First Gate (part 1)

It was a sad case, really. Left here to rot by some frigid family, cornered in a room and given pills forcibly every day. No hope of ever being released into the outside world, of being normal, of being cured. It didn’t help that no one really knew how long that patient had been in the hospital; it seemed that those records were purged ten years ago, when they had all been moved into a digital database. Though the older staff told the doctor as much; that she had been there since childhood… since what age was debatable.

There were a plethora of things wrong, and many things that had left her unbalanced. Dissociative personality disorder-most likely some form of sexual abuse as a child- bi polar disorder, manic depressive, schizophrenia, and hints of an underlying sociopathic tendency. She was on more pills than he could count and took at least twenty every day to keep all the disorders in check. To keep her grounded. To keep her… compliant was a good word. Really, he had never seen her off of her medications before; some dark part of him was curious what something that unhinged would look like completely set free.

Dr. Charles Yamamoto was the new West Wing head psychologist; still catching up to what each patient needed and what was required for all of them. As he was, indeed, the head doctor of the department, that meant that he was in charge of patient number 423-A.

Isabelle. No last name. She wouldn’t tell them more than that before she started shutting down again.

So as she shifted in the chair across from him, he was watching acutely. She was staring out the window, her eyes dark amber and blotched like a soiled sun, her hair stringy and greasy from lack of washing. Her hands were small and wrapped within bindings of gauze, red seeping through here and there to form a lace patterned stained. Her nails were ravaged from both gnawing and clawing and had a black substance beneath what little surface remained. She also stank to high heaven because the staff couldn’t get her to actually wash; they were lucky if they managed to get her under the damn shower head.

It had been twenty minutes of this quiet staring. He pursed his lips when, yet again, her shoulder twitched, a sporadic movement in an otherwise catatonic frame. Clearing his throat, Dr. Yamamoto leaned forward and splayed his hands out on the tabletop.

“Isabelle, can you hear me?” It was a foolish question. He knew that she could. When all that happened was a blink, he frowned. “Do you know why you’re here?”

Again, nothing. Though, if his eyes weren’t deceiving him, there was a small scowl pulling at the sides of her lips.

He flipped open her file with a flick of his wrist and stared down at what little information had been gleaned or salvaged over the last ten years. “Do you know your last name?”

She startled him by turning her gaze towards him from the corner of her eye. It was deadpan, as if he had just said something wrong, though her face was still blank and void of emotion. Isabelle licked her lips slowly before once more facing fully to the outside. The rays of the sun fell across her small, incredibly pale body. Her face was growing increasingly sallow, her cheeks sinking in and her eyes becoming glassier as the days went by.

“Have you been eating well lately? You’ve become thin,” Charles asked blandly.

“Yes.”

The first verbal response all day. He glanced over the rim of his squared glasses with an expression of surprise. He had thought today would be like the previous four; one-sided and uneventful. Maybe he could get a few sentences out of her this time.

“What did you have for lunch?” Engaging, but still neutral enough to hold her attention. Isabelle was a delicate one. She could wall in just as quickly as she could explode outwards.

“Chicken. It tasted weird…”

Ah, so the patient didn’t like lemon chicken. Scribbling down the note in her file, he began to mull over other possible questions that she might answer. Finishing the sharp scrawl of his fountain pen, he sat back and regarded the woman again.

“Did you not like it? I can make it so that you don’t have that particular chicken dish again.”

She twitched again, this time a tendon in her neck. It bulged, thick and tight, against the tiny column of her throat. The room felt heavy for a moment, as if she were thinking coherently, rather than boarding the runaway train that he knew existed in her skull.

“No. Too…” she trailed off, and Yamamoto knew not to expect the end of that sentence.

Minutes ticked by while the doctor and patient felt each other out in the silence.

Slam! Her hand suddenly slapped down onto the wooden desk. He would have jumped if he hadn’t reflexively reminded himself who he was in the presence of. Isabelle was one of the worst catatonic-type schizophrenics he had seen in his whole career. She was textbook in her inconsistency.

“They took it away,” she suddenly whispered under her breath. It was raspy and gravely, as if she had just gotten done screaming over and over, for hours. He wouldn’t be surprised if she had.

He leaned forward, his brows furrowing. “Who took what away?”

“Window. It’s dirty.”

The abrupt change of topic grated on him. The young doctor flicked a gaze towards his window, which overlooked the institute grounds. It had been cleaned yesterday and it shimmered in the rays of the golden, yet icy sun. White snow blanketed the vast landscape, and it never failed that when he had a therapy session with the woman before him, she would stare listlessly outward. She had said once, a few years ago, under the previous Head, that she liked to look outside.

“Is the window in your room dirty?”

It felt as if she was indirectly staring at him. It always went like this. She wouldn’t look at him, but he knew she was studying him in some way. Her depth, despite her disorders, was remarkable… and frightening. The hand that had slammed onto his desk retreated back to her knees and he spotted a small streak of red, a trail left along the smooth surface.

When his question went unanswered, he once more glanced down to his notes. One in particular he felt the need to bring up. “What’s this I hear about you digging a cross into the floor of your room…?” It was a peculiar thing to do. The ground of her room was padded, as well as all the walls, to stop her from harming herself again, and the fact that she had taken the time to rip and gouge at the fabric and cushioning underneath her spoke of something.

It could be a key to what was going on inside that muddled mind.

This time she did face him. It was unnerving. Her head slowly cocked to one side, the motion jerky and unfamiliar to the unused muscles. Brown strands fell in front of her face, shielding one side as she spoke.

“I didn’t.”

It was a lie. He could hear it in her tone. Scowling, he crossed his arms over his chest, somewhat chilled by her current position. “Okay, if you didn’t do it, who did?”

Her features became white-washed. Her eyes widened to the point where he could see the red lacing of veins around their perimeters and her jaw clenched, making tendons and veins appear beneath the pale skin of her neck.

“Bitter.”

Okay, so now he knew that the chicken was bitter. The stare of the orderly sitting by the door caught his attention. He was a big man, probably hitting a height of around six foot four, with thick arms and muscled to where it was nearly comical. He was thankful, though, to have such a strong back-up in case his patients turned violent. Which, in his ward, was nearly every day. Someone was always getting bitten, scratched, punched, or thrown down.

He was reminded of this, sorely, by the thick and heavy scar across the right side of Isabelle’s face. She had tried to claw an area she had said was ‘infected’ with some form of disease. That’s how it had gotten into her, through her mouth, and that that was how it would get out. The woman had been kept sedated for a month so that the wound could heal.

“Did you take your medicine today?” The question was directed toward Petrov in the corner.

Isabelle shrugged before once more looking outside. Her body relaxed from the tense, poised position that it had been seized in. Should he up the dosage…?

He decided to throw caution to the wind. Flipping through her file, he searched the lines for something she had mentioned when he had first come into the ward four years ago. Finding it and exhaling a slow, victorious breath, he ventured softly, “Did he do it?”

The air suddenly went frigid around her. Her breathing stopped for a moment and every single movement in the room halted. It seemed as if the world had ceased spinning. Her eyes rounded on him and the corners of her lips firmed into a thin, hard line. Once more, he was astounded at the adverse reaction to bringing up one of the ‘voices’ that seemed to speak to her both on and off of her medication. With her skin looking incredibly pallid through the fine sheen of sweat that had broken out on her tense form, Dr. Yamamoto jotted down her state. The black ink stained the paper with nothing short of efficiency.

“Don’t.”

It was simple, a command. Petrov rose from his seat, a look of abrupt concern on his face. The orderly could see that the young woman was shaking within the loose confines of her hospital robes; there was already a fine needle in his hand and the phial of sedative at the ready.

Charles eyed him a moment before directing the full brunt of his personality towards the girl before him. She looked small at that moment. Shrunken against the chair and huddled, taut as a bow string, while ringing her hands until he could once more smell the metallic tang of blood. Cautiously, for he knew how violent this particular patient could become, he slid a hand forward on the desk in an open display of both submissive acceptance and firm obstinacy. From what he could see, the other doctors hadn’t tried to push her and had continually obliged to let her exist in her little haze of a world. He wanted to try to help her.

She glared warily at the extended hand, her lips momentarily turning up into a snarl, flashing sharp teeth. When he spoke, he made sure his tone was smooth and low, as if he was speaking to a cornered animal.

“It’s alright to talk about him.”

She scoffed at that. Her shoulders rose and fell while a gravely, raspy noise tore from her throat and her chest heaved. That went on for several minutes, the tone steadily growing in intensity and volume until it seemed to echo, hoarse and crackling, around the room. She fixed him with an upturned gaze, looking desperate and on the verge of fright, while a disturbing grin spread across her usually blank features.

When next she spoke, it was quiet, like silk rushing against ice. “Never safe. Never,” she murmured.

Yamamoto took a risk. Standing, he reached across the desk and placed a gentle hand upon her thin, blade-like shoulder. He was trying to show her that she was all right, she was safe, and if she didn’t feel that way in his hospital, it would be next to impossible to help her. Where was all the progress that had supposedly been achieved under his predecessor? He had read files that the previous doctor had managed to get Isabelle to walk around, speak in flowing sentences, even bathe; what was he doing wrong? Why had she drawn back into herself?

The doctor was so preoccupied with pondering just what his mentor had done to get her out of her shell that he failed to see it coming. Jaggedly stubbed nails ran across his cheek and a bloom of pain and red flared on the side of his face. Her hand retreated, fingertips dipped in both flesh and blood, while Petrov dragged the woman away. Running a careful hand up to his stinging cheek, he finally realized with a shock that she had lashed out at him.

In a flash of movement, she had clawed him, clipping the tip of his mouth and leaving a pronounced gash that was starting to weep down the slope of his face. She was screaming and struggling against the massive mountain of an orderly now, thrashing her limbs around like a wild animal and screeching in impossible octaves.

Her gaze locked with the Yamamoto’s once more, her eyes bright and clear, and he could have sworn he heard Isabelle growling like some vicious hound.

Within seconds, the needle was buried deep in her thigh, Petrov having acted on his own initiative in the doctor’s confused haze. She jerked around while her eyes were rolling into her head, her fingers digging deep into the white of the man’s shirt.

“You all right, Dr. Yamamoto?” the Russian asked, in his thickly accented English. His steel grip around the woman’s arms lessened when she went slack and was induced into a heavily medicated slumber.

Wincing against the somewhat faded stinging sensation, he nodded. “Yes, though that was unexpected. She hasn’t hit me in a few years. Tell Sarah to please come up here to address my face.” His dark gaze swept over the brunette that was draped over Petrov’s thick arms. She looked so small and frail now, though the scratch across his face told him otherwise.

“Yes, sir.”

And with that, the session ended. Petrov departed by clicking the door latch behind him, his imposing form gradually disappearing from view through the glass sectioned door. Shaking his head and resisting the urge to slump onto the floor, Charles tried his best to deal with the bitter taste of failure. Yet again, Isabelle was proving to be the bane of his professional career.

Pop!

Starting, the doctor turned just in time to witness the light bulb within his green desk light shatter into tiny fragments. They littered down onto the dark wood and over the various reports and papers that he had managed to gather on his most defiant patient. The smell of burned electrical wiring wafted to his nose and the doctor snorted to rid himself of the acrid stench.

Damn it all if this hospital wasn’t getting more and more run down as the years went by…

–

It was cold when she woke up. The spinning of the room from not only the drugs that had been forced into her system-again-but also from the pounding headache that was resounding at the base of her head were throwing her off. It was making her sick. She turned her head slowly, wincing at the creaking of her neck, and tried to focus the blur that was her vision. The walls were white, too white, and they flared into the back of her eyelids even when she shut her eyes to think.

Whispering… always whispering. They were talking again; some were screaming, hushed and muffled against the blunted power of the ineffective drugs. Rubbing the heels of her palms into her eyes until they felt bruised, she once more opened her lids and stared upwards at the unfeeling, tiled ceiling above.

Let it go. Breathe, just breathe. Isabelle turned over in her bed and brought herself cautiously into a sitting position. She felt as if she was made of lead. Every movement was like trying to lift bags of sand. Her breath was a visible cloud before her and soon even her core began to shake. There were windows along two walls of her cell, one of which faced the hallway that had an office for the workers here just across the way, and the other looking out onto the recreational area. Other patients were milling about just beyond her reach, some rocking back and forth, some playing chess, some merely lingering in one spot, drooling; but they were all watched by at least five orderlies and doctors stationed throughout the courtyard.

The pain throbbing at the back of her head increased. Yelping at the sharp surge, she pressed a hand to it as if she had been struck and glanced towards the ceiling once more. It was so far away… always far away…

Something hissed in her ear. Jumping, she turned this way and that, her breathing coming out in a series of steadily building gasps.

Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted something. Something falling down, floating, like snow… Isabelle shuddered, her hands gripping harshly into the fabric of her meager hospital pants that were as thin as paper, and forced herself to ignore it. It wasn’t there. Nothing was there. She pulled her knees up under her chin and began the tentative ritual of rocking, her vision going out of focus.

But more kept falling. Soon, it was as if she was standing outside in the middle of the approaching snow storm. Twitching her shoulder, she whined. Don’t look, don’t look, not real, the medication is going to kick in soon, it’s not real.

How long has it been since they gave you that shot…?

Isabelle whimpered. Her fingers threaded into her hair and began to pull as the voices purred and growled over and over, all asking the same question. Just how long had it been? For all she knew the meds were wearing off… she could have been out for hours now.

Look… Look… LOOK!

Nearly jumping out of her skin, she was snapped out of her ritual before being forced to look towards what had looked like snow. Frowning, she stretched out a hand and caught a fleck of it on the tip of her index finger. It wasn’t cold. If anything, a mere glancing touch from it told her it was warm. Running a thumb over it, she blinked a few times as it smeared into a dark grey and black stain. Confusion swarmed her, and her mind, numbed as it was with the constant hail storm and the fog of medication, tried to sort it out.

Then it caught her nose. Smoke, the smell of something burning and simmering, making her nose wrinkle in disdain at the caustic sting. A chunk of fluff fell onto the bed before her, the little cot she called home that remained pushed up against a corner, and her heart sank into the pit of her stomach. Swallowing hard, she jolted when she glanced upward and saw embers and smoldering fire engulfing the ceiling of her room. It was crawling downward, slowly, eating away at the walls and filling the room with plumes of creeping black smoke.

The edges of the fire were turning what was remaining of the white padding beneath it pitch and coal black. It zigzagged its way down, scorching the wood and leaving nothing behind. She stared at the flames, enraptured, until the screeching started.

He, they, yelled in her ears as loud as her hearing could perceive. Constant, it was making her grip onto her ears and cry out in pain as her eardrums strained in protest. So many things! She couldn’t tell what they were saying, just over and over and over, clamoring for her attention and ringing in her brain. Sobbing, the patient stumbled out of the bed as the fire spread like a cancer, enveloping the ceiling and now reaching the edges of the floor, threateningly.

Landing on her hands and knees, Isabelle reeled, falling to her side with a heavy thud and feeling as if she could not move. But she had to get out of here. Why didn’t anyone see the smoke, the flickering of the flames, or feel the heat that was making her hair dance around her face in thick waves? Coughing against the smog and wincing away from the licking embers that were flying about her, she struggled to her hands and knees, then once more into a sitting position. Desperately, she turned back and forth; the door was just a few feet away, but already the base of her exit to freedom had disappeared into the glowing ashes.

Shivering, and hearing him shout her name at the top of his nonexistent lungs, a light bulb went off at last. Just a short distance from her was where she had clawed and carved the cross into her floor, the one her doctor was so upset about. It was keeping the cancer around it at bay; the flames refused to go near it. Isabelle licked her lips.

Clambering up, and just barely rising in time to avoid the heat blistering her heels, she slid into the jagged hole in the padding with a cry of mingled victory and grief. Pulling her feet into the confines of the small circle, she watched in horror as her entire room became nothing but flickering flames and simmering orange pulsations. All that remained of her cot, the place that had been her safe haven upon waking, were a few charred springs.

Once more, Isabelle started rocking. And once more, she was left with the man that was laughing at her.

That won’t save you. It’s only a matter of time…it whispered gravely in her ear.

© 2010 A. R. Perry