loaded.

That’s probably going too far with it. But I feel like I don’t know myself anymore, and no one’s helping me out. Not even Helen.

Speaking of Helen, as I said before, I did eventually cave. I guess, even if she’s not real, she’s company. Company’s pretty much all I want right now, even if it’s just a reflection of my own brain.

Conversation With Helen

-after lots of quiet moping about, I eventually went over to the wall and knocked, and she started talking pretty quick-

Her: Robbie? Are you okay? I was worried.

Me: (feeling like the most horrible bastard in the world) Yeah, sorry, I’ve been proper tired today. Don’t know what it is.

Her: Have you stopped taking the three-a-days or something?

Me: Nah, I literally just got a warning off my psychologist lady to pack in all my ‘bad behaviour’ and do what they tell me to do.

Her: And have you been doing everything?

Me: As much as I fucking can, being locked in here. I just have to sit here and try to remember, apparently.

Her: Can you still not remember anything?

Me: Just the tiny bits and pieces. Nothing useful.

Her: I know you still won’t like hearing it, but I envy you. Not remembering is the best way to go in here.

Me: But everyone’s always fucking telling me to try and remember shit!

Her: They’re also keeping you in a tiny box, locked away from everyone and everything you’ve ever known. They’re not trying to get you to remember out of kindness.

Me: They certainly make it seem that way.

Her: And do you believe that?

Me: Not for a second. But still, my psychologist lady proper went off on one about how she wanted the best for me and all that.

Her: It’s her job to pretend to care. I bet she practiced that ‘frustrated tough love’ act a thousand times in her office before she did the final performance in front of you.

Me: I don’t know. She seemed genuine.

Her: Robbie, that’s literally her job. She’s part of the facility. She gets paid to keep you here, locked up and drugged up.

Me: Still, she’s gotta be a human underneath that white coat, right?

Her: The worst kind of human.

Me: I’d find it easier to believe you if you actually told me what was going on around here.

Her: I know. But it’s not my place to tell you about that stuff. If you have to remember, you need to do it on your own.

Me: Do you think I’ll ever remember?

Her: You probably should’ve already got way more of your memories back. It didn’t take me as long as it’s taking you. Maybe they’re giving you different medications or something. It would make sense, after all.

Me: What? Why would that make sense? You know barely anything about me. Fuck, I know barely anything about me!

Her: Nevermind. Look, I don’t know exactly what they’re giving you, or if you’re going to have a radically different treatment to me. I don’t really know anything. I’m just locked up in here, the same as you.

Me: Yeah, I know. I’m sorry if it feels like I’m grilling you. I guess I’m just… I don’t know, frustrated? Angry? Confused? Everything is a lot.

Her: I know, Robbie.

Me: And I don’t know who to believe. Maybe that psychologist lady is getting too deep into my head.

Her: Just try to remember what matters to you. Try to hold onto the few memories that you have. As long as you keep some semblance of yourself to yourself in here, you should be able to keep going. That’s all I’ve been doing, anyway.

Even if she’s not real, Helen’s a fucking good person to have a conversation with.

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Chained Soul – Part Twenty-One

Welcome back to Chained Soul, my new serialised novel that I’m releasing right here on my blog, as well as on Tapas and Wattpad. Quick warning: this series does contain strong language, so if that’s not your thing, you’re free to skip this one!

Check out Part One, including a synopsis for the whole series, here!

If you missed Part Twenty, you can read that here!

Day Twenty-One

I suppose it was only a matter of time before the psychologist lady came back, with this new computer thing going on. If I was in their shoes – well, first of all, if I was in their shoes then I would’ve released me already, but that’s neither here nor there – then I’d want to check on the wellbeing of someone who’d just been reintroduced to how horrible the rest of the human population can be.

Part of me is surprised that it took her so long to show up. Maybe the cost of the computer meant that they had to cut her hours so they wouldn’t go bankrupt or something. I don’t know. I wouldn’t care if they sacked her.

Well, maybe I would. There’s always the chance that they could find someone worse out there, and hire them for less money, so they give even less of a shit about doing a good job. Grass is never greener and all that.

Still, she showed up today, anyway. I was just sitting on my bed, listening for the pings and minding my own business, when I heard her knocking on the door. I didn’t bother getting up. Not much point in being polite in here, really, so why bother?

Besides, I’ve got to conserve my energy in case I spontaneously think of an amazing escape plan. Believing that there’s a possibility of getting away keeps my hopes up and all that, makes sure I don’t go off the deep end and start catastrophising and generally being a more of a miserable sod than I already am.

Conversation With Psychologist Lady

-she came right in after knocking on the door, no hesitation whatsoever, and stood in the middle of the room, looking at the computer like it was the first time she’d ever seen such a thing, and I was still looking at it too, so we both just sorta existed in silence for a few seconds before she kinda woke up and looked at me-

Her: Hello, Robin. Are you enjoying your new privilege?

Me: What the fuck is there to enjoy? Your censoring thingy is shit, by the way. I can tell when people are mad at me.

Her: The censoring is in place to shield you from any profanity or anything that would harm your recovery.

Me: Recovery from fucking what, though?

Her: You know I can’t just tell you that, Robin. We’ve been over this by this stage.

Me: Well, now I know half the country seems to hate my guts for some reason, and I’ve got kids emailing me about their favourite animals and all. Do you have any sort of quality control for that thing?

Her: It is intended to allow you to communicate with the outside world.

Me: You seem to have missed some lessons on communication – it’s meant to be a two-way thing, not just people screaming at me.

Her: I’m sure not everyone is screaming at you, Robin.

Me: (waving at the computer) Go on, look through them yourself. Try and find one that’s not nonsense or absolutely furious at me.

Her: I already have access to your communication files, Robin, and I’ve viewed a sample of the emails that you have been sent.

Me: Did the sample include the primary school essay on animals? Because I think that really was the shining star of the bunch.

Her: Robin, please be serious. Has any of the communication helped you to remember anything else about before you came here?

Me: No. Why would it? No one who I know has been emailing me, I don’t think. It’s just random strangers. How the fuck are they even getting the email address for that thing, anyway?

Her: You have been added to the facility’s website. It’s a public service.

Me: I feel like I should have got some sort of say in that. Privacy and all that.

Her: Officially, you have revoked your right to privacy by undergoing treatment here.

Me: … You’re not being serious, are you?

Her: I know you don’t remember the trial, but everything was laid out quite plainly for you, and you did choose to accept treatment, Robin.

Me: The trial? You never mentioned a fucking trial before!

Her: I’m sorry, I shouldn’t be disturbing your memory retrieval process. It’s important that you recover your recollections of your past experiences naturally, in order to avoid any potential states of shock or other adverse side effects.

Me: I fucking demand to know what’s going on, right now! You might as well tell me – one of these emails is going to get something to slip past your stupid censors, and then I’ll figure it out!

Her: I can assure you, they will not. Those emails are heavily screened for your own safety and wellbeing.

Me: Well then what’s the fucking point of giving me the computer in the first place? It’s basically a brick that tells me that people hate me but refuses to tell me why, except that I’m apparently a burden on the tax-payers.

Her: Your treatment is being funded by the state, so that is correct.

Me: … So now you’re calling me a burden for being put through treatment that I don’t want after being kidnapped?

Her: For the last time, Robin, you were not kidnapped. You came here voluntarily. Your memory loss has been the worst case that we’ve seen after the induction process into the facility, and some of my colleagues don’t even believe that you’re actually experiencing amnesia. I have had to vouch for you time and time again and persuade other professionals that you deserve to stay in the treatment process. Sometimes, it seems like you’re doing well, and then I come into work and hear reports of you screaming and banging on the walls, talking to imaginary people who aren’t there and generally making an absolute nuisance of yourself. If everyone wasn’t distracted by the more outwardly violent patients, you would have been dropped from the program in a heartbeat.

Me: So I can leave? All of this time you’ve been keeping me here and convincing people to keep me here but – I can leave?

Her: Not in the way you think. You will not walk out of here as a free person. The alternative is not something that I’d recommend.

Me: But what is it? Like, if it’s here or prison, then no offence but I’m starting to think prison would be better. At least they have actual outdoor time. And visitation. And phones. And better food.

Her: I am not at liberty to tell you right now, because that would violate the protocols regarding your amnesia. However, I can assure you that this facility is the best option for you. It is the safest place for you to currently be in, throughout the entire country. We are performing state-of-the-art, cutting-edge research and have developed a rigorous assessment process and outpatient system that will ensure your wellbeing and safety even after you leave the core facility. If I were you, I would do my damndest to sit here, behave, and try to remember on your own, because no one else is going to give you the answers.

She left a bit after that. I’ve sorta been doing what she said to – just sitting and thinking. But now part of me is dreading hearing Helen on the other side of the wall, because it didn’t feel like she was bluffing just now. That was some proper, frustrated, from-the-heart sorta stuff.

And that means that Helen isn’t even fucking real.

If you enjoyed this, click here to check out some of my other books – free ebooks available as well as print books on Amazon!

(You can also tip me on my Ko-Fi page if you’d like to support a young author!)

Chained Soul – Part Twenty

Welcome back to Chained Soul, my new serialised novel that I’m releasing right here on my blog, as well as on Tapas and Wattpad. Quick warning: this series does contain strong language, so if that’s not your thing, you’re free to skip this one!

Check out Part One, including a synopsis for the whole series, here!

If you missed Part Nineteen, you can read that here!

Day Twenty

I’m starting to remember all that shit that people used to say about kids and iPads. It sounds stupid, but I actually think they might be onto something. Give a little toddler access to the whole entire world on a rubber-encased slate of metal and they might just go off wandering into it and never come back.

I know that’s not true, to be fair. I know parental controls exist and all that. What am I doing talking about kids, anyway, when I don’t have any?

Well, the only truth to it is that I kinda feel like the kid who’s been given the iPad, except mine is a huge ATM-looking thing and the parental controls are on steroids. I don’t get all the funny little Youtube videos about cartoon animals and floating fruit and all that.

Instead, there are pings, and then there is me jumping up and running across the room – as best I can, given how fucking tiny it is – to wrangle the machine into showing me the newest email. Some of them are complete nonsense, rendered completely incoherent by the censoring, which must be working overtime.

I have a theory that they’ve gone overboard on that too, because some words are appearing half-censored and giving me a sneaky suspicion that their system isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be.

For example, I have this one, which I can only guess actually was sent by one of those iPad kids who’s just been taught a shit ton of animals in their nursery class:

‘The Animals Email’

hi Robbin!! u hav a animel name and i do too! My name is ##### what is yours? I like doggs and cats and cows and sheep and especialy burds like robins. The wurld has lots of burds like crows and owls and blue ##### and coal ##### and grate ##### and there’s big burds like emus and ostriches and even fancy pea#####!!!! please tell me your favorrite burds and your favorrite animels and also what you like to eat I like choclat and sweets and pizza and also will you be my friend??

That was… somewhat enlightening, I suppose. It brightened my day a bit, compared to the absolute rubbish that’s been coming through the inbox. Now that I’ve got it, part of me wishes I didn’t have it.

I’ve gathered that some people seem to quite strongly dislike me, through no fault of my own (I assume) as I still have no idea what I did to end up in here. I’ve also figured out that, unfortunately, this whole place is probably above board, at least in terms of existing, with how much people are referencing taxes and all of that.

I mean, surely I should be the most pissed about that? I used to pay taxes. I had a job. So theoretically, my taxes are being used to keep me in here, and I don’t fucking want to be in here! If they all hate me so much, which is very much what I’m picking up the vibe of, then they should be happy that just a small donation of their taxes is keeping me miserable in a little box.

I don’t know. I feel like I’m going insane again. Nothing from Helen today. Just pinging. I can’t even hear the footsteps from the corridor outside any more. My brain has replaced everything with silence or pinging. Long, excruciating stretches of nothing, while my ears are primed and ready to hear the ping – then a rush of excitement, even though I know, by now, that excitement is really the wrong feeling – and then disappointment as I have to wade through hashtags and people being quite confused about whether my name is Robin or not, just to decipher that it’s more confusing hatemail.

Maybe I’m a minor celebrity or something. But then why would I be working in a supermarket?

At least everyone else seems to be puzzled by the name, like me. Something that made a bit of sense, when I was thinking about it, was whether people might think I’m in witness protection or something. They change your name for that, don’t they? So maybe everyone thinks I did something horrible but I’m being protected by the government for it.

Like, I hope they’re wrong. But all of this communication has been pretty useless for actually giving me any real answers for all of the questions I have. All I know for certain is that some kid out there really likes animals, and can’t spell for shit.

This place must also be pretty rubbish at communicating to anyone, not just me, since everyone seems to assume that I’ll be able to reply to their messages. I’ve scoured the admittedly very basic computer and all of the buttons, and there’s nothing that seems like a ‘reply’ button.

It’s weird, because the presence of a keyboard implies that I should be able to type things out, and I could type in the sign-in details and everything, but why would I not be able to reply to people?

Privacy issues, maybe. I don’t know. Maybe I’m so dangerous that I can murder people through emails. That’d be kinda funny, and also pretty terrifying. ‘The Psychic Email Murderer’ – I can already see the headlines. If that was the case, then people would be right to dislike me, but I also think it would be wonderfully stupid for this place to then give me a computer with emails on it. What if the mere sight of an email sent me into a psychotic break or something?

Well, nothing they’ve ever done has seemed like a good idea to me, including locking me in here in the first place, so perhaps that would just be on-brand. Who gives a fuck?

In conclusion, my new privilege sucks and is completely pointless, but what else should I have really expected from a place where salt is considered a fucking delicacy?

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Chained Soul – Part Nineteen

Welcome back to Chained Soul, my new serialised novel that I’m releasing right here on my blog, as well as on Tapas and Wattpad. Quick warning: this series does contain strong language, so if that’s not your thing, you’re free to skip this one!

Check out Part One, including a synopsis for the whole series, here!

If you missed Part Eighteen, you can read that here!

Day Nineteen

I’m fully aware that this isn’t actually ‘day nineteen’. They didn’t want to stop at stealing all of my liberties and freedoms from me, so they decided to continue by taking my time from me as well, and then didn’t even fucking tell me about it.

I’ll try to calm down so that I can explain. Basically, I woke up this morning, thinking that it should be day nineteen – and that’s not even a true day nineteen, because I only started counting from when they gave me a pen and paper. But anyway, it should have been day nineteen.

Except I woke up on the floor, so there was obviously something wrong there.

I never wake up on the floor. They’ve given me a bed, despite how fucking bare bones and basic it is, so I use it. I use every tiny little thing they give me. So when I woke up staring at the bed inside of being in it, I naturally got a bit concerned. The pounding headache didn’t help either, although I’ve taken the three-a-days since and that’s helped a bit.

So when I rolled over on the floor, which I wasn’t supposed to be on in the first place and I definitely didn’t fall asleep on, and then saw a huge fucking antique-looking computer unit in my room, I knew what had happened straight away.

I remembered the letter. The sedation and seclusion shit. See, I was optimistic enough to hope that they’d give me some sort of warning for when that was about to happen. I didn’t think that the letter was going to be the warning. So now I’ve got another hole in my memory, when I already had plenty of those, and the uncomfortable knowledge that I was man-handled to some degree while I was unconscious.

Or man-handled while I was conscious. I can’t remember the sedation at all. For all I know, they could’ve pumped gas into my room or held me down on the floor while they stuck a syringe in my neck. I have no fucking idea, and I hate that feeling – the not knowing. They’re just ripping chunks of my brain from me, for no fucking reason.

I didn’t touch the computer-looking thing until I’d taken my three-a-days and my headache calmed down. I might not remember much, but I know that screens do nothing good to headaches. But when I was ready, I went over and looked at it for a bit.

I wasn’t ready to touch it straight away. I mean, my room has been the exact same for at least nineteen days straight. No new furniture or anything like that, just some more bits of paper piling up and a food tray that makes an appearance once a day. So it was eerie to have this whole thing just appear there – even now, it’s standing there like it’s always been here, and I just detest the atmosphere that it has.

To describe it for you, it actually looks more like one of the old ATMs that they had back when a couple of people still used cash. They’re just gaping holes in the sides of buildings that used to be physical banks now, but I vaguely remember standing next to my mum when she used one once, when I was a small child. It’s not much of a memory, but it sprung up in my mind as best it could as soon as I laid eyes on the thing.

There’s a screen on it, probably so thick that I couldn’t punch through it even if I tried – and I bet they planned for that – and a keyboard that looks like something out of the really old sci-fi movies. No touch screen, like. I had to press one of the buttons to make the screen light up, but it was stuck as a plain black rectangle for ages before it decided to display some text. ‘E-Mail Privilege Computer’ in big, blocky white letters. Very inventive of them.

After that, I hit the space key and the enter key a couple of times, and it finally loaded up a login page. I put in the details that I got with that letter, and then got stuck on a loading screen for a tortuously long time. Part of me was hoping that it would display the time when I finally logged in, like you’d expect it to do, but no such luck.

The desktop was just the same black rectangle as the boot-up screen, with a single icon in the middle of it: ‘E-Mail’. Again, very inventive. However, while I was trying to figure out which button actually opened the stupid email thing (no mouse or trackpad, obviously, because that would make it too easy), the whole computer made a quiet ‘ping’ noise.

It was odd, because it was quiet in terms of volume, but the thing must have speakers all over it because it seemed to come from all sides of it at once. I was a little spooked, but then, after a few minutes, the screen blinked and the E-Mail icon had a little red bubble next to it. No number, as you’d expect, but I knew what that meant.

I had mail.

First E-Mail, After An Embarrassingly Long Time Spent Working Out That ‘E’ Opens The E-Mail Application

Hello “Robin”, if that’s even your real name,

I hope you’re very happy with yourself. You ##### are all the same. I hope you’re making lots of friends in the ##### who are just as ##### as you are. I can’t believe that taxpayers’ money is being spent on ##### when the country is on its knees as it is. I hope they change the ##### so that you can all just be ##### instead. It’s all #####. I don’t know why I’m even writing to you. You don’t know me, but your ##### and the way you ##### was the last straw for me. It’s unbelievable. I don’t know what the world has come to. I just saw the ##### and I had to say something – now that you’re finally not #####, I hope you come to your senses and realise what you’re doing to ##### and #####. It might be too late for your #####, but at least you can ##### in peace.

Regards,

#####

I honestly don’t know whether to be confused, offended, or just happy that I’ve secured a line of communication to the outside world, albeit a heavily redacted one. I hate everything about this place, and it all reeks of shadiness and malpractice (if they’re even medical or psychological professionals to begin with!), so I’ll take an angry outside world over this fucked up one in here any day.

If you enjoyed this, click here to check out some of my other books – free ebooks available as well as print books on Amazon!

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Chained Soul – Part Eighteen

Welcome back to Chained Soul, my new serialised novel that I’m releasing right here on my blog, as well as on Tapas and Wattpad. Quick warning: this series does contain strong language, so if that’s not your thing, you’re free to skip this one!

Check out Part One, including a synopsis for the whole series, here!

If you missed Part Seventeen, you can read that here!

Day Eighteen

Fuck me, it’s been a hell of a day. I don’t really know why they decided to just not give me food yesterday, but the slop came with both salt and something else extra today – well, a couple of things. I’ll try to explain, even though it still all feels like a weird blur.

So, I was hanging around by the door, waiting for them to put the food through. I was getting close to the point of banging on the door again, but it did finally come through. Slop, tiny packet of salt, and an envelope. They don’t usually deliver any sort of letters with the food – fuck, if you can even call it food – so I was intrigued, obviously. I don’t get much to focus on in here.

So I ate the slop, which I didn’t even mind being slop considering how hungry I was, and then after I was finished with that awful stuff, I opened the envelope, and there were a couple of bits of paper inside. It was the handwritten one that I grabbed first – barely anything is handwritten in here; it’s basically just this journal. Everything else is typed.

Handwritten Letter

Dear Robin,

I hope that you’re doing well. I’ve missed you terribly. They haven’t really told me much. I can’t believe that — (here, a bunch of lines had been redacted, not even subtly – it was like someone had gone over it with a black marker) — but I guess that doesn’t matter now. I’m sorry that I used your — (more redacted lines) — but I want you to know that I do remember, I promise, and I would never purposefully hurt you like that.

I don’t know if you’ll be able to reply to this letter, so I suppose I should try and say everything that you might ask about. I’m well, and I’m still working at — (more redacted lines) — and I haven’t mentioned this to anyone, just for your own privacy. They’re not publicising the — (redacted word) — which I guess is kind of shady in itself, but at least it saves you the embarrassment of all of this nonsense being public. I’m not any closer to getting you — (more redacted lines) — but I won’t stop trying, I promise. I was hoping there’d be some sort of loophole related to your — (redacted words) — but they seem to have it all under pretty tight control. I don’t know what more I’d expect from — (redacted word) — I guess it’s too much to hope for common decency.

I hope they’re treating you well. They promised me it isn’t a prison, so I guess you’ll have some freedom in there. I don’t like that they won’t let me visit; it doesn’t feel right. If you can, will you please try to reply to this letter? Don’t get yourself in trouble, of course, but it would be amazing to know for certain that you’re alright.

Anyway, I’ll stop rambling now. I love you, — (redacted word) — and I hope that this all gets sorted out soon so you can come home.

With love,

Mum.

That was a whirlwind to get through. I cried a couple times, I won’t lie. It took me a few minutes to even remember that there were other papers with the letter, and part of me hoped they were other things from my mum. Typed letters, maybe, if they hadn’t been letting her send me things for a while.

But, weirdly enough, the second paper I picked up just had a username and password on it. A shit username and a shit password, but it did seem a bit strange. But then I looked at the third and final piece of paper that had been in the envelope – the envelope itself was just a plain white one with nothing on it, so that didn’t have anything interesting about it.

Notification Regarding E-Mail Privilege

Dear Patient 0619,

Congratulations! You have co-operated with the treatment process so far, and your nominated psychological care coordinator has advised to proceed with your care plan to the next stage.

Along with this letter, you may have received communication from a family member or friend. If you have not, then this may be given to you at a later date. All communication is carefully reviewed by our team in order to ensure that your care is not compromised by outside information or any harmful material, so please do not be alarmed by any changes to the original text.

As well as this communication, you will soon be given access to a computer in your room. This computer will be able to receive E-Mails from people outside of the facility, but you will not be able to respond to these E-Mails. These communications will also be reviewed and edited accordingly by our team to ensure that your care under us is not compromised.

The purpose of this privilege is to prepare you for re-entry into the outside world. We feel that you can benefit from viewing communication from members of the public who volunteer their time to send well-wishes and other messages to you and other patients in this facility. Further privileges will be granted to you according to your progress with your treatment, until you are able to achieve a standard of behaviour that is compatible with living outside of the facility.

We ask for your patience during this time, as you may need to undergo sedation and/or temporary seclusion while your room is provided with the necessary renovations for this privilege. Further instructions may be given to you by your nominated psychological care coordinator.

I don’t know what the fuck all of that means except that I get a computer, I guess? I don’t know who the fuck is gonna send me emails, or why they’re gonna do that, or what the emails are gonna be like, but I guess it’s something?

One step closer to the outside, I suppose. But I do not like the sound of that sedation or seclusion shit. Still, I feel like I’m not gonna get much of a choice in all of this.

If you enjoyed this, click here to check out some of my other books – free ebooks available as well as print books on Amazon!

(You can also tip me on my Ko-Fi page if you’d like to support a young author!)

Chained Soul – Part Seventeen

Welcome back to Chained Soul, my new serialised novel that I’m releasing right here on my blog, as well as on Tapas and Wattpad. Quick warning: this series does contain strong language, so if that’s not your thing, you’re free to skip this one!

Check out Part One, including a synopsis for the whole series, here!

If you missed Part Sixteen, you can read that here!

Day Seventeen

No psychologist today. That’s not too much of an announcement, I know, since she doesn’t show up every day, but there’s been a whole lot of nothing today. No one’s knocked on the door, obviously, so there’s something. Or nothing, I guess. There’s also been nothing from Helen. I can’t even hear any signs of life from the other side of the wall. No movement, nothing.

But the main thing – the one thing that I’m actually bothered about (not that I’m not bothered about not hearing Helen, but it’s not like it’s unusual for her to go a couple days at a time without making much noise) – is that there’s been no slop today. No salt either, so I guess that privilege is out, but I’m not really that bothered about that. It made the stuff tolerable at best, but I’ve been shovelling it down for a while now, so we’re past the point of tolerable meaning anything.

I don’t know why there’s been none. It’s not like they sent me a letter or anything announcing that my ‘food privilege’ was revoked altogether. Even in here, I don’t think they can do that. I hope not, anyway. Even if they’ve gotten rid of all of my other human rights, food is sort of essential to life and all that. I can chug down water from the sink next to the toilet all I want, but that’s not gonna keep me breathing forever.

How long can someone even last without food anyway? Not that I want to find out. I know it’s longer without water, so I guess I should count myself lucky until they shut that off as well.

Maybe the whole place is finally struggling to sustain itself, and food got reduced first. To be fair, they didn’t even give me any sort of uniform until recently. That would make sense if they don’t have enough money to even clothe the people they kidnap. From what I can tell, this place is pretty big. All the fencing I saw when they let me go outside for a minute must’ve cost something to put there, and I bet there must be at least a hundred staff out there, just counting the ones I’ve seen. Who knows how many other corridors and rooms this place has?

If they spent all the money on building it and putting people in stupid white coats and all that shit they truss up the guards in, then maybe there’s nothing left now. What happens when some freaky facility runs out of money? They’ve gotta release everyone at some point, right?

Or maybe they’ll leave me in here to rot. I can still hear footsteps outside in the corridor, so I know I’ve not been completely abandoned yet. The three-a-days showed up as well, so that’s something else. I guess they still have enough money to medicate me – or maybe that’s more important than feeding me.

Am I really some sort of dangerous criminal being kept in here for everyone else’s good? I wasn’t taking those pills at the start, and I haven’t exactly been tearing up the place, so that must mean something. There again, I guess I did bang on the door and scream a ton at them, so maybe they do think I’m crazy. I couldn’t blame them if they were making that assessment from just seeing me like that.

But how else was I meant to react? I just woke up here. They didn’t exactly have an information booklet or anything like that to tell me why I’d actually been thrown in here. I just woke up to these walls and knew that whatever happened must have been really fucking bad. But surely if it was that bad, then I’d remember it? I could be suppressing it, I guess. Like trauma or something.

I wish that psychologist lady would actually get up to that point in the stupid ‘talking therapy’ if that’s case. Or maybe they’re afraid of me turning into some big fucking monster or something when I find out, like a werewolf or whatever the fuck else does that. It’s not like anything is normal in here. I guess it’s not completely stupid to think that extends to me too.

Still, it’s probably more likely that they’re the nutjobs and I’m just some unlucky bastard that they chose to subject to their stupid fucking treatment. If this was official, I’d see something that I recognised in here, I’m sure of it. Some sort of logo on a lanyard – or a fucking lanyard to begin with! I know what hospitals look like, or at least I think I do. There’d be something normal in here.

Like why didn’t the psychologist lady introduce herself by her name? I’m sure that if this was normal, she’d have been ‘Miss Something’ or ‘Mrs Something’. But that would actually make sense, and nothing in this fucking place makes sense.

The food is like something out of a really bad sci-fi movie, the vagueness is like some weird mystery film that not even the director understands the plot of, and the people are just… I don’t know. Helen doesn’t have a face, the guards are all pretty much silent and the psychologist lady is about as useful as a… I don’t know, as useful as the door slot that only delivers slop.

I don’t know. Maybe I’m just rambling because I’m hungry. When your body gets used to receiving food – if you can even call the slop food – at a certain point every day, even when you have no fucking idea what time of day it is, you can feel the shift instantly. My stomach’s been growling loud enough that I’m sure Helen can hear it, and probably everyone else that they’ve got locked up in here too.

And those stupid people in the corridor outside. If they need a louder alarm clock to tell them to actually do their fucked up jobs, then maybe they’re somehow not even qualified to work in this mess of a place – I don’t know how someone can fall so low in life.

It’s just as unlikely as me ending up here, I guess, so maybe it actually makes a little bit of sense that they’re that bad, when I’m this unlucky.

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