I'll peck your eyes out

“So I can get out of here and my parents will come back for me” Jess said, gently scratching her teddy’s fur to calm herself down “I don’t want to change it, to end up in isolation again cos that sucks”

“You just need to be sneaky about it. And in all honesty, you’d be better off without anyone holding you down. A person that has nothing to lose is a powerful person with nothing standing in their way.”

“Dunno, some random guy” she said, not having known the guy before “He just annoyed me and so, but I’ll try not to do it again. I want to be a good girl”

“Why would you want to be a good girl? If you were to let yourself be mean, you wouldn’t get people like him annoying you all the time. You’d really benefit from changing your behaviour and mindset, really.” Alexandra leaned back, crossing her arms over her chest.

“He was teasing me, saying mean stuff, so i bit him. Then the nurse got mad and put me in isolation” Jess shrugged, she used to have a habit of biting people as self defence, though it had been under control recently a bad mood combining with the situation had set her off

Alexandra nodded at her every word, impressed with the girl who had always seem so child like. She even gave her a set of three claps following her tale “Who’s he though?”

“I just got out of the isolation place cos I bit someone, but it wasn’t my fault he was being all annoying and teasing me! He hurt me too!”

“Feisty I see! Tell me, what happened?” Alexandra leaned on her elbows closer to the girl.

“You’re upset, and I understand, you have every right to be angry, I would be too if I was in your position, but getting angry with me isn’t going to help you or get you out of here any faster.  Cooperation is going to be your friend.” 

Alexandra felt a pain in her chest. She had just made the mistake of showing how she felt. The woman had read her expressions, though anyone would’ve figured that out, Alex had let herself go. After the woman’s words washed over her, it removed any traits of countenance on her face. “I don’t believe in friendship. Only partnerships, simply to benefit one another. No one needs a friend, and those who do are merely weaklings unable to move along the path of death by themselves and should be whipped out by natural selection.” 

Sam felt her face fall, but she quickly perked herself back up, “I don’t know how things have been around here lately, but I’m not going to stand for any of that now. You’re going to start meeting with with me tomorrow, I refuse to believe that anyone here, or anywhere, is a lost cause. You’re here so we can help you, and I’ll do whatever I can to help you.  You have my word.”

Alexandra felt a flood of disgust swoop over her, distorting her face in an ugly grimace “Don’t even dream of it lady. I’m fine just the way I am. The only reason I’m here are my selfish parents. And the cops. If it were up to me, I’d be back in the streets doing what I do best.” 

“ THAT DOES NOT sound too promising… ARE THEY ALLOWED to do such a discontinued practice? ”

“Oh yea they are. As long as they are a certified psych ward, they get to do whatever they judge necessary for the patient’s recovery, no matter how unethical it may be. It’s actualyl quite common, they just have better materials than back in the days, that’s it.”

“I understand your hesitation, I really do,” Sam said, “but when you’re not in a session, there’s no reason we can’t just have a conversation.  I’m here to help, and this will be a bit easier on everyone if we get to know each other better.  I’m not here to judge you, just to help.” 

Alexandra gave a loud snort that came out scrapping her respiratory tube “As if. You think we don’t know you guys talk about us in unprofessional manners? We might be crazy but we’re not stupid.” She crossed her arms over her chest in a defensive way “Why else would I have never had a single therapy session since I’ve arrived? Oh wait, there is another possible answer to that. Because you guys can’t be bothered to try with the lost cases.”

“ IS THIS SERIOUSLY the place they have sent me? It looks…. vacant.. “

“And you’ve seen nothing yet. Half of the staff are in the basement doing electrotherapy to some of the more fucked up patients. Don’t worry, they’ll come out of hiding soon.”

“I am.” Margo replied. “I got here about five days ago, give or take a bit. It’s weird in here. It almost feels like time slows down and speeds up randomly. I don’t know if that sounds crazy or not, but I mean, we are in a psych ward, so I suppose crazy is relative.”

A faint chuckle escaped her lips, less than a week. She had barely spent a week here and she was probably going to spend a few more months, just like the others were doomed to “We don’t yet have a staff that manages to bend the timeline. It’s drug induced. I wouldn’t be surprised if half of the patients became paranoid with a sprinkle of schizophrenia. They really manage to make us feel trapped and watched. Though I have noticed a recent lack of night watches, which is always good news for me.”

Alexandra gave her a small shrug “Perhaps you should look into it, you could definitely use it.” She reached behind herself and grabbed the pencil she had left on the table, while constantly maintaining eye contact. She began tapping its end on her leg to the rhythm of a song she played in the back of her mind “Well clearly fatter than you are now..” As her grin stretched on her lips, a strand of hair swooped and settled across her face, breaking her mad smile by a fine blonde filament “Really? That’s not what I heard. I heard the doctors have added you on the watch of eating disorders. Honestly, it’ll do you good. You’ll get to eat whatever you want, and still loose weight. Plus you’ll be getting that attention you seem to so desperately want.”

Alexandra gave a small chuckle “I don’t like giving this honour but I do need to be able to identify possible future victims.” She grinned, a spark of malice in her eyes “I’m Alex.” she answered raising an eyebrow, a hint of challenge in her voice. She stood up and walked around the table, slowly making her way to him “Tell me Logan, what brings you here?” She leaned on her elbows, cupping delicately her face in her palms, her gaze fixed on him.

“Do you think that the staff even care anymore?”

“Implying that they cared before?”

“Well the last time I saw you, you were ready to punch me so.” She said. “You seem fairly calmer this time.” She pointed out shrugging. “Yeah we met. But obviously you don’t remember, I’m Marli.”

Alexandra had set her pencil down, her eyes were fixated on the girl as she tried to recollect the memory of that event, though everything seemed to just blend together nowadays “Doctors got me drugged up. Can’t say I’m disliking it. Free high.” She gave a small chuckle that resonated through her diaphragm like a gentle wave “Yea, sounds like something I’d do.” Another chuckle came tickling her insides “I’ll try to remember you for next time. I’m Alex.”

Alexandra didn’t look up to see which body the voice belonged to, though she could definitely feel it radiating a different type of energy than she was used to feeling from the other patients. “Who are you?” she finally asked after having received what she had asked for, pushing herself away from the table and stretching, at last setting her eyes on the boy.

“Oh hunny, I’m worth it alright?!” A feeling she had missed in the past weeks came rushing back to her, cutting her lips in her usual smirk “So tell me, how’s bulimia been going for you? Done you any good? You definitely look slimmer!” she looked at Cordelia up and down with an eagle eye “You look pale as fuck though. Been enclosing yourself in your little puke house? Must be alienating from your usual marble cold house. Just like your heart.”

“Personally, I’d like to stay out of both psychiatric hospitals and jails. Not that I’d have a reason to go to jail…” Eli thought out loud, wondering what prison was like. “No one gets stabbed or raped in jail in real life, unless they do something to deserve it or provoke someone. I think the prisons in England are safer, there’s places where people can go for petty crimes and get rehabilitated afterwards.”

“I’d like to prove you wrong but lucky for me I have a ‘get out of jail’ card. My uncle was arrested, more than once, though he’s got enough money to only spend a few minutes in there and then freedom is his again.” She gave a small shrug “Funny how things work, huh? Letting the wealthy bastards roam the streets while the poor innocents are forced to pay other people’s crimes with their own lives.”