The Psychiatric Ward... (RP Fic)

==... and here it is!==
What you are about to view is a collaborative effort of many authors over a period of nearly two months now. I've reordered and slightly edited some of the posts to help with clarity - please let me know if you see anything wrong. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for everyone who chose to participate in this roleplay and helped to make it the great read it is now. Thanks to everyone who read and everyone who took part and stuck it out, through all the crazy ups and downs. Thanks especially to everyone who helped write and kept order, and kept me from checking in myself.
It's been a wild ride.
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Note: Kitty does not claim ownership of this fic - it belongs to everyone who contributed. Editors wanted and needed. Spelling mistakes and grammar issues are all fair game to anyone. If you participated and wish to change some of your responses, feel free to do so as long as plot and general storyline remain consistent.
I apologize for formatting problems, and it would be great if someone more knowledgable than I stepped up and cleaned up the code.
==Collaborators==
Doctors:
*Wisteria - Kittyluvver: head doctor
*Auralyis - Heliosanctus: nurse
*Eos - Stormlash: security guard
Patients:
*12 - Tundra The IceWing
*Chrome - DarkFlameNightWing
*Crimson - RimeTheIceWing
*Dreamstalker - Starlight365
*Emeralda - Negora1
*Fastwings - Whitefoot&Tigerstripe
*Himeralli - Rainpool
*Kiara - TheGoldenDragoness
*Lance - Starlight365
*Paradox - Sandy
*Sobriquet - Heliosanctus
*Solstice - Luckybird
*Tattoo - Luster
*Updraft - Matau99
==Into The Psych Ward==
Pyrrhia General Hospital, Lobby, 7:59 am
The watery light of a bright spring morning blazed in through the arched windows of the Pyrrhia General Hospital's airy lobby as a pale gray SwiftWing stepped through the revolving doors, her dark curling mane falling gracefully down her neck in a ponytail, a paper cup of coffee clutched in one paw, a purse and a clipboard tucked under a wing.
Dr. Wisteria, M.D. Ph.D, head of the Psychiatric division, world-renowned neuroscientific expert and the youngest full doctor ever to walk the halls of the hospital, could not get a decent cup of coffee.
Wisty took a sip of the steaming cup in her hands, wrinkled her nose, and winced in deep existential pain. This latest hospital cafeteria concoction tasted like vinegar mixed with something scraped out of a patient bedpan. In fact, with the latest round of budget cuts, Wisty wouldn't be surprised if that really was what the coffee was brewed out of. She'd be disgusted, but not surprised.
Quickly crossing the lobby, she tossed her coffee into a waste receptacle and entered the elevator alongside two nurses in scrubs and facemasks. They nodded in greeting, but did not speak. The elevator dinged and the doors slid shut. First floor: lobby and grounds. The two nurses got off at Surgery on the second floor, but Wisty was bound for the very topmost tenth floor of the hospital - the Psychiatric Ward.
Finally the display dinged at the topmost floor, but the doors did not open. Wisty expected that - it was a security measure. "Please state your name and authorization," a mechanical voice in the elevator announced.
"Wisteria, AT400," Wisty said into the air. There was a moment of silence as the information was processed, then the doors slid open with clang. Wisty stepped through - and found herself face to face with the security checkpoint.
It's like a prison around here, Wisty thought as she stepped through a metal detector and a guard searched her bag. The she quickly amended her thought. No, it IS a prison. There are dangerous dragons in here, dragons who have murdered and committed other terrible crimes. This security - it's for our safety, and their own good.
The guard on duty handed her bag back with a nod, and Wisty moved into the ward proper.
Glossy, whitewashed walls glared back at her in the harsh, uniform glow of the halogen lamps lining the ceiling. Everything was perfectly clean and sterile, from the checkered tile floors to the gleaming one-way windows. It was a hallway with absolutely no personality - it could have been part of a school, or a bank, or a laboratory. Wisty walked down the hall, her claws clicking against the polished linoleum floor.
She had made this solitary route down the halls of the ward hundreds of times during her tenure in the hospital, and yet it never failed to unnerve her.
Solstice, the NightWing with multiple personalities, lay on his bed with his eyes open and staring blankly at the ceiling. Tattoo the hybrid did not react to Wisty's footsteps - the poor dragonet was completely deaf. Crimson the DeathWing snarled and gnashed her teeth as she saw Wisty walking past her window. 12 - Wisty didn't know the reason for that name, though she thought it could hardly be a coincidence that the strange patient was in room #12 - sat on her bed, gazing with fascination into empty space. Sobriquet sat similarly, although the psychedelic RainWing had cocked an ear and was listening intently to the silence.
And those were only a few of the patients she would have to work with today. Wisty sighed, suddenly feeling the onset of a headache.
Now, she wished that she'd drank her coffee.
*****
"Where are we now?" A small voice spoke in Solstice's head, causing him to jerk out of his semi-sleep and stare wildly around the room. Oh wait. It was just him.
"Still the padding room... Try not to struggle so much next time... Ple~ease!" He muttered back, his mouth moving yet no words coming back. The dragon didn't need to hear himself anyway, it just felt more natural.
He remembered close to an hour ago, where Equinox had woken from a particularly bad nightmare and shouted to everyone that passed by that she was perfectly fine, there was nothing to worry about...
At the top of her lungs. While trying desperately to claw every dragon's eyes out.
She also said it to everything else that passed by, be it dust mite or moth. Solstice was groaning the entire time, and the two were dragged to the padded room to let off steam.
If only it was that easy. Solstice would have gotten rid of her a while ago if it only took therapy and medication. Good riddance.
He checked his claws, which were sharpened every time Equinox was in charge, then cut off at the next therapy lesson. They stung constantly, and sometimes were bleeding from the rough wear and tear.
He awaited for some nurse to come in to bring him back. Though no one might come some of these times, and he might just be stuck in here.
He didn't dwell on that thought.
*****
Crimson's mouth foamed at the edges, and she bared her teeth. She didn't understand the need for this muzzle, it just made eating so much harder. Sure, she had tried to eat other dragons, but that was just a taste. They didn't need so much blood anyways.
She rolled over and tried to break the muzzle, grasping her clipped claws onto the steel muzzle and making hissing noises as she rolled around.
After a brief struggle with the muzzle, she stayed still on the floor, not moving a tail or wing. This place was a prison. "Why can't I be let go? I'm a vampire and if they can't accept that, they should be made into MY dinner." Thought Crimson, starting to struggle again.
*****
Paradox sat in her cell. They prefer to call it a room, but it was nothing more than a cell. Paradox curled her tail onto her talons. She saw a SwiftWing doctor walk by, younger than the ones she usually saw. Hopefully she won't be as condescending as the others. Maybe she would be smart enough to realize that many of the dragons didn't belong here.
*****
Eos turned the corner and nearly bumped into Wisteria. "Oh, sorry!" He continued down the hall to do his routine check on every cell. He stopped at each cell and inspected it for any security breaches or problems with the dragon contained inside. He saw none and started to walk back to his office when he noticed a small crack in the corner of Paradox's cell. "Knock Paradox out. There is a crack in her cell's glass!" He said into the small radio he has on his neck.
*****
Sobriquet glanced over at Wisteria as she walked by. "She doesn't like you." one of the ghosts said, "Not a single one of you all, but YOU in particular." Sobriquet's expression remained smooth and creaseless, as she disregarded the hateful words and gazed at the doctor through empty eyes.
Most of the ghosts she met were her friends, but not all of them. The doctors never understood the position she was in. From time to time she would meet a ghost with a nasty attitude, and no matter what she would say, it wouldn't go away. They'd feed her bad advice, tell her lies about her surroundings, and they might even yell at her. When she was at the rainforest, she would fight back. She would claw at them, spit venom, scream her own witty retorts, but not at the hospital. At the hospital they didn't take kindly to this sort of thing.
When she would claw, they would bind her paws. When she would spit her venom, they'd muzzle her mouth. When she would scream her clever comebacks, they would send someone in to quiet her down, tell her that ghosts weren't real, tell her that her problems weren't real in a manner that suggested that once she accepted their truth that it would suddenly not bother her anymore. Eventually, she learned to be passive. Passiveness would keep her paws from chafing, would keep the rancid metal taste off her tongue, and most of all, would keep the doctors from giving her those pitiful glances, a perfect half faux-pitty and half irritation. They didn't like it when they couldn't fix a problem, but unfixable problems were how they recieved their pay check. How - ironic. Sobriquet loved irony, but she hated conformity, and try as she might to convince herself otherwise, passiveness was conformity.
Once Wisteria moved past her "room", Sibroquet flung a paw beneath her bed and let it dangle, trying to make it seem casual to anyone who might be looking. Then she rummaged it around until the texture of dried leaf and weaved vine met her paw, and she gently lifted her puppet from it's hiding place. "They know you keep it there." the annoying one suggested. "One day they you'll reach down there, and you won't find him. They'll take him away from you, just like they want to take us away from you." She wanted them to take this ghost away from her, and she knew they could with their vast assortment of creams and fluids and pills, but they couldn't get rid of this one without taking away the rest of her friends, and that is something she couldn't let them do.
She hugged Quietus the sloth puppet tightly in her arms, and then scolded herself for letting this 'illusion' get the better of her. "You are not very nice" she made Quietus say to the ghost in a raspy voice, and she ignored whatever comeback he might have supplied. She laid on her back with her wings to her sides and coiled her feet back, using them to project Quiteus into the air above her. He landed on her chest and she hugged him once more before staring at the ceiling.
*****
Solstice noticed a flicker of movement in the corner of his eye and turned slowly to watch Wisteria - sorry, Doctor Wisteria - walk by. She only briefly glanced at him as she passed by. He could almost feel the disappointment in the air. She really wasn't looking forward to today.
He knew her love of coffee. It was kinda hard to miss when she walked in every day with a cup full of it. Today, she didn't have any. Either she was cutting back - and he doubted it - or today's batch tasted horrible. He pushed himself up and looked out the window at her as she passed, just watching as she bumped into Eos. Then Eos came up to each window, inspecting it. He sighed as he came up and tapped on the window expectantly, checking for microscopic flaws. Whether it was the dragon's fault or not, they would be knocked out and brought to another room while that one was fixed. He personally liked his room. It had a nice view of a forest far beyond, and on a good day cool and moist air would waft inside.
He sighed at the breeze, craning his neck towards the lattice of bars that covered the solitary beam of sunlight and box of sky.
*****
Himeralli stretched, her talons flexing. Her tail twitched irritably. She hadn't spilled any blood in a while, and that bothered her.
She sat upright, her blue and green gaze darting around rapidly. Was her paranoia starting to come back? She shook her head rapidly. After she had went over the edge, it seemed as though it went away. And now that she was in the ward, it seemed as though it was coming back.
Himeralli rolled back over onto her back. It felt unnatural to be in a different environment. She twitched, her eyes travelling toward the bars that separated her from the world.
*****
A loud screech echoed through the hallway. A certain SkyWing was tossing and turning in the small nest he had as a bed, his eyes wide and bulging, his mouth foaming at the edges. "It's there!" He wailed. "My fate is inevitable. It's always there, no matter where I turn!"
It happens every day. Every single day, he suffers from a nightmare. It's always the same: in a land of darkness, where sleep is prohibited, and then when he does fall asleep (as he does every time), a monster preys upon him. Doctor after doctor came and went, each just as baffled by his condition as the last. Theories and rumors about his condition got even stranger as time went on.
Some say that he went insane from a rare hereditary disease. Other dragons say that an animus cursed him because he had taken their treasure. Still others suggest that an ancient prince returned from the dead to curse him, for his ancestors had killed this prince. A few other dragons say that he had hungered for power, and the NightWings punished him, giving him these nightly dreams of terror. None of them were completely true.
The dragon was shaken awake by a few attendants, who were used to this event. They gave him some food and water, and he was left alone once more.
The SkyWing pulled out the weapon that he had hidden under the nest. The sharp point, carved of obsidian, gleamed in the light of the faint torches. A lance. Just like me.
Imagining it to be the monster's heart, Lance stabbed the air with surprising speed. For years, he had trained in secret, aiming to, one day, best the monster. He could defeat it; he knew he could do it.
And when I have the monster at my mercy, and I end it at last...
I won't regret a single minute of it.
~ ~ ~ ~
Meanwhile, a NightWing had heard the screech. His blood-red gaze, fixated upon the floor, did not move from it. His snout curled into a wicked rictus of insane joy.
He always felt that way in the morning, when he heard the dragon scream. He enjoyed the fact that he had caused such pain to the dragon, in vengeance for the wrong done to him and his parents, who were brutally slaughtered by the SkyWings. The SkyWings who were, to be specific, the parents of that dragon.
He reflected upon his past actions, looking up at the dark ceiling from where he was chained to the ground. That tiny part of him that was still sane said, Dreamstalker, you know your parents wouldn't want you to get revenge.
Shut up, The rest of him told the small sane part.
It fell silent, and Dreamstalker kept reminiscing of his actions. He remembered the rush of power running though him as he unleashed his inner powers. He remembered the terrified expressions on the faces of the SkyWings as shadowy tendrils, tinted with red, choked the life out of them. He remembered the power coursing through him as he intoned the words of the curse that would imprint his rage upon their dragonet, who was the same age as he was. He remembered feeling his sanity drain away, feeling his inner conscience fade into the darkness within him. His soul was fading into the shadows. His dark red eyes narrowed.
And I don't regret a single moons-forsaken thing.
*****
Chrome sat in her cell, rocking herself back and forth. She wasn't used to the new voices echoing in her head, whispering endlessly into her mind.
"Why?" she whispered over and over again, hugging her knees and shivering. Along with seeing strange things, these voices where horrible. She continued to stare at the wall, focusing on getting rid of the voices.
*****
The single fluorescent light fixture that hung askew in the cell flickered spastically. The tile floors were scraped slightly, the grout between the white stone plates was growing darker. The long, sharp shadows in the dark corners of the room shifted and swayed, the blackness reaching timid tendrils of darkness to claim the light. The wall facing the hallway was a one-way mirror, the glass cracked and grimy. The light on the ceiling swung on its wire, shrieking its name to the inhabitant of the cell.
In the center of the room, small, hunched, and malnourished, sat a dragon: barely over the years of a dragonet. Her scales were purple, and shone only in daylight, which she hadn't seen in years. Her wings of black draped on the floor, hanging limply behind her, weak from misuse. Her claws were long and unclipped, and her scales soft and weak. Her eyes stared blankly at a wall, her back facing the mirror-wall. Her eyes were strange. Many say that the eyes are the windows to the soul. This dragon's eyes were a pale green, unblinking, and filled with milky haze.
It was only when the light flickered that she regained focus on the world around her, sitting alone in a crowd of five, excluding herself. Her eyes cleared their haze and a smile cracked her lips, veins of blood trickling into her teeth. Her ears laid limp beside her horns. Only with her mind did she speak. "My friends, forgive me. I was merely wondering as to why I am here, why you are here, and where here is here. Why isn't it there? Why am I not there? Why are you not there? Again, I apologize, I have been too selfish. Do you care for some food? I have eaten my share. It is now your turn, Warender." She thought, projecting her ideas throughout the room. She pushed a pan of an unknown substance consisting of something bloody, moldy, or both towards the empty space before her, her smile not breaking. She blinked slowly. She sat and watched, hearing Warender mentally thank her. She watched him devour the food, leaving the same amount in it as he had found it.
Tattoo curled her tail unconsciously, dropping onto the floor. Her claws scraped on the tile, forming a painful shriek. She was oblivious. With her back against the mirror-wall, she sighed.
The spines on her neck stood on end. Someone was watching her. Another friend. She had to meet them, she wanted to know about them. About their life, family, interests, weaknesses, and obsessions. She turned her head slowly, her sinewy neck twisting painfully. Her grin never fading, her eyes fell on the mirror-wall, her bloody teeth stained and her body thin and frail.
Calmly, she waved at the wall, slowly and controlled. Her eyes clouded again, and her breathing stopped. She looked like she passed out, her head falling to the floor. But before her snout hit the dingy ground, her eyes flew open and she inhaled sharply, as if rising from the bottom of the ocean and getting the first breath of clean air. Her eyes focused back on the mirror-wall. She didn't move, waiting for response.
*****
12 pet the wall. Her talons stroked the rough bricks. Her bright blue eyes opened, painful to the eye. They stared and blinked. "Good... Good..." She whispered, grinning. After a couple of normal seconds, the room filled with a maroon color. Blackness came from above and all around. Bright yellow flashed in places. 12 screamed. "MAKE IT STOP! IT HURTS!!!" Her cries were bloody murder.
Of course, all of these colors and illusions were in her head.
As they always were.
After a minute or two, a doctor came into the room, shaking the rocking dragoness. "It's okay... You will be okay." The IceWing didn't know what this dragon saw. No one did.
"ITS NOT. THEY ARE WAITING!!!" She spoke nonsensically.
"Who? Who is waiting?!" Shouted the IceWing doctor.
"The... The cursed ones." 12 stared into the chest of the IceWing.
Soon, the IceWing had stuck a chain across her jaws, to keep them open. She had many small teeth. The doctor had made a thick medicine slip down 12's throat. The white dragoness gagged. The IceWing walked out of the room, slamming the door behind her. "Crazy... Psychopath. I shouldn't be working here..." Murmured the IceWing.
As he walked pass her, he turned and said, "Doctor Wisteria... She's crazy... Unstable... Seeing things that we don't." He shook her shoulders, his eyes red. "She said they are waiting. What is she talking about?!" The IceWing doctor felt like he was going crazy as well.
*****
Emeralda sat on her bed with her tail curled in her talons. She took quiet, but large breaths in the hospital air. Her green eyes bent at the grey light coming through her window.
Why was she here again? Oh yeah, because some doctors thought she was scienceborn. Most others thought she was crazy for claiming to be a scavenger. Emeralda kept on telling them, but they never believed her. She didn't know how long she would have to be here or how long she had stayed already. If this was a place for crazy dragons, she didn't want to end up that way.
Through her glass window by the door, Doctor Wisteria walked by. Her expression was surprised and confused. She must not have seen Emeralda up close before. Another doctor came in after Wisteria was gone.
"Alrighty, Emeralda...is it?" the doctor asked with a highish voice. Emeralda nodded with her eyes still focused on her talons. "Good. So tell me, how have your sessions been going?" he asked.
Emeralda sighed. "I keep telling you, but no one believes me. I'm not scienceborn, I'm a fraggin' scavenger!" she protested. She clenched her talons in fear of her own words.
"So a big 'x' on sessions." The doctor wrote down on his clipboard. He sighed slightly. "Do you really believe that, Emeralda?"
"Yes, I know it. I'm not even crazy like the others here. They need medical treatment, not I. And you can't do any experiments on me either." Emeralda folded her wings around her sides and flared them at the doctor.
"That is not for you to decide." The doctor started to walk out. He opened the door and said, "Someone will be back with your food soon." Without anything else, he closed the door.
Emeralda flared her nostrils and wings in anger. She sparked a flame in irritation and went back to staring at the window light.
Someone will believe, she firmly thought. I don't care who. I will get someone to believe me....if it is the last thing I do.
*****
Kiara sat inside her tiny cell, chained to the ground. As Doctor Wistera walked past, Kiara glared at her. Kiaras eyes were changing from green to black, a sign of her uncontrolled Dark Animus.
Why am I even here? Thought Kiara. It's not like I can change my Dark Animus.
Then she snapped back to the dark side.
They fear me. I am a danger to them all. I am proud of that.
But Kiara wasn't proud, she was enraged at being chained to the ground and having a large iron door instead of bars. She also hated the 'No windows policy' that was placed on her. She could hear guards outside her cell talking. Kiara pressed her ear to the door.
"Doctor Wisteria says that she will be starting sessions soon," one of them said.
"Gee, I hope the dragons that are supervising her are prepared," the other replied. Kiara threw herself at the door to let them know she was listening. She growled and tried to shout through her muzzle, You'll all pay for this! I will kill you all but it came out sounding nothing like that.
She sat down and screamed through the muzzle.
*****
Great. Just great. They were going to sedate Paradox for having a crack in her cell window. It wasn't her fault that her room used to belong to someone who tried to escape every day! She sat, watching quietly as they got ready to knock her out. Unlike most of the others here, she wasn't chained to the ground. She was sane or at least more sane than most of the patients, and she knew resistance was futile. However, if they keep me here any longer, my sanity will break apart. Paradox closed her eyes, waiting.
*****
Chrome's voices finally ceased to bother her. Now that they were at a low whisper, she could enjoy the strange creatures of her room. She glanced at the rainbow snake shuffling across the floor, and stooped over to stare at it.
"H-hello little s-snake.." She managed to say after a while. The snake turned to stare, it's coal eyes filled with wonder. It then disappeared in a puff of colors, and new images began to form. Her vision flashed, and she closed her eyes. Sometimes what she saw overcame her; She couldn't handle it at times. She sighed.
*****
12 was passed out. Even more chains held her tight to the ground. She could barely walk a step when she woke up. "Sessions? Oh, I hope there isn't a deadly accident." She said to the ground. There seemed to be an image in her head, another dragon in the cage with her.
"I wonder if anyone will die," She continued. "It would be quite horrible... Or would it? What would I know!" She laughed that same bone-chilling laugh. She then cleared her throat. "When will these sessions start? I would love to actually get out and see the rainbow snake."
The snake that was once in Chrome's room appeared right on the other side of 12's cage. It stared at her. "Such beauty. It's a shame." She was about to go and touch it, but it started to grow... It started to grow very large. It grew large fangs, its scales flashing so many colors that 12 thought she would have a seizure. Everything was moving so fast, so bright. She stumbled backwards, the new chains around her neck gagging her.
"H-help..." She choked out. "The serpent has been waiting... Its jaws of death hungry. Hungry for you."
All of a sudden, it disappeared. 12 happily grinned. "It's gone! IT'S GONE!!!!" She jumped up, but was immediately brought back down to the ground. The heavy chains hurt her.
The NightWing doctor that went by the name of Dre, watched the disturbing beast named 12. He clicked his pen and scribbled down note. "Interesting... Very interesting. I wonder what jaws of death she is talking about..." His tail coiled around him. He gave her a cold stare. She actually looked back.
*****
Chrome heard shrieking down the hall and winced. She wished her snake was back. She wished the voices would leave. She wished that she could leave here. There were no interesting creatures or colors here; all she could see were the rainbow snakes and the twisting yellow pattern on the wall. The voices in her head began to get louder, and she constantly screamed:
"STOP! LEAVE M-ME BE! GO AWAY!"
After the voices shrank down again, she could still hear her voice echoing off of the walls, forever trying to banish the whisperings of her head.
She looked at the ground, another rainbow snake forming. She wasn't quite in the mood for talking to the snake, so she looked at the next wall. Same yellow swirling pattern. Nothing interesting. She almost wished she had that tree again, the one wish such an atrocious color on it, that it reminded her of her mental burden. She would sob herself to sleep next to it.
Chrome soon became so bored, she would nod off every now and again. The voices prevented her from sleeping, so trying would be futile. She lowered her head to the ground and stared at the rainbow snake, too bored to do anything else.
*****
Himeralli sat upright and frowned. She wished that she was still in her lab, doing what she sadistically loved to do so much. Her gaze flickered over to the barrier that separated her from the halls.
How she wished she could get past that cell window. Since she couldn't, she at least wanted a few tools and a corpse to preoccupy herself.
Himeralli looked over her shoulder, and saw a marionette. She smiled widely. She slunk over and picked it up by the two wooden x's. She moved it happily. She looked to her right and saw another, small one. It was more of a hand-puppet. She curled up her tail and placed the puppet on it.
Now all she needed was an audience. Her head snapped over at the sound of screaming, the sounds she adored, but saw nothing. She turned back, and saw the dragons she kept in her lab.
Himeralli smiled happily, and began her show.
"There once was a sad little dragon." Himeralli waved the puppet on her tail. "He wanted a friend. So, one day, he walked around." She bobbed her tail for effect. "He met a big dragon who instantly wanted to be his friend." She moved her talons to make the marionette move.
"One day, the bigger dragon wanted to play a game, and the little dragon went along with it." She moved both puppets simultaneously. "The big dragon took a knife, and STAB, STAB, STAB!!!" Himeralli screeched the last part loudly, while moving the marionette's hand to whack the small puppet. She then flung the hand puppet across the room.
The sound of a pencil dropping against the floor startled Himeralli, and she dropped the marionette and did a backflip, spinning in the air so she landed on her feet facing her cell window. A SkyWing nurse was peering in.
Himeralli shot venom at the window, and it sizzled, simply sliding down without causing any damage. She launched herself at the window, her talons scrabbling against the smooth glass. She saw a knife out of the corner of her eye, and grabbed it with her tail, before slamming it against the cell. The knife vanished, and no damage was done. Why she hadn't been chained yet, was a mystery to her.
Himeralli slunk away, and saw, to her dismay, the audience, marionette, and puppet were gone. She scowled, before curling back up, staring blankly out the cell window, thinking of her lab.
*****
Crimson twitched slightly, and mumbled a hiss through her clenched teeth in the muzzle. She looked up and snorted. She went up to the barred window and began to try and barked out words, but only coming out as a jumbled garble.
She reach out at the window and putting her claw up to it. She glared out a dirty look and started to drool. So much warm bodies outside, it was simply torture for her. Her tongue barely slipped through her maw and she licked the window, her yellow eyes tracking the dragons in the hall.
*****
Pyrrhia General Hospital: Psychiatric Ward, 9:24 am.
Someone was screaming, a long, agonized, drawn out scream of abject misery and sorrow. The dragon screamed as if all the weight of the world had fallen upon his shoulders, as if he was being slowly cut open and disemboweled, as if he was watching his family being slaughtered in front of him. The scream went on, sliding up over several octaves, continuing for what seemed like hours without pause as if the screamer had no need to draw breath.
Wisty looked up from her desk, frowning mildly in annoyance.
The hospital management told her that the walls were completely soundproof. Hardly so. Wisty suspected that the hospital was too strapped for cash to afford soundproof walls, with the economy the way it was. And as a result, Wisty and the other hospital staffers were subject to listen to every hiss, moan, and holler the patients babbled in their sleep and in their waking hours.
One got used to the noise eventually, and over the years Wisty had heard every last threat that the patients could levy at her. There were only so many variations on the theme of "I'll kill, maim, and torture you," and Wisty had heard them all - so often that she could maintain a cool smile while a maddened patient lunged and slavered for her blood.
All the dragons were here for different reasons. Some, like Tattoo had been committed by tearful family and friends. Others, like Crimson and Himeralli, had committed horrible crimes and had been sent in by the court system for an evaluation on whether they were mentally sound enough to stand trial for their deeds. Still more, like Emeralda, Lance, and 12 had been dragged in and left to die by the government, simply because there was no where else for them to go.
And Wisty was supposed to fix them, make them normal, turn them into fine upstanding citizens of Pyrrhia. It was a thankless, hopeless task.
It was maddening. I'm trying to help you! she wanted to yell to their faces as they looked at her with nothing but psychotic hate in their eyes. I'm the only dragon on the continent of Pyrrhia who give a tail's shake about whether you live or die! For a lot of you, I'm the only thing standing between you and the death penalty. So let me help you!
Still she had to continue, no matter how much she wished she could leave this place of misery behind her. Every day, every night - she was all these patients had, the only one who cared about their sorrow and discomfort, the only one looking out for their health and best interests. And many of them hated her with all their hearts.
*****
Multiple letters and pieces of correspondence were scattered about on Wisteria's desk, ready to be sealed and addressed. Wisty picked one up and read -
To the esteemed Federal Court of the RainWing kingdom,
After extensive psychological evaluation, I must conclude that Patient #9824, the RainWing Himeralli, is not fit to stand trial for multiple first degree homicide. She suffers from schizophrenic delusion, paranoia and hallucination, as well as extreme post-traumatic stress disorder. Despite the magnitude of her crimes I cannot, in good conscience, allow her to receive the death penalty when her actions are not entirely a result of her own premeditation and volition. I suggest that she remain in the Psychiatric Ward of Pyrrhia General Hospital for further treatment.
I send my deepest regrets and condolences to the families and friends of her victims.
-Sincerely, Dr. Wisteria, M.D. Ph.D.
Another read:
Dear Mrs. Moonchaser,
I am writing to inform you that your daughter Tattoo, Patient #2349, is displaying slight but consistent progress after three weeks of treatment. We have diagnosed Tattoo with major depression and schizophrenia, and are currently treating her with dopamine and seratonin therapy. She is displaying significant progress and is communicating effectively with our NightWing nurses and doctors, although she still insists upon the existence of certain "imaginary friends."
You are always welcome to visit her during the hospital visitation hours of 10:00am to 8:00 pm on weekdays. Please call beforehand if you wish to schedule a visit.
-Sincerely, Dr. Wisteria, M.D. Ph.D.
Wisty sighed, letting the letters fall from her paws with a flutter. She glanced up at the clock - it was almost 9:30. Time for the morning group therapy session. She got up from her desk with a heavy heart and left her office, heading for the communal room. Guards passed her in the hallway, equipped with wheelchairs and chains that would be used to escort the patients out of their rooms.
==Group Therapy==
The group therapy room was a wide open area, furnished only by a ring of small plastic chairs. Now each chair was bolted to the floor - last week one of the patients had picked up a chair and thrown it at Nurse Morningstar, giving the poor NightWing a concussion and a week's paid leave.
Wisty sat down on the chair at the front of the circle, her eyes glowing briefly as she levitated over a pencil and clipboard and began to write.
Jun. 1st, Group Therapy Session notes:
Below she filled in the names of each of the patients, leaving a large empty space between each so she could write notes - observations about their temprament, behavior, anything relevant.
Then she put her pencil down and waited for the patients to arrive.
*****
Solstice was rolled slowly down the hallway, just watching the other dragons. They were all so strange, so unlike him. Why was he here? Apparently he was diagnosed with 'Dissociative Identity Disorder' and a minor case of 'Obsessive Compulsive Disorder' to top that off. True, he did feel compelled to clean up everything around him, as well as keep it all in perfect order. He didn't see why that was a problem...
He cleaned his claws until they stung out of fear that he missed something, tapped his tail against the bars of the window exactly ten times for every twenty seconds he felt a breeze, and always felt obliged to try and meet every dragon's eye contact as he passed that. That wasn't wrong... Right?
The multiple personality thing wasn't even his fault. Yes, he had another dragon named Equinox in his head. Yes, she was violent, annoying, and bad tempered. Yes, she was an IceWing. It wasn't either of their faults that she possessed him some five to ten years ago.
He arrived in the group therapy room. He liked this the most... Getting to hear the other dragons... The other doctors... Getting to talk himself without sounding crazy... And some selfish part of him also enjoyed knowing that his life wasn't the worst one. He suspected it was Equinox.
"Hello, Doctor," he said, as always, as he entered the room with the nurse. Might as well be polite with the one dragon that cared for them. He might get some more books soon to accompany the desk he had earned for acting nicer. Of course, half the time it was taken away again because of Equinox, but he felt he was building up a small relationship with all the doctors. Maybe some day they will realize that he didn't belong here, that he was different from the others.
*****
Instead of knocking Paradox out they took her into the group therapy room where the doctor she hadn't seen before was waiting. Her mane was in a ponytail and she had a face that said, I'm going to watch you all go crazy. She chose a place in the room where she wouldn't be noticed my the more unstable dragons that would come. Glancing back, she saw the dragon watching her. I don't care. She closed her red eyes.
Quietly, she waited for the screams, the cries, the blood. Since her scales were white Paradox hoped they wouldn't notice her. This is going to be a disaster.
*****
Sobriquet sighed as the staff approached her bedroom, ready to fetch her for 'group therapy'. She thought about what the ghost had said, that they already knew about Quietus, and were going to take him away from her. She wasn't quite sure if she believed them, but it left a thought in her head. If she could only have Quietus for a few more days, she would finally bring him to group therapy. As they opened the door to her cell, she walked right up to them and let them chain her.
"If you pinch me putting these on," she started "the ghosts will hurt you." They disregarded her, not even giving her the look that said "you're really gonna do this again." They pinched her with the chain and she hissed and watched as ghosts flew at them. She smiled a long lopsided grin, content knowing that they were now cursed and would have periodic spasms of bad luck.
She leapt onto the wheelchair and cuddled Quietus closesly, not bold enough to make him speak just yet. She was surprised when none of the staff questioned her puppet, but she got an odd glance or two, enough to make up for the lack of a reaction.
Once they wheeled her to the room, she picked the seat where the other patients would have the best view of her, and set Quietus down on her lap. She tore open his mouth with her claw, and rearranged his face into a smile. Then she gracefully folded his arms, and readjusted his head so he'd look as cute and innocent as possible. She was ready for the session.
*****
Crimson stumbled in, snorting and roaring in, baring her teeth through the muzzle. She shivered as she looked at the sign. Group Therapy was a nightmare. She hated it and barely restrained herself from attacking. She foamed at the mouth and gave a leering look to the therapist as she went inside the room.
Sitting down, she tried to open her maw, angry that the muzzle was blocking it. " You look tasty... Shame I can't eat you." Mumbled Crimson, shifting slightly. She was trying to act cool, but a bubble of hate was in her.
*****
Himeralli screeched at the staff as they approached her. She spat venom at them and threw one of her marionettes at them. They weren't phased. She backed away as far as she could and let out a long caterwaul.
The staff merely shut a muzzle over Himeralli's snout so she wouldn't spray anyone with venom, and dragged her down to the therapy room.
Himeralli spat as best she could, attempting to turn and attack the staff as they pushed her in. Curving her head, she blinked at the sight of the other dragons.
She sat down and examined them, thinking of her lab. "Too bad I couldn't experiment on you all..." she whispered, more to herself, smiling psychotically.
*****
Solstice wondered for a second how Crimson would react if he were to ever confide in her that he was really an IceWing as well as a NightWing. He knew from the books he was allowed to read and memories long ago that DeathWings and IceWings were mortal enemies, almost as much as SeaWings and SkyWings or NightWings and IceWings. Then he remembered how violent she was on a regular bases, and dropped that thought.
Then there was Sobriquet, who had a strange little puppet. He wondered which doctor gave the toy to the strange dragon. Although she was unstable, she was kinda nice when she was in the right mind. And the puppet looked handmade. He wondered for a moment if she had made it herself.
Himeralli entered the room, hissing and spitting. She really could be a SkyWing on her worst days, attempting to attack the nurses and threatening all her fellow patients with experimentation and dissection. She would have a field day with him, he presumed.
Finally, there was Paradox, the quiet little dragonet who was scared silly of the screams of other patients. After learning this, he tried to get Equinox to quiet down. It was no use: the wild IceWing wouldn't listen to half the things he says these days.
He tapped his tail tip on the floor three times before sitting down on the chair exactly two to the left of Doctor Wisteria, three from Crimson, and directly underneath the light that flickers every so often. He should calculate that next, though he knew that it was probably randomized. They also probably knew to do that just to drive him crazy. He clenched his teeth. They really did know how to get into his head.
*****
Chrome eyed the window as she saw staff approach her. Group therapy time. She let out a low hiss and narrowed her eyes.
"Drat... I have to speak to other dragons..."
She got up and went to the window, roaring a little as the staff came in with a muzzle and wore weary expressions. Chrome saw strange patterns on their scales, ones only she could see. The colors of the patterns were disgusting. Chrome backed away as they came towards her, and she gagged.
*****
Lance whipped around as the door creaked open, hiding his lance under his bed. He bit back a groan as a couple security guards came in, one of them holding a muzzle and the other holding shackles. Group Therapy. He never showed it, but he hated being around the other patients. Especially that NightWing- What was his name? Darkstalker?
Quite rude of them to interrupt my sparring match, He thought as he dragged himself to the guards, his head low. He had learned long ago not to struggle, since back when he was a little dragonet. He had melted his chains and attempted to escape once, but he wasn't strong enough, and got caught easily. He shut his eyes, remembering the stinging lashes that sent lightning-fast currents of pain through him, administered all those years ago.
Oh well, He thought as the guards shackled his legs together and put the muzzle over his face, so he couldn't breathe fire. It'll be over soon, and I can go back to training.
~ ~ ~ ~
Dreamstalker's head jerked up as the door opened. Two dragons cautiously came in, holding a muzzle and shackles. He bit back a snarl. Group therapy.
He hated that. It never did any good for any dragon there, least of all him. Though none knew it, he secretly loathed every single other patient here. Especially the SkyWings, and, most of all, Lance.
Lance. His eyes darkened. He could imagine his talons sinking into that dragon's dreams, ripping into them and killing him, every night. If only he could kill him in real life... But no, another part of him counseled him, the worst of tortures is what you have now. Death would end his torture, and he deserves to feel the pain that has been inflicted upon you at the loss of your parents.
He didn't care anymore about anything but revenge. He was willing to do anything, even give up his mental sanity, to exact revenge. Though he had contemplated suicide several times, he knew that the dreams would end at the loss of his life, and he wanted Lance to suffer, just as he had suffered at the death of his parents.
As he was led into the room with the other patients, he assumed a mask of calm, seating himself nearby Solstice.
He shrugged off the annoyance, cooly walking over to the security guards, who locked him in the chains and snapped the muzzle over his snout.
*****
Pyrrhia General Hospital, Psychiatric Ward: Group Therapy Room 2A. 9:35 am
Wisty watched the arrivals come in one by one, her face in the mask of composure and cheerful bedside politeness that she wore at all times in front of the patients, even when they were trying to kill her. Solstice looked lucid today - that was good, even as he twitched and his eyes flickered about anxiously. She made a quick note of it on her clipboard. No sign of that violent alternate personality he called Equinox. Wisty hooked an eyebrow, watching him closely out of the corner of her eye. Maybe, if he was in the right mindset, she could make some progress with him today.
Paradox was looking at Wisty balefully. Wisty was no NightWing mindreader - NightWing doctors didn't usually last long in the Psych Ward, listening to the thoughts of the patients all the time was enough to drive anyone mad. The albino NightWing was new to her charge, having been recently transferred out of the care of Doctor Morningstar, but Wisty had been in working in her field for long enough to read and know a patient's mood by his expression. She knew apathy and resistance when she saw it. Wisty blew out a resigned breath, looking down and scribbling another note with her pencil.
Sobriquet was there, in the company of that little doll that she called Quietus. Wisty watched her cuddling the doll with interest. It was the first time that Wisty had seen the doll allowed in a therapy session, but it was the nurse in charge of Sobriquet who had made the call. Wisty saw no harm in allowing the doll, as long as it did not prove to aggravate Sobriquet's schizophrenia further. But to be honest - and Wisty would never admit it to another soul without sacrificing her professional pride - the raggedly little sloth puppet creeped her out to no ends. Its little sewn-on eyes started balefully at her across the room, and its slashed-mouth rictus smile was a look that Wisty had seen all too often in the faces of other patients. Wisty pursed her lips and looked away.
All of them looked around as Crimson entered, the DeathWing's snarl coming out more like a gurgle behind the muzzle clamped around her jaws. The muzzle was loose enough to allow speech - there wasn't much point in holding a therapy session if the patient couldn't communicate - but it didn't allow her to open her mouth far enough to try to bite anyone. All the same, Wisty let her eyes glow a little brighter as she levitated her pencil and clipboard, in response to Crimson's hateful stare. One wrong move and she wouldn't hesitate to immobilize Crimson with her SwiftWing telekinesis.
They heard Himeralli coming from down the hall - the RainWing's screeching and the rhythmic thump and clink of her jerking on her chains was unmistakeable. Then suddenly the door banged open and a trio of guards hoisted Himeralli into the room. Wisty was suddenly and forcibly reminded of the letter to the courts sitting on her desk - the only thing protecting Himeralli from the vengeance of the government and the death penalty. The dragons you've killed and defiled, they have families and friends who are out for your blood, she thought mentally to Himeralli, though she could hardly voice her thoughts aloud. And honestly I'm not sure that saving you from them was the right thing to do.
She looked at the paper in her claws and counted silently to ten, composing herself. They're not bad dragons, she reminded herself yet again. Their souls are good and pure. It is only the illness in their minds, the seed of madness, that drives them to do these horrible things. It's not their fault. They cannot help themselves, so it is my job to help them.
Wisty looked back up, her faultless mask of composure and politeness back in place. "Good morning," she said blandly to no one particular, as they waited for more dragons to arrive.
*****
Solstice was slightly pleased that she didn't stare at him balefully like the other doctors, like they were expecting Equinox to burst out of her chains he had tried so hard to manage. She did do that often, and he knew it wasn't really worth trying to steady her, but he wanted to be aware of his surroundings sometimes.
He looked from dragon to dragon. The only one that didn't seem to be here right now was 12. And he was kinda glad. Once upon a time, he had attempted dabbling in her mind, just to see what she saw. Those images still left scars on his soul.
The light buzzed again. He would have to ask someone to either put it on a linear schedule of flickering, or fix the darn light already.
But not right now. Right now he needed to act normal.
"What time is it?" He asked suddenly, trying to kick start the conversation. He knew exactly what time it was. She came in at nine fifteen in the morning, checked the rooms, and set up the therapy room. If there was no hold-back, which there wasn't, then they got started exactly twenty minutes after she arrived. But they didn't know that. He might as well act dumb to get the joy of a pleasant, maybe even semi-intelligent conversation.
*****
The staff had finally calmed Chrome down; The red spiralling patterns drove her insane. Her shrieking could be heard from down the hall. She reluctantly came with the staff, walking down to hall to the room where the therapy would begin.
"I'm going to d-die...." She muttered to herself, warily looking at the rainbow snake that decided to follow her.
*****
Tattoo walked into the room, follower by a NightWing nurse. The nurse seemed afraid and horrified, her eyes wide. Her face was strained from the mental argument between her and the hybrid. Tattoo's snout was contorted in rage and disbelief. This nurse had insisted to her that her friends weren't real. That they were imaginary. In their defense, Tattoo hissed that if it weren't for Warender, she would be killed. The dragonet ruffled her wings and lashed her tail, baring her fangs at the nurse and making a dreadful, guttural scraping sound. The nurse made a relenting face and Tattoo smiled smugly. Of course, the instant she threatened to send Bloodspiller at her, the nurse let in. How typical.
The hybrid sat on the floor, waiting. She began a mental conversation with Lockjaw, her second best friend, who was sitting beside her.
*****
Chrome came bursting into the room, hissing up a storm. She hated other dragons. Her gaze flicked back and forth between the other dragons that were here. Her eyes narrowed, now only golden slits. She picked up her rainbow snake and sat down, making sure to be far away from everyone else. Their colors were not pleasing to her.
*****
Everyone had a look of hatred in the room with possibly the exception of the doctor and Solstice. Paradox saw the doctor scribble something down, no doubt about her.
Well, she, like that other doctor, Morningstar, couldn't possibly understand that she didn't need help at all. It's not my fault that everything I say is twisted into riddles and I'd prefer to stay silent than to speak them. Paradox thought with defiance. But there was nothing she could do except accept the fate that was here in this prison. Her eyes moved toward the others.
*****
Pyrrhia General Hospital, Psychiatric Ward: Group Therapy Room 2A. 9:37 am
Wisty watched as Chrome, Dreamstalker, and Lance were each wheeled into the room in their turn. Chrome was hissing through her teeth, her eyes flickering and blinking quickly as she entered. She did not look at anyone directly, as if eye contact caused her physical pain, and Wisty made note of how she chose the seat in the circle furthest from the rest of them.
Dreamstalker and Lance came in and sat far from each other, though occasionally Wisty saw their eyes flickering towards each, hostility plain on their faces. Wisty frowned to herself, tapping the pencil against her clipboard. She could not make heads nor tails out of this strange animosity between them, but it was clear to all that the two dragons hated each other on some fundamental level. She had never seen either talk to the other. The only thing the two seemed to have in common was a reluctance to talk about their dreams - something that always frustrated Wisty's attempts at Freudian psychanalysis.
Tattoo came in, walking on her own two feet instead of being hauled around in a wheelchair. She was always accompanied by a NightWing nurse who served as her interpretor and voice during these group therapy sessions. Wisty remembered the letter to Moonchaser sitting on her desk and felt a sudden rush of sympathy for the dragonet's mother. She could barely begin to imagine what Moonchaser was going through, with her only dragonet in a mental institution. Maybe Moonchaser would choose to pay a visit soon.
Wisty frowned as Tattoo plopped down the floor. "Tattoo, do please take a seat on your chair," she admonished. "Not all of us can see you on the floor where you are."
The minutes ticked by, and Wisty checked her watch. They would start at 9:45. "It's 9:38" she murmured mildly to Solstice. "We'll start at 9:45." Wisty wondered at the delay, even thought there was still seven minutes until start. Usually most everyone would be in their seats by now. Wisty hoped that the guards weren't having difficulty coralling their charges to bring them into the session.
*****
"Thanks," he muttered, looked at Tattoo, Lance, Dreamstalker, and Chrome as they arrived. He stared at Lance and Dream.
Before the whole Equinox incident, he was able to use telepathy. Since then, IceWing mutations, misuse, and the medication he was put under heavily when he arrived had all but destroyed it. But, he thought he had sensed more than just a hatred between the dragons. He thought he saw a connection, something that the other dragons probably didn't notice. Dream's waking schedules lined up perfectly with Lance's, and that he always seemed to be upbeat when Lance had a particularly bad nightmare. Did something happen between the two? Probably. Was he going to bring this up with the doctors? Probably not. They would think of him as even crazier than he was before.
*****
The nurse nodded to Wisty, communicating with Tattoo even after their heated dispute. There was a pause as the dragonet responded. The nurse, who went by the name of Ebonyclaw, rolled her eyes and voiced Tattoo's thoughts. "She says she would rather sit on the ground unless her friends could have seats as well.
Tattoo had five main friends that followed her to the hospital: Warender, Bloodspiller, Lockjaw, Fatemeddler, and Fleshtearer. They sat clustered around her, talking loudly. Tattoo smiled to Warender, to whom she had the greatest crush.
*****
Chrome's vision flashed, and she let out a low, shrill scream as her snake became clear, then fuzzy, and then clear again. She clutched her head and crumpled to the ground, her shrieking growing louder as all of the patterns swirled around her.
"MAKE IT STOP, MAKE IT STOP!!" She screamed, and the voices pounded in her ears.
*****
Lance grimaced, wanting more than ever that the meeting be over. He noticed Dreamstalker glaring at him with undisguised, livid hatred in his dark red gaze. He glared back, but inwardly he was confused. Why did Dreamstalker hate him so much? Had he done something wrong to him?
His dreams resurfaced in his mind, for some reason. They had started when he was about two years old, the night before he obtained the message that his parents had died, slain in the fight with the NightWings. He wondered sometimes what they meant. Was it just a coincidence that they began the day before he obtained that letter from the SkyWing Military?
He looked away from Dreamstalker, down at the floor, where his talons were sinking into the stone beneath him. What if... Something occurred to him. What if Dreamstalker has to do with my dreams?
The NightWing's name resounded in his mind. Dreamstalker... Dreamstalker... Is he stalking through my dreams, or is that just a name?
He had learned that most NightWings didn't have powers. It was in school, before he was taken here because the officials had found about his dreams. He barely remembered it, but he knew the teacher had told him that. But what if he did have powers?
~ ~ ~ ~
Dreamstalker sat down in the circle, as far from Lance as physically possible. He said nothing at first, just staring at the floor. He gritted his teeth, glaring at the SkyWing he hated so much.
The SkyWing looked confused, but glared right back at him. After a second, Lance looked away, down at the floor. Dreamstalker did as well, noting the stare of the SwiftWing doctor boring into his skull.
He knew that their relationship confused the doctor. What was her name? He wondered, having forgotten. Jasmine? Oh, right. Wisteria.
He didn't care all that much. Gritting his teeth again, Dreamstalker remembered his parents, and how they died. He remembered how his mother, her talons red, just like his, had jumped in the way of the attack directed upon him, taking the entire blow. He was like a miniature version of her in her youth: Dark red eyes, flat obsidian scales, and dark red speckles under his wings.
Crimsonblaze. He remembered his mother's name easily. She, too, had been an animus of sorts. She had the ability to enchant objects and cast spells, just like he did.
And his father, Coldsoul. He too had hungered for revenge on a dragon, though another NightWing, in his case. Born powerful, but he found his match in Crimsonblaze. Eventually, they settled down together to raise their only dragonet: Me, Dreamstalker thought, grimacing slightly.
He shook his head, clearing it, so that none of the other dragons could see into it. He looked warily at Solstice, and then at Tattoo. He knew both had NightWing blood in them, and did not know whether or not they could see into his mind.
My secrets are my secrets, not some other NightWing's. I want to keep it that way.
*****
Pyrrhia General Hospital, Psychiatric Ward: Group Therapy Room 2A. 9:40 am
Wisty looked at Chrome in sympathy as she shrieked and clutched her ears, rocking back and forth on her chair in pain. Nothing seemed to be touching her or causing her discomfort, and yet Chrome was screaming "Make it stop!" She did not try to approach Chrome to comfort her. This wasn't the first episode of Chrome's that Wisty had experienced, and she knew that trying to go near her would only aggravated the patient further. Usually Chrome's episodes subsided on their own, but if Chrome didn't calm down soon, one of the guards would have to give her a sedative. She was disturbing the other patients.
Wisty rubbed her eyes as she looked at Tattoo's defiant face. They had been through this so many times and the point was clear - it was extremely difficult to convince a schizophrenic that her hallucinations weren't real. "Tattoo, we only have enough chairs for you and you alone," she said, by force of habit modulating her voice to sound neutral and unchallenging, though the effect was lost on the deaf dragonet. "We've been through this before. Real things are things that everyone can see, hear, and touch. I cannot see your friends. Neither can nurse Ebonyclaw, or anyone else in this room." She made a note on her clipboard to increase Tattoo's anipsychotic drug doses.
Wisty's eyes flicked between Lance and Dreamstalker as the two glared at each other across the circle, brows furrowed and arms crossed. The tension between them was thick and dark as night. Wisty tensed involuntarily, her eyes glowing softly as she readied her telekinesis to break up a fight the moment it broke out - the two looked ready to lunge at each other.
Wisty checked her watch one more time. 9:40. Five minutes to start. She hoped that 12 and Emeralda would be arriving soon. Eos the guard would also be on his way - Wisty had a feeling that she might need his help before the session was up.
*****
Chrome began to relax as her voices finally died down again, and her snake returned. She picked it up and hugged it, needing some emotional support. She stared at the rest of the gathered dragons and clutched the rainbow snake tighter, dismayed when it finally disappeared. A tear streaked down her cheek, and the swirling patterns she saw turned blue to match her mood.
"W-why...?" she whispered to herself, and closed her eyes, still clutching her head.
*****
12 happily trotted along the hallway, a grin on her face. "I can't wait to see the new, bright faces!" She shouted as she was tugged by the chains. She gave a laugh and then coughed. "Hahaha-OW! That hurts..." She clutched her throat and sighed, walking into the room. There were no windows. Just the dragons around her. "Hello!" She screetched. She started to shout out random numbers. "5, 6, 31!!!" She slumped down next to the DeathWing with sharp teeth. She grinned at the new dragon. In her mind, Crimson was bright blue with yellow eyes. "You look funny..." She said in a slow voice. "I like your teeth." 12 poked the dragon and was tugged back in a harsh way by the chains. "Ow!"
*****
Chrome looked up at the newcomer, 12, with a weary expression. This dragon was very optimistic. She saw her rainbow snake wiggle out of her arms and over next to 12, hissing in a friendly way. She watched as it coiled up next to her and let out a hiss. She stayed in her spot, watching.
*****
Himeralli flexed her talons. Time seemed to tick by far too slowly. Her blue and green eyes flicked around the room.
When Chrome screamed in pain, Himeralli smiled again. The sounds were those of one of the few things she loved. Her eyes darted around, raking over everyone in the room.
Himeralli's gaze finally rested on Wisteria. She narrowed her eyes, before looking around some more. She wished that she had her marionettes with her. That would have kept her preoccupied during the long wait.
She finally curled up, becoming bored. Her talons kept flexing, and her tail was twitching irritably. When was the last one going to show up? She let out of huff of annoyance, before closing her eyes.
*****
Sobriquet looked around, speeding up the swirling patterns on her scales. She enjoyed watching the crazy dragons file in, got a kick out of the dragons who saw things that weren't there- her ghosts were real so they didn't count. Her ghosts were in the room too, or at least some of them. She recognized a few friends waving to her and she resisted the urge to wave back. It made her sad to do this to them, to pretend they weren't real, to pretend they didn't exist. It made her feel like a bad friend when most of them were always there for her, but she knew most dragons couldn't see ghosts, so she had to disregard them. One ghost, however, stuck out. It was the ghost who talked to her in her room, the one who informed her that Wisteria hated her and wanted to take Quietus away. She bared her fangs and laughed out loud when Solstice sat down right on top of him.
"You're sitting on Rilus" she informed Solstice, still giggling "please don't move, he's kindof a jerk." She looked to the doctor and raised an eyebrow, just to see if she would react. She didn't of course. She was always nice, prim, and proper, something Sobriquet respected about her. I might actually like this doctor she thought to herself if she didn't hate me so much.
She moved Quietus around on her lap, waiting for things to finally start. She didn't have the courage to make Quietus speak just yet, she didn't want him confiscated before the meeting officially started.
*****
Tattoo hissed as Ebonyclaw relayed the message. Her pride, along with her friends', was butchered by this horrid prison. How dare they continually insist that they don't exist?! Fatemeddler was sitting right next to her! She hissed again and ordered the nurse to directly quote her.
The nurse accepted the response calmly and began repeating it verbally. "She requested me to quote her," she said simply and began, "They are real. They can't be fake. I spent my whole life with them. They were my bestest friends and never let me down. They know me as well as I do. They are kind and friendly, and you just refuse to accept that. And if you don't think they exist and you think you can take them from me, you are sorely mistaken. I won't let you take them away. They stayed with me this whole time. They protected me from myself. This place is scary. Scary for me: a dragonet. Warender refused to let me kill myself. He told me how wonderful I was and what would happen to him if I was dead. Don't you care? Don't you care about me? Don't you care about him?" Ebonyclaw pleaded in a monotone voice, Tattoo's snout waiting for an answer. Her green eyes clouded again and she began thinking.
*****
Solstice looked at Tattoo for a minute. Then Sobriquet. Both of them either saw ghosts or hallucionations. As someone who was currently possessed, he could understand slightly.
"Equinox?" He asked mentally, knowing that there was probably at least one dragon who noticed his silent muttering. But he needed to know answers.
"Yeah?" The answer came back groggily, and he felt something shift in his chest. Equinox was half asleep these days, the psychiactric medication holding her back. It helped him a lot, but whenever she fully woke and broke the mental chains he struggled to keep together, it just made her even angrier each time.
"You can see ghosts, like you, correct? Could I see if the room has any in it?" He asked warily, his mouth moving silently and barely, yet no words coming from it. It was natural, easier, and this way it put less strain on his head to make his intent appear in a different way that she might understand. Speech was something they both knew, and so it was easiest.
"Fi~ine..." He blinked a few times as Equinox - for one of the first times - allowed him to see through her metaphorical eyes without compleatly taking the body and going on a rampage.
The first thing he noticed is that there really wasn't any dragons around Tattoo. She really was hallucionating.
Then he looked down, at a scowling dragon that he really was sitting on. It was very unsettling, with it flickering and half-way through his body. But he didn't move at all as the dragon pushed to it's feet and stalked away.
"Huh," he muttered, not realizing it was outloud.
Around Sobriquet, there was a few more dragons, similar to the one he was unknowingly sitting on. They chatted with each other, sometimes pointing to him or the other dragons. What was this? Was she really speaking the truth, or was her madness getting to Equinox as well as herself?
Then he heard snoring in his mind again. Equinox was asleep. The pictures faded.
Let's not do that again. He shuddered.
*****
Pyrrhia General Hospital, Psychiatric Ward: Group Therapy Room 2A. 9:45 am
Wisty glanced up at the clock. It was 9:44. She watched as the second hand ticked, inch by inch, around the circumference of the big white clock face. Her eyes narrowed as the hand ticked upwards, impossibly slowly, towards the big number 12 at the top. 10 seconds... 5 seconds... 3 seconds...
It was 9:45. It was time.
Her eyes flickered around the circle, looking at faces that held various degrees of hostility, sadness, and twisted joy. 12 was fidgeting in her seat, an irrational smile twisting her lips as she strained against the collar binding her neck. Himeralli was also smiling but in a very different way - she looked like she was thinking of the fastest and bloodiest way to kill of all of them.
I'm trying to help you, Wisteria thought to herself, her eyes betraying none of her inner pity and sympathy for these twisted and ill dragons. They wouldn't want her sympathy - most of them were fixated on how she was imprisoning them against their will. Many of them wanted to kill her. Nearly all of them had found some reason, at least in their minds, to hate her. I can help you. I can save you, but only if you let me. So let me help you.
Wisteria set her clipboard down beside her, her telekinesis fading as she let the pencil fall with a clatter. She clasped her forepaws in front of her and crossed her legs, the very image of an attentive listener. A trained and neutral smile crossed her face as she emulated hospital bedside manner to perfection.
Be cheerful but not fake, the Psychologist's Handbook instructed on page 83. Be understanding but not condescending. Be inquisitive, but do not pry. Most of all, do not present a target for anger or hostility. Your life may just depend on it.
"I think we're ready to start," she noted pleasantly, her carefully modulated voice breaking the tense silence around the circle. She knew, was trained, to inflect her voice to appear to speak to everyone at once, and yet sound like she was talking only to one individual, on a personal level.
"So, how is everyone feeling this morning?" She knew these introductory words by memory and was required to say them, as she did every morning without fail. "Did you sleep well?"
*****
Paradox mentally scoffed at the doctor's statement that things that are real things must be tangible. The world we live in can't look beyond the things that are right in front of its face. She sighed, flicking her tail back and forth as she watch the therapy unfold. This did nothing to help the dragons, for some it made it worse. Like me. She thought grimly.
She snapped her head at the doctor, waiting for the questions that she would have to answer.
*****
Chrome hissed loudly. "I cant sleep. Not at all. The voices keep me awake. I'm feeling horrible."
She hunkered down and raised her shoulders so she looked menacing. Anger was growing inside her, and her vision flashed red, then green, and then back to red. Her snake came back to sit next to her.
*****
Solstice shook his head away from staring at Sobriquet, and looked at Wisteria. As always, she started her spiel at the exact time he expected her to do so.
"Fine," he said as always, sending a strained glance at Lance. Of course he always said no.
As per common etiquette, he added "And you?"
*****
"Quietus slept just fine, but I didn't" Sobriquet started "I'm actually jealous of the bugger, because he always seems to be happier than me... why is that doctor?"
Sobriquet prided herself in her ability to say weird things to the doctors, loved to see how they would respond to it, but even more, loved to see the looks on their faces as they tried to process it. This time, however, she was completely serious.
She loved the nights she would spend with Quietus and the ghosts, talking about life until the wee hours of the morning. Quite lately though, Quietus hadn't been active in these discussions, it was a bit unnerving. That was another reason she'd brought Quietus along, becuase he needed therapy just as much as she did, possibly even more, since there wasn't anything wrong with her.
*****
Himeralli's tail twitched. Her snout twitched, before she opened her mouth as far as she could, "Good. Dreams of marionettes and my lab."
Her gaze flickered to the ground, where she saw her MudWing friend, whom she had [re]named Yellow, in a marionette form. She reached down and picked it up, holding by the x's. She smiled, and gave a little performance for herself.
*****
Wisty looked at Tattoo with sympathy in her eyes. It was patently impossible to convince a schizophrenic how their delusions weren't real when they simply did not operate with the same concept of reason and reality of ordinary dragons. She picked up her clipboard and circled the instruction to up Tattoo's drug dosage. SSRI medication - yes, that was the only way to eliminate hallucinations.
She thought over Tattoo's words with the hope of gaining some insight on Tattoo's personality and psyche. Freudian psychoanalysis would attribute Tattoo's hallucations to some basic emotional deficiency in her life, she thought. She is not receiving the love and companionship she wants in reality, so her mind has conjured these illusions to provide it for her. 
"Of course I care about you," Wisty said soothingly. "Your mother does too - I've shown you her letters. You have others in your life who care about you and your happiness other than your... imaginary friends." She avoided the word delusion for fear of aggaravating Tattoo further.
*****
Tattoo sighed, no one would listen. No one. Only her friends. They were the only ones who cared, not this fake doctor who acted like the hybrid was a newborn. Why they couldn't accept that her friends were real was beyond her.
Ebonyclaw piped a reply. "She says that she knew her mother cared for her, but 'one among a million' won't fix anything. She says that everyone she met besides her five friend made fun of her and excluded her because she was part RainWing. She wishes me to add that you could just drop the subject. She 'doesn't want to relive a torturous past'."
The nurse shifted uncomfortable. She was beginning to take Tattoo's side partially. Yes, the five didn't exist, but why torture a dragonet in forgetting the only dragons she can relate to and talk to?
*****
Tattoo isn't the only one who has hallucinations that can be explained through classic psychoanalysis, Wisteria wrote on her clipboard. I suspect that Chrome's rainbow snake and Sobriquet's Quietus may also be explained by a psychological need for companionship. These dragons are unable to cope with reality the way it is, so they have conjured up these illusions to make their existences more bearable. Classic cases.
She decided to drop the subject with Tattoo - Wisty hadn't advanced as far as she had in medicine without being able to read a patient's mood. The little dragonet was in denial, and it looked like she wouldn't be making any more progress with Tattoo, at least not along this tack.
She suspected that it wouldn't be wise to try to explain to Sobriquet how Quietus wasn't real either - at least not in group therapy. The RainWing might react badly - and after the confrontation with Tattoo, Wisteria thought that the therapy session was already off to a bumpy enough start.
"I'm sorry to hear that not all of you are sleeping well," she said. "If you would like additional sleeping medication to help you rest, please ask your nurses. Now, I think we'll start off with some basic projective tests."
Her eyes glowed briefly, and she levitated a sheaf of cards out of her bag. A Rorschach inkblot test. "Now, on each of these cards is an ambiguous image," she said, telekinetically holding the stack in front of her. "When I show you the card, I'd like each of you to tell me what you see in it."
*****
Emeralda could hear screeching and clawing sounds in the halls. Many other patients were being dragged past her door. Some more defiant than others. She sat on her bed in wonder and in a little bit of panic. What was going on? Another big lab experiment? She gulped. Am I a part of it?
With a jump, one doctor and a security guard came walking in. "Alright, Emeralda, let's go." The doctor waved his talons at the door.
Emeralda stood still for a moment. She didn't want to go. If they were going to cut her open or zap her with their gadgets, she wasn't going to let that happen. But she asked, "Why?"
"'Cause everyone is going." The doctor waved his talons again. Emeralda simply wrapped her tail around her talons and sat. The doctor sighed. "I don't have time for this. We're already late." He waved his talons at the guard and he started approaching her.
Emeralda flared her wings, but the guard grabbed her by the arm. She tried to shake him off, but he was too strong. They walked out and started heading down the hallway. All the other patients were taken down, so Emeralda was the only one left, as far as she knew.
As they kept walking, they approached a series of different rooms. Among the walls, Emeralda could hear screaming. "MAKE IT STOP!!" She jumped and ducked underneath the guard's strength. What were they doing to the poor dragon?
The guard walked into a room with dimmed lights. The doctor approached another pair of doctors and started to mumble something. Emeralda was placed on a large table. All the worries of what was going on were flooding in her mind at once. "What are you going to do to me?" she nervously asked.
The doctors stop talking and one approached her. "We're just going to extract DNA from you and test it with some other patients. Besides the hybrid of course," she explained. All the doctors began putting gloves and masks on, but one had a large needle and another had a bottle of weird chemicals inside.
Emeralda only observed. It didn't sound horrible, but that claimed they still wouldn't listen to her. "I've told you a thousand times. I'm not really a dragon!" she tried protesting.
Before anything else, however, the guard began strapping her to the table. Emeralda jolted about, trying to resist it. She didn't want to be a prisoner any longer. She wanted out!
"Of course, you're a dragon," the doctor said under the mask. "The scientific physical properties of a dragons are visible to you and I. We are trying to prove that you are either a hybrid or a scienceborn." The doctor started to put the liquid chemical into another needle.
Emeralda was in full panic. She wasn't either of those! No one would believe her in this fragging hospital! No patient, doctor, or guard had ever even....
Wait, Emeralda thought. One doctor in this whole hospital will at least consider listening. A grey SwiftWing of deep sympathy and kindness appeared in her mind. The guard began to walk out and close the door.
Before he could, Emeralda used the very last moment to shout out one name. "WISTERIA!!!!"
The doors closed. All Emeralda could do was breath in and out and wait for a reply.
*****
Wisteria's ear's perked up as she heard her name from down the hall. Someone had just screamed out - and... was it Emeralda?
Screams were nothing new to the Psych Ward, but something about this one was different. It was panicked, terrified - and Wisty suddenly got the impression of danger - immediate and very real.
She'd have to send someone to check up on Emeralda; the green dragon was already late. But she could not leave a room full of psychiatric patients to their own devices - by the time she got back half of them might be dead.
"Eos?" she asked the Scienceborn guard standing by the door. "Can you go check up on Emeralda? She's late, and I'm worried."
*****
Paradox spoke for the first time in a couple weeks. Her voice creaked from dissuse. "Illusions make up reality." Ugh. That was NOT what she was going to say. She was going to say that she could believe in anything that helped her. Paradox sighed and hid her face from view as some of the others turned to stare at her strange statement. Ya let's move on to the inkblob test. Pay no mind to me.
*****
Chrome shivered again and let out a muffled scream. She witnessed a larger, yellow snake slither up to hers and eat it. Her eyes widened and she clasped a talon around her mouth to prevent from screeching. Tears streamed down her cheeks as the yellow snake disappeared from her vision.
"Rainbow..." She murmered, shocked.
*****
12 happily stared at the card. "I see birdie dying with the blood splattered all over the page!" She almost jumped with excitement. "So... What's next? Is there the rainbow snake again?" She jumped back, the chains jerking her to the same spot. "AHHHH! IT'S THE SNAKE!!!!" Her paws covered her eyes and she tried to run. "GET IT AWAY!!!" Her head thrashed wildly and her claws unsheathed. They were long and bright blue. "HELP!!!"
*****
Chrome stared at 12. She then shrieked. "RAINBOW IS DEAD! SHE'S NEVER COMING BACK BECAUSE YELLOW ATE HER! SHE'S DEAD!!! DEEAAAAD!!!"
Chrome was in a panic. Yellow had murdered Rainbow. She frantically started to hyperventilate and she screamed even louder.
*****
Himeralli growled, and lashed her tail, holding out her [imaginary] MudWing marionette. "Yellow didn't kill her! He's been in my hands for a long time!" Himeralli rose, ready to attack Chrome.
*****
"The yellow one is quite like pineapple." 12 grabbed the imaginary snake and it turned into a pineapple. She put it in her jaws. To everyone else, it looked like she was eating air.
*****
Chrome got up and backed away from the attacking dragon. She was scared. Blue zigzags covered Himeralli, a color that made her want to scream. She grabbed a bright green snake and threw it at her, hoping to stop the attacker. Of course, in reality, she threw nothingness.
*****
Himeralli mimicked the movement in a similar way, chucking the marionette at her. Everyone else saw nothing. Guards grabbed some chains and resisted the snarling RainWing. Himeralli's tail lashed as she turned and tried to claw the guards, so chained her further to ensure no dragon would be hurt.
*****
Wisteria jumped out of her seat as a fight broke out amongst the patients. She didn't know exactly what was going on, with all this talk of colored snakes. But she did know that unless this fight was broken up soon, dragons would be hurt. At least so far all they were doing was throwing thin air at each other, but once they realized that wasn't working, it would quickly escalate to blows.
"THAT'S ENOUGH!" she bellowed, her eyes glowing as she grasped the fighters' chains in her telekinetic grip and pulled them tight. Guards ran in to help, two converging on each dragon and wrestling them back into their seats. "Everyone back in your seats," she snapped, her patience fraying. "The next dragon to try to attack someone else gets a sedative drip." A few strands came loose out of her ponytail, and she looked tired and worn.
She was beginning to rethink the wisdom of holding these group therapy sessions, as all the patients seemed to do was to aggravate each other, building off of each others' madness. It was only a matter of time before someone was seriously injured - or worse, killed.
"Back in your seats," she snapped, her formly airtight composure cracking. "Everyone. Now."
*****
Chrome was wrestled into her seat, but she couldn't help but snap a few times. Her snake was dead. She was attacked. How could this get any worse? A few tears streamed down her cheeks as she remembered the bloody heap that used to be Rainbow, now supposedly erased from her world. She wished Rainbow would come back and save her from her madness.
*****
Tattoo absentmindedly hissed, not hearing her own sound. Fleshtearer was arguing with Fatemeddler about their various ideals, and Tattoo was getting fed up. She rolled her eyes and tried to ignore them, watching with amusement the doctor holding the others back. She lost focus again, her gaze locked on the strange white and rainbow dragon.
*****
Himeralli writhed angrily snapping at her chains. She grumpily sat down, gnashing her teeth. She glared at the ground. Her marionette was gone. Her tail lashed. Yellow was a MudWing, not a snake. He might eat a snake, but he was not a snake himself. She glowered at all the dragon in the room.
*****
The room was quiet, eerily so, broken only the mutters, whimpers, and groans of the patients as they rocked about the strange worlds conjured up by their minds. Wisteria put a hand over her eyes, suddenly feeling sick to her soul.
She must look terrible, she realized. Her usually immaculate ponytail was in disarray, and her crisp doctor's lab coat was askew.
Why won't you let me help you? she raged mentally. Why won't you listen? Why do you hate me?
Of course she couldn't say that aloud. Instead she said, her voice quavering a little, "This concludes our group therapy session. Guards will now escort you to the rooftop outdoors area for your morning exercise session."
*****
Paradox was glad the doctor didn't ask any questions about her. She followed her guard, who was quite talkative, to the roof to excercise. Not that she needed it since in her cell they had allowed her freedom of motion. Guess I'm well-behaved. The MudWing chattered on and on as they went up about everything. It seemed like the guard was trying to fill both sides of the conversation.
*****
Solstice sat in his room again, flipping through a book he had received some few weeks ago. It was rather nice, about a SeaWing princess, but he had read it thirty times already.
He placed it down slowly, then nudged it a few inches to the right so that it lined up with the bedframe. Symmetry was everything to him.
He studied his claws next, the blunt and scarred talons which were so frequently cut short.
What is my own mental stability? He wondered silently, blinking a few times. He knew that the transfer between him and Equinox was a natural thing that has happened for years, but it was starting to get worse these days. More frequent. More dramatic. He blew a small plume of fire at his claws, which was quickly picked up by one of the vents in the facility and whisked away. They weren't on his case as much with his smoke, just as long as he promised not to burn anything.
Like he wanted to. Or could. Smoke was the bare minimum of fire, and that was all he could do. Stupid IceWing genes. Besides, blowing fire could catch on any of the papers or the wooden desk. He didn't want them burnt.
==Rooftop Exercise Area==
12 ran around the rooftop, swinging on the swings, climbing the playground. She felt like a little dragonet enjoying herself. The dragoness laughed and jumped off, running around the track many times. She was about to spread her wings to feel the freedom of flight, but instead, there was a sharp pain of metal scrunching her wings. "AHHH!" She fell to the ground, her wings in pain. She shouldn't have tried to spread them. Soon, there was a booming noise. Thunder. Lightning. 12 screamed in terror. She ran behind Wisteria, terrified of thunder and lightning. Of course, the thunder and lightning was in her head. "Please help... Help me."
*****
A look of dissapointment spread over Sobriquet's face as she stood up and slunchingly followed the guards to the rooftop. They were always so cold and efficient, doing whatever Wisteria told them and they usually disregarded anything she said.
"I didn't get a chance to say a single word at group therapy" she complained to the guard in charge of escorting her. He didn't react, and she didn't expect him to. "Ok, maybe Rilus has a point... none of you guys like me, but Quietus didn't get to speak either." She was expecting him to stir that time, to understand the unfairness and take her side on the matter, but he didn't.
"Quietus has his own problems you know!" she yelled at the guard "and he has feelings too, but you always forget about him, always leave him out, and he's depressed. If he could've talked about his feelings, it could have made him better. Don't you care?"
It was apparent the guard didn't infact care, or at least didn't know how to respond to her rambling. She disregarded that last part. She didn't ramble, and even if he didn't know how to respond, he should at least care.
When she got to the exercise area, she laid down on the ground and pushed Quietus under her belly. She wasn't convinced that Rilus was telling the truth, but she didn't want to risk anything, especially in a facility where all the staff might possibly hate her.
She watched 12 playing on the playground and found herself furiously jealous. 12's problems were all inside her head, diagnosable, and possibly treatable. Her only issue was that she saw the world in crazy colors, and to Sobriquet, that sounded more fun. Why do I have to be the one who could talk to the ghosts? she found herself asking And why do the doctors want so badly to take that much away from me... what gives them that right?"
All she really wanted right now was a friend who someone else could see and respect, not like her ghosts or her dear puppet, and she wasn't sure if that was even a realistic goal. She lay her head down on her arms and tried to take a nap, but was too concentrated on her jealousy at 12 to sleep, and didn't even notice her crying for help.
*****
Himeralli snarled as the guards dragged her up to the rooftop. She thrashed and jerked against her chains the whole way. I never exercised before besides darted around my lab, why should I have to do random exercise on the roof?
When the guards finally brought her up, and seemed a little hesitant to unchain the violent RainWing.
"Perhaps we should ask Wisteria before unlocking her chains?" one suggested.
The other shrugged. "We're supposed to unchain them though, so they can run around and get exercise."
"Yeah, but you know, the dragons like Crimson and Himeralli might try to attack other dragons."
Himeralli thrashed against her chains as she tried to attack her two handlers. She was tired of not being able to see blood of some sort, and wanted to slash a wound in the side of a dragon.
*****
What was that? Obidos thought, her brain muddled. She realized she wasn't in her cell anymore, and gasped. Where they setting her free? She tried to jump, but cold, restraining cuffs bound her wrists. She thrashed and struggled, but her restraints were tightened. Looking up, she saw a fierce, suspicious looking IceWing guard. " Let me go, or I will murder you like the rest." she threatened.
He simply smirked, and a nurse grabbed the handles of the wheelchair and pushed her along.
Where are we going? she wondered, staring at her short, blunt claws. Suddenly, the cuffs on her wrists retracted, and she stared in wonder at the sight before her. Dragons playing and exercising, talking. Was she supposed to do that? Surely they wouldn't let her, she was a murderer. But they were gone, so she tentatively took a step towards the playground.
*****
Chrome followed everyone to the roof, still reeling from earlier.
"I'll probably die from this..." she muttered as she climbed up the steps. She stepped into the playground and looked around, and then sat down. Red thorns covered the slide, so she stayed away.
*****
Pyrrhia General Hospital: Psychiatric Ward. 10:36 am
Wisteria glared balefully at the cup of coffee on her desk. The dark brown liquid steamed gently, its fragrant aroma permeating the room. Wisty could tell by the smell that it wasn't the cheap cafeteria brew - no, this was real' 'coffee.
Maybe one of the nurses had finally taken pity on her and gotten her coffee. Word had quickly spread around the medical staff about how disasterous the morning's group therapy session had been, and she had received pats on the back and kind words as she had traipsed back to her office after the session. So much sympathy, so much pity. More than she knew what to do with.
But she didn't want their pity or sympathy.
Wisty clenched her fists, crumpling the sheet of paper she had been clutching in her claws. Why? she raged mentally. Why did all of her patients hate her so much? She was only trying to help them - why couldn't they see that?
Rage suddenly clouded her vision, turning everything into a blur, and in a sudden fit of angry pique Wisty seized up the steaming mug of coffee and flung it across the room.
The crash of smashing ceramic shattered the silence, and Wisty was left staring sightlessly at the opposite wall of her office. A dark brown stain splashed over the wall, harsh and jagged, and the broken pieces of what was once the mug fell the cround with a clatter and tinkle. Wisty stared at the carnage, stunned and frightened by the white hot rage that had surged up so suddenly from inside her.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
Dark brown coffee dribbled slowly and viscously down the wall. The rage had faded away, hot but swift to burn out, leaving her feeling empty inside. Wisty realized that she was gasping for breath, as if she was drowning. Slowly, hesitantly, she lowered her face in her hands and curled up on the swivel chair in her office, closing her eyes and trying to slow her own breathing.
She pressed against her eyelids, watching the amorphous patterns of light and shadow dance across her vision. It's so hard, she lamented, a few errant tears leaking out from eyes squeezed shut. They hate me. All of them.
I'm trying to help them! she cried out. Why can't they see that? Why do we have to go through this over and over again, day after day, week after week, month after month?
She saw the grief and fury barely contained in Tattoo's face when Wisty had told her that her friends weren't real. Sorrow and rage - those were emotions that did not belong on the face of a dragonet. I don't want to hurt them, Wisty whispered, but how I can just let them live a lie?
She wanted to cry. She wanted rage at the injustice of the world - the injustice that had ruined so many lives and laid so many good dragons low with these terrible mental illnesses. Wisty saw Tattoo and 12 - both bright, intelligent young dragonets with so much potential hidden away in wasting brains. She saw the adult dragons suffering, locked away in cells and their own minds, day after day.
Eventually her own turbulent emotions soldified and steadied, and Wisty felt her breathing return to normal. I have to keep trying, she resolved. If I can't show that I'm making progress, they'll shut down the Psychiatric Ward and all of the patients will be sent who-knows-where to rot. I can't let that happen. I'm the only one who cares, who wants to help these poor dragons. I must to keep going! I must, I MUST!
She looked at the black computer screen on her desk. Turned off, it reflected her face. She looked terrible - her hair rumpled, her eyes shadowed and dark, her face contorted into a mask of pain and frustration. Like she belonged in a patient cell instead of a doctor's office.
Slowly, she lifted her head off of her arms. "I care about you," she whispered at the coffee stain spattering the wall opposite. "All of you. I can't let you go on like this, trapped in your minds. I want to save you." She clenched her fists, rage bubbling up in the pit of her soul. "And I WILL save you!" she screamed defiantly. "All of you!"
She looked at the dripping coffee on the other wall and felt her own resolve harden. "And if I have to hurt you to help you...
...then. I. WILL."
*****
As Chrome sat down by her, Sobriquet's first reaction was to bare her teeth, then she succumbed to her lonliness and decided it might be worth it to try to make a real friend. she considered that Chrome might not've seen her, and tried to speak louder in a slightly creepy voice to see if she could startle her
"So they tell me you see things that aren't there?" she posed to the Whatever-Wing. "That's what they say about me, but I know the truth"
*****
Chrome turned to stare at Sobriquet.
"Yes. Currently you are covered in bright red thorns, and so is the rest of the playground." Chrome shifted uneasily. The thorns began to take shape into a red monster. She turned to glare at it, but it kept forming.
*****
"I probably am, how would I know if I were covered in thorns? In fact, what if the whole world were covered in red thorns and you were the only person who knew?" Sobriquiet was glad to talk to someone who didn't automatically assume she was crazy, someone who talked to her like an equal.
"If it makes you feel any saner, there's a ghost poking you on the back. She's one of my friends though, not like Rilus"
*****
12 hugged the SwiftWing. "Don't yell. It hurts." She held on for an uncomfortable amount of time. The dragoness blinked and kept them closed for a moment. After thirty second, she opened them. And then... For five seconds, she saw a normal rusty playground and a normal blue sky. The gray concrete, the normal looking SwiftWing. Then she blinked again. She was back into her own psychotic world. A bright neon pink butterfly fluttered past 12's snout. She started to chase it, the imaginary butterfly leaving a whimsical trail of dust. She pounced on nothingness.
*****
Himeralli flexed her talons. The guards had restrained her from chains less but still weren't sure if she should go out wild. They wanted Wisteria's permission, first.
Himeralli watched other dragons being able to move about untethered. She felt envy flow off her. She clawed the ground. She at least wanted her marionette. Too bad she'd thrown Yellow at Chrome.
She lay down, and started biting at her chains. She was restless. She needed to run about. Or kill something.
Whatever comes first.
*****
Chrome didn't turn around. Everywhere was encased in red thorns, and she wasn't about to knock into them. She glanced around as a thorn monster finally formed and ran after her. She screamed and covered her eyes from the red beast.
*****
The guards were having a hard time trying to get Kiara up on the roof for Exercise. Kiara had already missed the group therapy session. Kiara screamed and struggled against her guards and chains.
"You will never get me up there! I will kill you all!," she snarled.
"Knock her out," one of the guards said.
~ ~ ~ ~
When Kiara woke up, she was surrounded by other dragons. She was on the roof. Kiara growled and sat up. The chains were no longer on her. And her muzzle was gone too.
Dumb dragons. The muzzle was there for a reason. she thought.
Kiara inhaled, reared up on her back legs and tried to breathe fire. It didn't work. Kiara roared in anger and a few of the other patients around went back to exercising.
I am surrounded by crazy dragons. Just great.
Kiara looked around and spotted a RainWing. Kiara hated RainWings ever since her best friend, Fluorescent left her to die.
It's Fluorescent.
Kiara charged at the RainWing, claws outstretched, eyes dark. But her victim couldn't hear her coming, for she was deaf. Kiara slashed her claws at Tattoo as guards rushed over to where they were. The guards punched Kiara in the head and dragged her unconscious body back to her cell.
*****
The doors to the exercise area were flung open with a bang.
The guard at the doors looked around in surprise and alarm, his hand flying reflexively towards the firearm at his belt. Then he relaxed somewhat when he saw that it was only Doctor Wisteria standing in the doorway, darkly silhouetted by the bright halogen lamps of the hallway behind her.
Then he took a closer look. Her eyes roved around the exercise pen, flickering around from patient to patient like roulette balls spinning wildly in every direction. She was breathing hard, as if she had just run some distance. Her usually immaculate ponytail had come unraveled, falling over her face, and the sleeve pristine white lab coat was stained with some dark brown fluid... coffee? That in itself was unlike her - the guard knew that Wisteria loved her coffee, and had never been known to spill a single drop.
"Is everything quite alright, Doctor?" the guard asked with concern tinging his voice.
Wisty cast a quick, dismissive look at him. "What? Oh yes. I'm fine."
And then suddenly she seemed to relax. Her eyes focused on the guard, and she gave him a polite smile. "Yes, of course everything is alright. No need to worry."
The guard relaxed too - he hadn't realized it before, but he had been tense. Here was the Doctor Wisteria he knew - calm, self-assured, and confident. Perhaps her mane was askew and her clothes were stained, but that was hardly unusual. She might have been involved in a tussle with a patient.
The image she had presented earlier, of a dragoness on the breaking point, was once again hidden.
~ ~ ~ ~
"Doctor Wisteria!" Wisty looked around. One of Himeralli's guards was heading towards her. "We'd like your permission to remove Himeralli's leg shackles, doctor," the guard said.
Wisty looked at Himeralli, lying unhappily and gnawing on her chains. "Yes, of course," she said, frowning slightly. "Let her go, but keep an eye on her. I don't think she'll try to attack anyone today."
No, Wisty thought as the guard headed back towards the RainWing patient. Himeralli might be violent, but she knew what was at stake. She knew of the death penalty for her handed down by the RainWing courts, and how Wisty's word was the only thing protecting her from the electric chair. Wisty hoped that Himeralli had the sense not to cause trouble.
~ ~ ~ ~
Wisty looked sadly at 12 as the little RainWing dragonet scrambled behind her, whimpering about some imaginary lightning and thunder. How sad it was, that a little dragonet like her with so much potential was wasting her life giggling at imaginary colors.
Then she saw 12's eyes blink, and focus momentarily. Was that... lucidity that Wisty saw in those big dark pools? Was the medication finally working? Did she dare hope that somehow, on some level, she was getting through to 12?
Then the moment passed. 12's eyes drifted off back into her own world, and Wisty watched with a heavy heart as the dragonet scrambled away, chasing thin air. But Wisty couldn't help but think that for a moment - just a moment - the veil of madness had fallen away from her eyes and 12 had seen the world in all its truth and glory.
~ ~ ~ ~
"Wisty... what did they do to me?"
Wisty turned around to see Emeralda hurrying towards her, her foreleg and wing wrapped in bandages. "Emeralda," she exclaimed in surprise. "Where were you this morning? We missed you at group therapy." Not that you missed much, she thought morosely to herself.
Then she caught sight of the sterile bandages, a stark white contrast against Emeralda's dark green scales. "What happened?" Wisty asked in concern. Did Emeralda have an accident in her room?
Then she saw the pinpricks of blood and the razor sharp cut on Emeralda's green skin - unmistakeable of a scalpel incision. Suddenly her voice hardened. "Emeralda, what happened to you? I don't remember authorizing surgery on you for any reason."
*****
Emeralda slowly looked up at Doctor Wisteria. Her arm and wing were getting a little worse. "The...the doctors in the dim room. They took some DNA to test...if I'm a hybrid or a scienceborn."
She gulped for breath. "They said their going to test the on the other patient's DNA." Emeralda looked deep into Wisteria's eyes with fear. She didn't want her to hurt them, but she wanted her to investigate.
"Ask them what they put in me. Please....I don't feel too great."
*****
Himeralli watched as the guards unchained her. She shot away, muscles rippling under her scales. She leaped up onto some of the playground equipment, and leapt from spot to spot, like she was in the rainforest.
She reached a pole and wrapped her tail around it, spinning around repeatedly until she was dangling upside-down. She breathed in the air. She spread out her wings, and let her normally flashy and psychotic colour turn whatever they wished.
Himeralli closed her eyes, thinking of her lab. She felt relaxed. Then she thought of Yellow, and not the marionette. Her eyes flew open. She needed to reach him. He was caged, going to die, and no one knew where her lab was.
Himeralli dropped to the ground and began running around, looking for ways to escape. She breathed heavily, rapidly. She felt like she was breaking down. Yellow was probably already dead.
She dropped to the ground, clouds glazing over her eyes, her troubled thoughts bouncing around in her head.
*****
12 sat in silence. Her head looked around her. She slightly smiled... But the smile trembled into a frown. "I don't know, I don't know..." She slowly got up and walked over to a shady spot. She sat in the corner, her eyes fixing on a tree. Oh how she loved that bright orange color...
Everything else around her slowed down. The dragons screaming, running, talking, playing... There was no more noise. She stared intensely at the tree. It swirled left... Then right. Then left, then it remained still. Her bright blue eyes that were hard to stare at, darkened just a bit. They almost looked... Normal. The tree turned brown. Leaves of green fell in the wind.
12 tilted her head, everything in super slow motion. The motion of the world came again, the loud talking and screaming. 12 closed her eyes tightly and out her paws over her ears. When she opened her eyes, the swirly patterns were back. She sighed.
*****
Chrome decided to do something she thought she would never do. She walked up to Wisty, ignoring the horrible monster chasing her, and bowed her head.
"I'm sorry for the trouble I have caused. Forgive me. I don't hate you."
And then Chrome went happily skipping back to her spot, the swirling patterns turning a rosy pink.
*****
Wisty stared at Chrome in surprise. First 12, and now Chrome too? Were these dragons finally seeing the truth past the world of lies that they had conjured for themselves over the years?
I don't hate you. The words rang out in her ears, reverberating like an echo in an empty room.
Could it be? Was she finally reaching Chrome? The real Chrome, hidden and buried deep inside, behind the everpresent madness?
Wisty opened her mouth to speak, her heart suddenly very full, but the red and black dragon was already skipping away, her scales flushing dusky pink.
Wisty shook her head, refocusing on Emeralda. "Don't worry," she said to the green dragon, a steely glint in her eyes veiled behind her fallen hair. "I'll get to the bottom of this. The doctors who did this to you will be disciplined. But for now, you should go enjoy your time outside. Socialize with the other dragons."
*****
12 gave Wisty a pleading stare. Please... It's too loud. Her paws were covering her ears, the images in her head fuzzy. All of the neon colored dragons skipping along so blurry. It hurt her head.
*****
Chrome appeared next to 12 and put a paw on her shoulder. She knew the feeling. The sounds vibrated in her ears along with the voices in her head, and the tree had a weird black pattern on it. She sat down.
*****
The bright dragoness looked at Chrome. "Hi." Was all she said. Her head looked at Chrome's paw on her shoulder. She actually touched her. 12 felt twinge of real feeling inside of her. Maybe this one was like her. "Chrome? Is that the name?"
*****
"Yes." She said. She looked at 12. This dragon was like her in many ways: seeing things that weren't there, her freakish appearance. She wondered about this dragoness.
Chrome looked around at the other dragons, strange patterns stretching across their scales. She was dismayed as a flash on her vision and a certain red thorn monster knocked her over. She recovered and gasped as the creature loomed over her, and she scrabbled into the tree, trying to find a way to combat the beast.
*****
12 gazed all over, swinging on the swing. It made a loud creeeeak. She sighed and frowned, her stomach growling. "I'm hungry. Can I have food?" She asked in a clearer voice. "Pleeeeease?" Her eyes looked around at all of the other dragons... So swirly and colorful... She jumped off of the swing and walked by the door, scratching it. A small strand of saliva came dripping down from her small jaws.
Her head whipped backwards, glaring at Chrome. She was running from... Something blurry. It looked big and sharp, it's body fizzing and staticky. "What the?..." As they got closer, she could see the thorn monster clearly. But why couldn't she see it from far away?
Maybe... Her mind went back to the food part. It was almost lunch.
*****
Kiara woke up again, back in her cell. More chains were tethering her to the ground.
"Doctor Wisteria needs to see her. This SkyWings needs some intense therapy," one of the guards snarled.
"I'll get the doctor. We can't risk letting her out again."
*****
Himeralli stood up, groggy. She stumbled around, her eyes darting to and fro. She felt as though someone was coming up behind her. She turned. Nothing.
"Yellow wants revenge, Yellow wants revenge, Yellow wants revenge," she murmured the sentence repeatedly, her paranoia starting to overtake her.
She stumbled about. Every dragon was a potential enemy. She looked. When she felt talons grab her. She emitted a long, drawn-out scream of terror as she raced toward Doctor Wisteria.
"He's coming for me! He's coming for me!" Himeralli screamed, tripping and falling onto the ground. She turned, eyes wide, and watched as a MudWing thundered toward her.
She screamed again, trying to get up, and dragging herself toward the doctor.
*****
Wisteria looked around in alarm to see Himeralli running towards her, screaming and fleeing from what seemed to be thin air. "Himeralli!" she exclaimed, going to the RainWing's side. "What is it? Who's chasing you?"
Another hallucation, no doubt, Wisteria noted mentally. Interesting to see how these dragons consistently conjure up visions of enemies and hostiles. Illusions of persecution. From a psychoanalytic point of view, perhaps they feel a general sense of danger and hostility in the world around them, and their mental illness is using their imaginations to give it form and shape.
She resolve to investigate the matter further - but right now she had a patient to tend to. Wisty approached Himeralli, venturing as near as she dared. Despite Himeralli's current state of distress and fear she was still a very dangerous dragon, and Wisty couldn't be sure that she wouldn't lunge if the doctor came within reach.
*****
Himeralli gasped, her eyes darting around wildly. "Yellow's coming!"
She looked behind her, seeing the giant MudWing thrumming toward her. "No!" she screamed, before running into something and being knocked unconscious.
*****
Eos walked into the therapy yard. The bright sunlight temporarily dazing him. He shook his head to clear his vision. He spotted Dr. Wisteria and walked over to her, dodging running dragonets. "Crazy day so far..." He admired her kindness to the patients despite some of them wanting to kill her.
"I'm surprised I'm not one of them. Most dragons think I'm crazy. One wrong word could get me in here knowing the court systems today. It's a shame really." He sighed and fiddled with the radio on his neck.
*****
Lance looked up, the loud alarms startling him. He sat up, looking around. He saw a dragon clawing at the door to the Exercise Area, howling with rage and livid hatred. Tensing slightly, he reached behind him and grabbed a glass bottle of water he had brought with him. Breaking off the end, he held up the neck of the bottle, the jagged edges as sharp as talons.
If I have to fight, I will. This dragon, like the monster, shall fall at my talons if they try to approach me and kill me.
~ ~ ~ ~
Dreamstalker looked over at the door, his reverie broken by the alarms set off by Doctor Wisteria, where he saw a raging, pain-crazed dragon. They were ripping at the door, as though trying to break in. For what, he did not know.
Curious, the NightWing tensed up. He shut his eyes and peered into this dragon's mind. Even he was shocked at what he found.
The animus was blown away by the sheer magnitude of the dragon's rage, burning through their blood and powering every movement it made. Fear, confusion, chaos, pain, anger- This dragon felt all of it.
He saw in his mind a snippet of memory: A NightWing, his eyes narrowed with hatred and a dark rictus of insane joy upon his snout, torturing a pair of NightWings to death, while a crying dragonet watched. The pair eventually fell to the ground, their eyes glassy and their mouth slightly open, as if something surprised them.
Dreamstalker took his consciousness out of the mind of this insane NightWing, shaking his head. His cold, dark red eyes were fixated upon the floor. A small part of him felt an affinity with this mysterious dragon. They had both lost their parents violently and prematurely to outside forces, and both wanted vengeance for it.
However, he shook this feeling off, angry at himself for feeling that way. Remember your purpose, That Tiny Voice In His Head said to him, in a whisper that almost was inaudible.
He shook his head, clearing his mind.
No other dragons matter. I am Dreamstalker, son of Crimsonblaze and Coldsoul, herald of nightmares. I am not a dragon who is to care about others. I'm not that wretched Starlight, of all dragons. He remembered the dragon his father used to talk about with deep hatred in his voice. She had been the preferred one, perfect and nice and the Goody Two-Claws of the family. She wasn't even a Brewster!
I am the most powerful NightWing animus for a thousand years, since Queen Night herself. I can enter the dreams of any dragon, without the use of a dreamvisitor, and terrify my victims. And most of all, I am Dreamstalker.
*****
Solstice was taken out to the yard later than the others. Possibly to let off some metaphorical steam or something like that.
He stretched after the leg binds were taken off him, and retreated to his usual space at the corner of the courtyard, where it was shady and cool. There, he could listen to the birds chirp by and enjoy the wind that so rarely whipped into his room. He would have brought a book with him to take his mind off the overall chaos in the yard, but he remembered the last time he brought one to the more flame-ready dragons. He could hardly find the ashes of that lovely book.
Now, he tried to stop the twitching in his claws that came when he saw dragons going around at random, the small playpark put in an unsymmetrical manner, by staring at the cracks in the ground. At least he always knew where they went. They might be jagged and strange, unpleasant to his eye, but at least he had already gotten used to where they were, where they went.
*****
Fastwings moaned and rolled over on her bed. A hot fury and pain was startign to course through her scales. With a roar of agonized fury, she spread her wings and banged on the walls, clawing at anything, determined that everything had helped her family's murder, and even more convinced that she was finally going to get revenge.
Her claws caught quite suddenly on the crack between door and wall, and she ripped it open with the sheer strengh of her fury and rage. Howling furiously, she shot up the hallway, then she would rip... tear... kill... She saw some dragons in a safety-locked room and started clawing at the door. One of them pressed a button and loud alarms sounded.
*****
Pyrrhia General Hospital: Psychiatric Ward. Rooftop Exercise Area. 11:20 am.
Wisty glanced up at Eos as the Scienceborn guard fiddled with his radio. She looked at him in surprise and no small amount of concern as he sighed somberly, looking at the pavement under their claws. Wisty looked down too, and saw weeds and tufts of scraggly grass sprouting from cracks in the concrete. A dandelion sprouted from a jagged crack beneath her claw, and she flicked absently at its corona of wispy seeds. Some of the florets broke away and drifted away in the wind, swirling and dipping in the gentle breeze.
She sighed too, gazing at 12 and Chrome running in circles at the other end of the playground, but her mind was far away. "I suppose we're all a little crazy," she reflected quietly. Her eyes fell on Himeralli, swinging from the jungle gym and growling to herself, and her expression saddened. "Some of us more than others."
Abruptly her reverie was broken by a squawk of static bursting from Eos's belt radio. "... west hallway... patient #2543... escape... help...." crackled a tinny, metallic voice, barely audible behind a storm of interference.
Wisty furrowed her brow, suddenly feeling a sudden sinking rush of dread in the pit of her stomach. "Patient #2543," she mused. "Isn't that Fastwings? The psychotic NightWing?" The feeling of dread intensified, and Wisty felt her heart rise to her throat. "Escaped?"
Suddenly alarms began to wail inside the Psychiatric Ward, sharp, insistent, and earsplittingly loud. Wisty stood frozen in shock and horror as every last dragon in the yard began to react to the sudden eruption of noise. Some of the patients began to hold their ears, shrieking in agony and adding their own voices to the din. Others panicked, screaming and fleeing in all directions as if fearing for their lives.
"Stay here," she cried to Eos, her sense of duty returning to her and forcibly reminding her that it was her job to handle the situation calmly and efficiently. "Try to calm them down. Don't let any of them start fighting or trying to jump over the fence to get away. I have to go see what the matter is!"
Not waiting to see Eos's response, she turned and dashed back towards the entrance to the building, opening her wings a little to glide the last few feet. The guard at the gate was holding the door open but she still managed to clip her wingtips on the doorframe as she hurtled past. The pain barely made an impression on her - so focused was she on the situation at hand.
A breakout! she thought to herself, recoiling from the very idea. Security in the Psychiatric Ward was airtight! Never in all Wisteria's years in the hospital had such a thing happened - how had FastWings managed to escape?
She rounded a corner at a run, bumping into the wall as she took the turn at speed, and suddenly her question was answered. The door to FastWing's cell was hanging open, having been all but wrenched clean off of its hinges. "Three Moons!" Wisty cursed to herself, stunned at the sight. The NightWing must be as strong as a bull to force her way past three inches of solid steel.
This is an unforgiveable breach of security! she fumed. Where were the guards! They should have seen the escape through the cameras and activated lockdown mode - sealing each patient cell and hallway be quadrants. What happened?
Wisty looked left and right - which way had Fastwings gone? And for a moment she hesitated. Her powerful SwiftWing telekinesis had protected her during many past confrontations, but she was not eager to pit her own abilities against the brute strength of a dragon who could smash her way past solid metal.
Wisty took off in a sprint down the corridor - her duty came first. Right then Fastwings could be attacking the guards, the nurses, or her fellow patients. Wisty had to stop her. She rounded another corner and stopped in her tracks, skidding a little, as she saw Fastwings clawing at the door of a safe room which was crowded with nurses and guards.
"FastWings!" she shouted, stepping forwards and letting her eyes glow as she erected a wall of telekinetic force in front of her, in case the NightWing made a run at her. "Stop! Right now!"
*****
Eos quickly took a mental note of each patients position in the therapy yard. He marked off the ones ignoring the noise and keeping calm. He loaded his tranquilizer gun incase someone tried to jump the fence or attack the nurses. "Chain the violent patients! Use your tranquilizers if they resist. We can't allow them to get loose." He said into his radio.
*****
Paradox saw one of the nurses holding a clipboard and pencil as the others readied their tranquilizers for the others. Now's my chance to communicate! She remembered once, when she was first came here, she could speak through writing. That ended when a certain dragon killed several therapists with a pencil, including the one who knew she could write.
Quietly she approached the SeaWing nurse and opened her talons in peace. Please don't freak out, I just want your pencil and paper. Quickly she snatched the things and began to write furiously as the SeaWing, who was still startled, looking at her as if she had revealed a hippo underneath her scales.
Doctors,
We long for freedom. Please.
That was as much as she got before someone snatched the paper from her and ushered her to a place away from the commotion. Read the note. Paradox pleaded. Of course, they would write it off as a delusional statement. She hung her head.
*****
Himeralli yelped, startled from the alarm. Her head whipped around, searching for the source as the other dragons began freaking out.
She dropped down, head swiveling around. She watched as Eos said something into his radio, and guards came over with chains and tranquilizers. She hissed, and backed up.
Himeralli wasn't particularly fond of being tranquilized, but she didn't want to get chained up, either. She backed away until the guards cornered her. She hissed and spat.
A guard darted forward quickly and slipped on her muzzle so she wouldn't spray anyone. The rest chained her, then walked her away from the equipment.
*****
Chrome couldn't hear any alarms or anything. She was too preoccupied with the lurking thorn monster coming toward her, and it wasn't disappearing. She let out a high pitched shriek and shuffled against the tree, trapped. The thorn monster let out a horrible roar, and it vibrated against her ears.
"I'M GOING TO DIE!" She screamed, and then she covered her ears, the roar too loud for her.
*****
Emeralda was being helped outside by the guard, when suddenly a large ringing noise broke through the air of the hospital. She jumped back in surprise, but the guard stood firm in surprise. He lifted her to the side of the hall and placed her there on the cold stone floor.
"You stay here," the guard commanded. Before Emeralda could say anything, he ran down the hall with the other guards. The loud noise kept going off. It must be an alarm.
Someone breaking in? Emeralda thought. Then she consider more harder for a moment. ...Or someone breaking; out?
A patient was definitely breaking out. Good for them. Get out while they still have the chance to be rid of that horrible dim room....and the pain.
As she thought this, Emeralda's head immediately started throbbing like her heart. It burned her mind and stung her arm and wing. What did they do to her? Extract DNA, she knew, but they put some chemicals in a needle. They had injected it in her wing and fell asleep.
Her head thrashed again. Emeralda screamed in pain. It hurt too much. Whatever they had done to her, they were going to do to everyone. Whoever was breaking out had the best plan.
*****
Wisty looked about her - this situation needed to end now, before things spiraled even further out of control. She looked at Fastwings down the hall, pondering her options. Should she rush the NightWing, or wait for help from the guards?
Then she heard a flashing light and an additional klaxonlike horn alarm, adding to the din. Spinning around, she saw that steel gates were descending out of the ceiling, over the main entrance and the guard checkpoint. The emergency gates struck the floor with a clang of finality. The exit was sealed. Lockdown protocol had been activated.
Nobody was getting out. Not the patients, and not the doctors either. Wisty was as good as trapped, here with her own patients, until the lockdown was lifted from outside the ward.
Escape risk was usually very small, as most of the patients were usually too disabled to plan a successful escape - though there had been several attempts. That was a second purpose for the volume and intensity of the alarms - to render the environmentally sensitive patients all but mentally incapacitated. Wisty grimly pictured the scene of chaos that must be reigning back in the exercise area.
Wisty suspected that Fastwing's escape had been more of the result of a sudden burst of anger than anything premeditated. Cautiously she stepped down the hall, watching as the NightWing turned, snarling, to face her. Wisty held her hands out, showing that she was unarmed, though her eyes glowed softly as she maintained a telekinetic wall between them.
"Fastwings," she said, adopting the coaxing, gentle voice that she usually employed to persuade a difficult patient to take his medicine, or to assure someone that this won't hurt a bit. "Come over here, away from that door. I'm not going to hurt you. I just want you to be safe. Listen to me. Focus on the sound of my voice."
Please listen, she thought urgently. "Come with me now, nice and easy. In a few minutes government guards will storm the Psychiatric Ward, and you'll be shot down where you stand. Come with me - I know this isn't your fault." A chill went up her spine - the government had a surefire way of dealing with patients who cause trouble - a bullet to the skull. They'd shoot Fastwings without hesitation, and explain it away later as a tragic accident.
Wisty felt sweat beading on her brow. She had to make Fastwings listen! She had to! The NightWing was maddened with rage and pain - she was beyond reason. She wasn't thinking clearly.
Or - a dark, unbidden part of her mind proclaimed - perhaps Fastwings is thinking very clearly. Perhaps she's had enough. Of doctors, of madness, of life. Perhaps she wants the bullet, to end it all.
Fastwings wants escape. And maybe she plans to get it - through death...
... the only way out.
"Do you want to die today, Fastwings?" Wisty pleaded, tears pooling in her eyes as she sought to make the NightWing see reason. "If you keep attacking us, you will. And there won't be anything I can do to stop them."
*****
Fastwings panted heavily, then stareed at her claws. What had she just done? She was about to kill innocent dragons, for what one had done? She crumpled to the ground, burying her head in her talons. After a bit, she looked up at the doctor.
"I'm sorry. I'll try not to do it again. It was just...so awful.." Letting out a moan she buried her head again.
*****
Wisty approached cautiously, pieces of broken glass crunching under her feet - despite the NightWing's seeming remorse for her actions, she was still a very powerful and unstable dragon. But something in her eyes made Wisty decided to believe her. Wisty's eyes shimmered and then returned their usualy dark violet as she let her magic barrier fade.
"That's alright," she said soothingly to Fastwings. For a moment she debated over whether to try to touch the NightWing - and then decided against it. Contact was strictly against hospital protocol for a reason, as most patients reacted badly to physical touch.
"Just come with me," she said softly, coming as near to Fastwings as she dared. "We'll have to go back to your room. Everything's going to be okay."
*****
Chrome continued to break down, not seeing anyone leaving or running away. All she could see was the monster, getting ready to attack her. She let out another scream, and she broke into a cold sweat. The air vibrated, and the voices in her head increased.
"WHY?!" She screeched, louder than before as another monster began to form. She began to cry, wishing Rainbow were here. But Rainbow was dead, and resistance against this cruel fate was futile.
*****
Violent patients, tranquilizer darts, escape. These all registered through Sobriquet's mind as she heard the pandemonium unfurl. She was still calmly lying down on the ground on the roof. It made her sad to think of all the panic and realize that, like group therapy, she really didn't have a role in it. I can be a violent danger she thought to herself. I want the respect of being a threat and the awe and envy of the other patients.
She looked around, hoping to spot Iradescence, the only ghost she knew that would talk her out of this. She was nowhere to be seen. Unlike most of the ghosts Sobriquet encountered, Iradescence and a few others remained in the rainforest when she was taken away. Iradescence had apologized, tried to explain things, promised a visit, but in the entire half a year Sobriquet had been institutionized, she had not seen the motherly RainWing ghost once, and quite frankly she missed her.
"Aaargh, I'mma kill you all!!" She made Quietus speak in his raspy voice, shoving him in Chrome's face and running over to 12 to do the same. She might not be a violent danger to the other patients and to the staff, but Quietus sure was. She moved him from 12's face and proceeded to have him bite her on the arm, his toothless mouth not leaving a mark. "Help, Quietus is crazy!" Sobriquet uttered, giggling as he hung onto 12.
*****
"Um... Hello. I think your thing is on my arm." 12 swung her arm around, a quick motion of pink bubbles and orange flickers in her mind. Why did she have to see the world so differently? "It's... Kind of silly." She stuck her tongue out and smiled just a little bit.
Her wings folded in and she slid down, her back against the wall. She took out an apple that she snuck out from the cafeteria from two nights ago. She bit into the soft apple. "Want some?" She offered it to the puppet and RainWing. "It's soft and good." She licked her lips, seeing bright scribbles of colors again.
12 happily jumped up and down, giggling excitedly at the puppet. "What's your guy's names?" She asked, a grin on her face. The RainWing was a mix of pink and yellow in her bright eyes.
*****
"I'm Sobriquet and this is Quietus. I'm sorry he tried to eat you, he's just hungry." She liked this new dragon already. Quietus greedily gulped down the apple and it rolled through him, landing with a splot on the ground. Sobriquet picked it up and rubbed it against a swirling scale and then passed it back to 12.
Sobriquet was slightly dissapointed that 12 didn't react with terror when her puppet bit her. She still wanted to be respected as a violent threat to this institution, but she was glad that 12 was friendly. "I've never actually eaten a scavenger" she told 12 out of nowhere, figuring she might like to know, and that it might be the type of secret that would make them best friends.
*****
Fastwings sighed again, then shook herself. "I'm sorry.. its just every night, he kills them again and again..." A hot fury came into her eyes, and she flexed her dark talons. "Oooh, if I ever get out of here, the things he will feel..." She willingly followed Wisty to her room, stopping and staring in confusion when they passed a window to the exercise yard where 12 was.
*****
Pyrrhia General Hospital: Psychiatric Ward. 11:58 am.
Wisty breathed out one hard breath.
Order must be restored.
Fastwings was led back to her room, given a heavy sedative, and left in her room once more. Now Wisty made her way back to the exercise area, listening to the gathering silence as each alarm was shut off one by one. She heard the clanking of the steel gate by the main entrance as it was withdrawn. Lockdown mode was over. Order had been reestablished everywhere, except in the minds of the patients themselves.
Wisty entered the playground and gazed around at the chaos within. Eos was doing his best to maintain order, but most of the patients had curled up on the ground, sobbing or babbling mindlessly to themselves. The blaring of the alarms had all but scrambled their senses of reason.
She glanced at her watch - the sooner that normalcy could be reestablished, the faster recovery would ensue. It was 11:58, two minutes before lunchtime. The thought of food will help to calm everyone down, she thought hopefully.
She took a quick head count of the dragons in the exercise area. Sobriquet, 12, Himeralli, Chrome... it looked like everyone who had opted to come to morning exercise was accounted for. But Wisty frowned and counted again.
Where were Paradox and Emeralda?
*****
"Really? Me neither!" 12 shouted with glee. "Maybe we can try one together sometime!" A bright smile was on her face. A horn blew. "It's lunchtime! Yay! C'mon, c'mon!" She grabbed Sobriquet's bright yellow arm and ran to the gate, her eyes filled with hunger.
"I usually sit alone... Maybe... Would you want to sit by me? I would loves it if Quietus joined! He's pretty funny... And funny looking!" She snorted and threw her head back. So many colors... Swirls of rainbow... Everything!
*****
Fastwings panted. Dark shadows were warping her vision, and she felt a cold stone of fear grow in her belly. Not back to sleep! Frantically she started to try to think of ways to stay awake. She stood, then turned in circles, refusing to lay down.
She knew that the nightmares weren't over yet. Her family hadn't died yet, and she wondered if anyone could know that. She managed to stay awake long enough for the sedative to wear off, then curled onto her bed, wishing she had something to entertain herself with. Bored, she picked at her sheets, then laid one on the floor and starting to claw a patteren of spirals in it.
*****
Chrome continued to scream. No one would save her from this fate. She was going to die mad, crazy. She was going to die from having to suffer through her horrible mental problems, and no one could save her. She began to sob, not caring if the monsters finished her off. She didn't care about what would ever happen to her. She completely lost hope.
*****
As the other dragons lined up at the exit, eager for lunch and waiting for the guards to reattach their leg guards and chains, Wisty looked over to Chrome in concern, as the red and black dragonet continued to scream even the alarms shut off and the others fell silent.
Wisty shook her head sadly. Screaming was nothing new to the Psychiatric Ward. Wisty thought that she had heard all of the screams that patients could make in her years working in the hospital - screams of pain, screams of happiness, screams of fear, screams of flat-out insanity - but Chrome's particular variety was new to her. The patient was sitting on the pavement, holding her head in her hands and screaming as if her soul as being torn out from her chest.
"Chrome! Chrome!" Wisty had to shout to make herself heard over Chrome's sorrowful keening. "We're going to lunch now. What's the matter?"
*****
Chrome stared at Wisty with eyes filled with insanity. She slowly lowered her talons, and then almost whispered.
"They monsters... are coming... TO EAT ME!!!!" She finished off with a blood curdling scream and then shivered, her sanity being torn apart. She couldn't survive this much longer, and she knew what would wait at the end. Death.
*****
12 walked in, looking straight at Wisteria. "Can I ask her a question?" She asked a guard. He deeply sighed and walked her over the Wisty.
"This dragonet would like to ask you a question." He grumbled and stayed right behind her.
"Hiya!" She shouted. "Green is a pretty color!" She shouted looking at Wisty's green and blue scales and mane. Of course, it was all in her head.
The dragoness looked at the lonely, old bench right outside, pools of green sunlight filtering on the top of it from the trees. 12 pointed to it. "Could I... Maybe eat out there? Please? It's beautiful, and calm... And there would be no screaming." She gave a look to Chrome.
"Also... Would you like to join me? Wouldn't it be lovely to chat with coffee and biscuits! I haven't the time to communicate with you much..." She sighed, her eyes looking down. She spoke more then she normally did.
*****
Wisteria looked at Chrome sadly. "Chrome," she said, enunciating each word calmly and clearly to ensure that she was heard by the troubled dragonet. "There are no monsters. Nothing is going to hurt you; you're perfectly safe here with me. Now come, we're going to lunch. I think you might feel better with something in your stomach."
She gestured a few guards and fellow doctors over her shoulder, indicating that they should come over the help Chrome up and join the queue gathering at the door, ready for lunch.
Suddenly Wisty stiffened as the intercom blared to life. All the dragons straightened up to listen as a voice - was that Emeralda? - blared through the microphone.
Wisty listened to the message with a growing sense of dread - peaking as Emeralda's voice suddenly dissolved into a shriek of static. Then the intercom crackled and died.
Wisty looked at the guards who were busy escorting the patients to lunch; all of them were gazing right back at her expectantly, wondering what to do at this new development. "Go on," she instructed them, trying to appear unconcerned. No use causing another scare, after the alarms and the panic that had just subsided. "Take the patients to lunch - we're running behind as it is. I'll go see what the matter is at the front desk."
The guards nodded, turning back to the patients, as Wisty reentered the building and set off at a fast clip towards the main desk.
What could have happened? she wondered. She had lost track of Emeralda once the alarm sounded, but she remembered how the green dragon believed that she had been experimented on. It could be a delusion, she realized. Moons know that's common enough around here. It did sound pretty far-fetched. And the wounds on her shoulder could be self-inflicted.
I'll have to find her to get some answers.
*****
Chrome followed them in, and so did her monsters. She stopped screaming, but she looked wearily behind her constantly, hoping the monster didn't pull her by the tail and gobble her up. Tears streamed down her cheeks. This was horrible. She felt like a prisoner, waiting to go to their trial, and in this case, die a stangled death.
*****
12 frowned when Wisty just ran past her, completely ignoring her. She just wanted to eat and talk like a normal dragon... Oh wait! She wasn't normal. The dragoness grumbled and stood there. The guard tugged on her to get her to sit down at the tables and eat the horrible, cold soup. 12 shook her head. "I'm not eating until Wisty comes back." She crossed her arms.
"Suit yourself. You can die of starvation for all I care." He just stared at her with as cold glare.
*****
"Quietus is NOT funny looking!!" she yelled at her new best friend "He's normal and beautiful and less funny looking than most of these dragons here..." She realized that 12 saw the world weird and felt inclined to ask "What color is he anyway?"
She walked by 12's side as she went to ask Wisteria to sit outside, silently and awkwardly saying nothing. When she asked Wisteria to sit with them, she cringed. 12 should know that Wisteria hates them all, especially herself, but this wasn't the time for it. She'd tell 12 when Sobriquet and 12 sat together, inside, without the doctor. That was the only way it could happen, Wisteria would have to like them to give into those demands, and Rilus had made it very clear that she didn't.
She wondered where Rilus was. She couldn't find him anywhere and it unnerved her a bit.
*****
The alarm had stopped ringing. Either the escapee had escaped, or he was caught. Emeralda slowly breathed from her painful experience. The whole building seemed as quiet as the dead. What was going on?
Slowly and painfully, Emeralda got up and started crawling in the direction of the main desk. Her sharp claws were finally coming in handy on the smooth and cold floor.
After a long crawl to the desk, Emeralda reached for the intercom to call for Doctor Wisteria. She slunked to the floor as she held the microphone to her mouth.
"Wisteria...I'm at the main desk," the speakers rasply ringed. Her conciuousness was fading. She had to be quick. "I'm...really sick. I think that...I.."
At the worst moment possible, Emeralda shouted in the microphone, sending her voice through the building. Her head and wing throbbed painfully again. Her eyes closed and she dropped the microphone.
*****
Fastwings wondered if she could go to lunch yet. Her stomach was growling and she'd finished the sheet artwork: a trail of spirals in the shapes of dragons, each perfectly happy. And untouchered. She frowned, then sat up, spread ther torn sheet on the floor, and wnet to her bed, wondering when a nurse or someone would come to take her out. She was a paitent too, wasn't she? And wasn't she the most sane (most of the time) than all the others? It wasn't her fault she was like that. She sighed and curled up with her talons over her head as a thought came to her.
Or maybe it was.
She tried to shake it off and went to the door. Afraid of opening it for someone to shoot her, she rapped on it with her talons. A guard opened it, and she went to lunch followed by three strong and armed guards. She sighed as she entered the room and felt misrable as she gazed around. She never felt comfortable around other dragons, so she chose a secluded spot in the far corner. She put her head down and sighed.
*****
Eos heard the intercom. He rushed to the front desk, hoping he would make it in time before the other guards. He unloaded his tranquilizer darts because he saw the condition Emeralda was in. He rounded the corner and nearly collided with Dr. Wisty, again. "Your who I was hoping to see here, not a guard. I bet they would shoot her..."
*****
Emeralda was awoken by a bad dream. A dream where every patient was inflicted upon the same process as hers. She was terrified at the sight of their faces and the sounds of their silence.
But it was over now. Emeralda was awake and not feeling anything. Well, all accept for the cold stone floor she was collapsed upon. She slowly raised herself on her legs and stretched her arms out. Her arm and wing still stung, but she wasn't screaming in pain anymore. Not yet anyway.
While stretching out, Emeralda smelt something pleasant through the air. Meat. Her favourite food. It must've been coming from the cafeteria. It must be lunch time.
Her stomach grumbled like an angry dragon. She was starving. Emeralda was also surprised she could smell the cafeteria from a little ways away. As a scavenger, she had a pretty good sense of smell. Add that to a dragon nose, well there you have it.
Emeralda lifted herself on her feet and slowly began to walk to ward the smell. It hurt to move, but maybe some meat would straighten her out. Plus, she barely knew anything about the other patients. This could be her chance to meet them better.
*****
Kiara was dragged into the lunch room by four guards, where she was forced into one of the benches with tight shackles. One of the guards took her muzzle off so she could eat. A nervous nurse stood beside Kiara.
"H-hello. I will be feeding you today," the nurse said, very scared.
Kiara snarled and waited for the rest of the dragons to arrive.
I am going to escape today. Wait for another patient to go crazy and try to kill someone. Then escape out that window. This couldn't be easier.
*****
Fastwings head was spinning. She wasn't in trouble. She wasn't noticed. Was it her dark scales that blended with shadows, or was everyone too preoccupied? She spotted a scared nurse over an angry patient and approached. She shooed the nurse away - quite carefull - and sat down next to the patient. Wasn't her name Kiara?
*****
Himeralli was brought into the cafeteria. She clawed and snarled at the staff as they dragged her along. Wearily, they looked around, before bringing her to the table Kiara resided at.
She was given food and chained down. She rested her head on the table crossly, waiting for someone to come feed her. Her eyes made way to Kiara and the trembling nurse.
Himeralli watched at the nurse feebly attempted to speak smoothly to the violent dragon. She smiled a bit- this dragon seemed like someone who could scare others out of their wits- heck, she probably already did.
Himeralli looked back down as a nurse walked over. The nurse gave her a cautious look. "Okay, if you attempt to shoot poison at anyone, you will be tranquilized and brought back to your cell, without lunch."
Himeralli grunted. She decided having a full stomach was better than attacking someone and not getting anything. As the nurse fed her slowly, she kept stealing peeks at Kiara. The dragon intrigued her.
*****
Wisty surveyed the cafeteria with an anxious eye. So far as she could tell, everyone was seated and secured, attended by nurses. Guards were standing at every door. She found herself relaxing, glad that the facade of normalcy had returned to the Psychiatric Ward.
Everything was as it should be. Dragons eating their food, chained at the wrists and ankle. Nurses bustling around, carrying trays, escorting patients to and fro across the small cafeteria. Guards, standing still and imposing at every doorway, watching the patients with eagle eyes. Nothing passed under their notice.
She looked around, and her eyes fell on 12. Immediately she felt a heavy, gray sense of guilt wash over her heart. Wisty walked over to 12, nodding to the nurse at the multicolored dragonet's side. She had promised the little dragonet a conversation earlier, and she intended to stay by her word. Wisty sat down at the end of the table.
*****
"I would like to talk about my progress." 12 tried focusing, but blobs of bright purple didn't agree. "I want... To be normal. Why can't I be normal?" Her eyes looked around, then stopped as she examined Wisteria's face.
"I don't know why you think I hate you. You help me."
*****
Wisty sighed. She felt drained, tired, jaded, sapped of all the energy she had in the morning. She didn't want to play mind games with the dragonet, as she was usually called on to do. She didn't want to engage in an exhausting argument on the nature of reality.
No, she decided. I'll simply tell her the truth.
"I don't know why you can't be normal, 12," Wisty sighed, and for a moment her mask of composure slipped, betrayed for a fraction of a second how exhausted and burdened she was. "If we knew exactly why dragons like the patients here weren't normal, then there would be no need for a Psychiatric Ward. I don't know, 12, and that's the honest truth."
"But I do know one thing," she continued, looking down into 12's untouched bowl of soup. Wisty's reflection stared back at her, rippling with oily rainbows. Slowly, she lifted her own gaze to meet 12's wide eyes. "I know that you are a good dragon, 12," she murmued softly. "It's not your fault that you're here, or that you don't see things the way others do."
"And I'm supposed to fix you, 12," she said. It seemed that once she got started telling the truth, it was hard to stop. The words simply tumbled out, like water breaking from a cracking dam. "I'm supposed to fix all of you." She waved absently at the other patients crowding the cafeteria table. "But... but the truth is, I don't know how."
*****
"Okay. Thank you for telling the truth and talking to me." Her voice faded and she took a sip from her cold soup. She didn't want to be treated like this. "I wish you the best of luck..." She froze and looked at the SwiftWing. A flash of purple and gray came into the dragon... And then she turned into crazy colors again. Progress... 12 sat up, and looked around. "It is a beautiful day... I really wish you luck. Really." The dragoness put a friendly paw on Wisty's paw, which made the guards flinch. She took it away and smiled. She looked back down at her soup which as turning green and spelling out weird words.
*****
Solstice slowly ate his soup, keeping his head low over the table. Here, he could relax. The others have stopped moving, and they would be relatively quiet if everything goes well. The soup was calming, not too warm or cold. He had a ghost of a smile on his face. The alarms didn't affect him as severely, but he was extremely glad it was quiet.
*****
Fastwings sighed, then sat down, gazing up at the cloud-streaked sky through the window. She knew she might be in here forever, or as long as she wsas like this. Another tear dripped on her snout as she sat next to 12, still looking at the clouds.
Why did he do it? Why am I stuck here? Why can't i just be...normal?
She sighed, arranged her front talons on the table and buried her snout in them. Why was life so hard?
*****
Chrome sat and ate. She ate, even if she wanted to die. She hoped the monsters would go away, but they continued to pester her. She snarled a little, and then went limp. She wondered. Maybe if I were normal, I wouldnt feel this way She thought. She wished the monsters would leave. She wished Rainbow would come back. She wished and wished.
*****
Updraft was in a padded room, a straightjacket keeping him still. He lay completely still, lost in his own imagination. He didn't see the dimly lit grey room, but a rainbow-filled wonderland with butterflies and weird equines with horns. They were dancing around happily, and they kept killing dragons adorably. It made him so happy. He was so proud. He ran over, dancing with them, and he snapped one's neck. It bled out rainbow, which he drank up.
Suddenly, the world seemed to shimmer, and the butterflies and unicorns disappeared. All Updraft saw now was the room. At least, that was all his eyes saw. His mind saw more than that. He, almost subconsciously, picked out every possible means of escape. He saw the paperclip some foolish doctor had left on the floor. He saw the slight damage to the door-frame from some MudWing who'd been in here before him. He was already working out a method of escape.
The world shimmered again. Now the unicorns and butterflies were back. He ran over, and helped one of the butterfly swarms devour a dragon alive. He pinned her down while they swarmed over her. Then he burnt them to a crisp, and ate them one at a time like they were kernels of popcorn. Why did he need to escape? He was in a paradise here.
*****
Eos helped Emeralda to the lunch room. He sat next to her and let her lean on his shoulder for support. "You need to eat. I'll get your wing checked after lunch." He eyed Kiara, knowing she could attack the nurse feeding her at any moment. "I'm here if she attacks you. Don't panic." He mouthed to the nurse next to her.
*****
Emeralda sat with Eos with her head on his shoulder. She took a bite out of her tasty chunk of wild boar and sat satisfied. That felt better. She took a long gulp of water and sighed with relief. She looked around at all the dragons. Wisteria was with a Rainwing named 12. A strange pair of Nightwings didn't look too happy, one was Kiara, she believed. And then another dragon was dancing around in the corner, like he didn't know what was going on. A strange group of dragons, but that's what they were here for.
What am I here for? Emeralda kept asking herself that ever since she arrived. She lifted her head from Eos and looked at him. He thinks I'm sane, but will he if she told him the truth about herself. She decided to give it a try. Someone was better than no one.
'Um...Eos. Do you know why I'm here? At this....hospital?" she softly asked to make sure no one would hear her. Though she did indeed see 12 give a small glance at her. Hopefully nothing bad.
*****
"Because you think you were a scavenger. I have been in your mind. Your telling the truth. I know you shouldn't be here, but somehow you are. I'm trying my best to get dragons out of here that don't need to be." He whispered back.
He helped her up and led her to the medical room. "Lets get your wing and arm looked at and see if we can't get a painkiller for you." He said to her caringly. "Can you see what is wrong with her wing and arm? It is hurting her a lot. Painkillers would help for sure." He said to one of the doctors.
"Hey Wisty, do you think Emeralda could stay with me for the rest of the day? If she behaves of course." He whispered into his radio.
There was no response - only a crackle of static. Wisty was silent.
*****
The splash of a tap turned on to its fullest echoed through the empty bathroom, the rush of water sounding tiny and dull against the blank linoleum tiling of the hospital bathroom. Wisty watched as shimmering tendrils of light, reflected from the water swirling and pooling the bowl of the sink, danced across the grimy gray ceiling. Light chased shadow, shadow chased light.
Wisty cupped her hands under the stream of water and splashed some into her face, letting out an involuntary gasp as the stinging cold water touched her flushed face. She looked up at the bathroom mirror, water streaming down her face.
She looked horrible - like she was a patient who had been dragged out of the sea, half-drowned, and rushed to the hospital in an ambulance. Her eyes, once bright and clear, were now swollen and bloodshot, crossed with dark blue shadows. That morning her hair had been pinned in an immaculate ponytail, but now it had come almost undone, with errant strands of damp violet hair hanging down over her face. Her mouth was twisted in a grimace, her lip split and oozing with quickly congealing blood - she must have bitten it sometime, but she could not remember how. Her skin was pale and sallow, tinged almost blue in some places - as if she had been drowning. Cold droplets trickled down her cheeks, and whether they were water or tears, she did not know or care.
Wisty closed her eyes and sighed, feeling the water trickling down her face. So much had happened. The escape attempt, the chaos. She lifted her paws, examining the tracks of water crisscrossing her skin and scales. And above all, the truth.
The truth - cold, blunt, inescapable. It had been staring her in the face for all this time - she had just been too blind, too caught up in an endless circle of denial, to see it.
Everyone here was counting on her to find a way to heal these ill dragons. 12, Solstice, Himeralli, Fastwings, Kiara, Sobriquet, and so many others... all lost dragons. Lost dragons looking at her to heal them, to bring them home.
They needed her to help them. And the truth was - she didn't know how.
Wisty felt a quiet, dry sob rise in her throat. Despair rose up in her, a black monster as deadly and frightening as any patient's nightmare, threatening to consume her.
She had failed.
*****
The bathroom was filled with silence, broken only by the quiet gurgle of the drain and the drip drip drip of the faucet on the porcelain sink. Wisty sunk to the floor, holding her head in her hands, claws twisting for a grip in her tangled hair. The linoleum tiles of the floor radiated cold through the thin fabric of her doctor's lab coat.
Tears ran down her face as she wept silently, slumped on her knees, her slender from crumpled with her head bowed on her hands. Her shoulders shook as she sobbed quietly, gasping and shuddering in a paroxysm of grief.
You were the only one who could save them. And you failed. You failed.
The words echoed in her mind, only growing louder, each syllable as keen and deadly as a knife gouging into her flesh. The words circled above her, hungry and murderous as carrion crows above or sharks below, converging tear her apart.
"Wisty."
Someone spoke her name, and Wisty heard even through the haze of tears and pain. She raised her head, hastily wiping her eyes. Pale tears clung to her lashes, clouding her vision, and she brushed them away.
The bathroom was empty. Wisty saw the empty bathroom stalls, their doors creaking and swaying on their hinges. The steady drip and trickle of the plumbing. The hiss and flicker of the fluorescent light overhead. The bathroom was completely deserted.
"Wisty."
And yet the voice continued to call, growing louder and more urgent. Wisty frowned, a sudden sinking feeling in her soul. The voice. It was familiar.
"Wisty."
It was her own.
Wisty froze, a sudden sense of dread striking her heart with the violence of a physical blow. Her mind went blank, her breath hitched, as horror and dread filled her mind. Very, very slowly, she turned her head.
Her reflection was smiling back at her through the grimy bathroom mirror, blood trickling down its cut lip as it grinned at Wisty. The reflection wearing her face smiled benevolently at her, its tearstained eyes filled with kindness and laughter, its mouth dripping with blood.
And suddenly Wisty was screaming.
*****
Wisty screamed in horror and fear, backing away from the apparition in the mirror. Her back hit the stall doors behind her and pain shot through her body, but she barely noticed, so intensely was focused on her reflection.
"What are you?" Wisteria breathed, her breath coming hard and fast.
"Oh, Wisty," her reflection crooned, reaching out a paw towards Wisty. "How far you have fallen. Do you not recognize yourself in the mirror anymore? Can't you stand to look at yourself? To look at me?"
Wisty stared in horror as the apparition continued. "I'm your sanity," it said, smiling with compassion and sadness at her. Blood dripped from its mouth as it spoke. "And I'm about to die."
Behind Wisty's reflection in the mirror, shadowy figures were drifting closer. Nearer and nearer they stalked, like hunters in the night, and Wisty caught the flash of knives clutched in shadowy paws. And then Wisty shrieked again as she watched her reflection fall, a knife sprouting from its tousled violet mane. Blood spurted from the ghastly wound, staining Wisty's violet hair red. Wisty's voice cracked and seized in shadowy hands and dragged away across the reflected bathroom floor.
Wisty grasped the frame of the mirror in her hands, watching in horror as her reflection was brutally murdered before her eyes. Knives flashed, and Wisty saw a smear of thick crimson blood fan out across the bathroom floor as gaping wounds, each mortal, opened on pale gray skin. She heard the thud - felt it on her own body, as her reflection's head was driven into the wall, leaving a pink stain on the tiles. She heard the dreadful snap! snap! as both of its wings were broken.
And then suddenly, the shadows were gone, melted from the thin air from whence they'd come. Wisty was left staring at the dead, mutilated body of her own sanity in the mirror's reflection, lying on the bathroom floor faceup. She saw the gaping wounds, each gushing blood, on her own gray hide. She saw her tangled violet mane, now black and soaked with her own lifeblood. Wisty saw her own dead eyes, blank, bloody, and sightless, staring at the flickering ceiling light. She saw gleaming, lacerated membranes hanging limp on broken wings, circled by a spreading pool of blood.
Wisty screamed, striking forth with both her hands, and the mirror shattered into a thousand shards.
*****
The mirror shattered under Wisty's hands, and bright, brilliant pain lanced through her arms as the dagger-sharp fragments pierced her palms. Trembling, Wisty lifted her hands and stared at the wound, at the blood trickling down her wrists and a hundred needle-thin shards piercing her skin.
What remained of the bathroom mirror had shattered into a thousand pieces, some large, some small, and all as sharp as knives, turning the bathroom floor into a deadly maze of glass. Wisty stared at the carnage, clenching her fists and driving the shards in her palm even deeper into her flesh. She barely noticed the pain, barely saw the thick stream of blood trickling down to her elbow.
You failed. You failed. You failed. The words echoed about Wisty's mind, caught and tossed about in the tumultuous storm of emotions and thoughts that raged across her mind.
She remembered Fastwings, and the lockdown, and how she thought that Fastwings planned on committing suicide in order to finally seek release from the Psychiatric Ward. Maybe, she had thought to herself, the memory surfacing, maybe Fastwings is thinking very clearly. 'Perhaps she's had enough. Of doctors, of madness, of life. Perhaps she wants the bullet, to end it all.
Fastwings wants escape. And maybe she plans to get it - through death...
... the only way out of this living hell.
Wisty stared at the glass around her, tears streaming down her face. I want out, she wailed, as helplessly and sadly as a lost dragonet. I want to get out of this place of torture. I want to go home.
Her paws trembling, she reached out and grasped a large, jagged fragment of glass. Its sharp tip gleamed in the light, serrated like a knife and just as deadly. With the other arm she held out her wrist, trembling and pale, under the tip of the glass shard.
For a moment, just a fraction of a second, she saw her reflection through the glassy fragment - saw her own eyes, wide and terrified, filled with tears and sorrow. Then she saw the apparition again, her own corpse lying faceup on a bloody floor, broke-winged and vitiated, its eyes turned to the moons for mercy.
Mercy that would never come.
For a moment, time seemed to stand still. Wisty was acutely aware of every agonized breath, every thumping heartbeat, every blink of tear-strewn eyes. Seconds seemed to stretch out into an eternity, as the point of the glass hovered inches above her bare wrist.
The pain came, and it was so bright and clear that it took Wisty's breath away.
As if watching from afar, she saw a crimson gash appear on her wrist, oozing thick blood. Then her nerve finally failed her - the bloodstained shard of glass fell from numb fingers, shattering on the floor into a hundred more pieces. Wisty curled up on the floor, cradling her bleeding wrist to her chest, her eyes wet with the tears of a broken mind.
As blackness crawled at the edges of her vision, her last thought was of the moons and the stars.
*****
Fastwings growled at the wall again, when she heard two screams. Her head whipped around, immediatly knowing where the screams came from in the ward. Also knowing the emotion behind them.
One was a scream for help, for a dragon to aid her.
Another was a plead. A plead for sanity.
She immediatly knew which one she was going to first. She darted back to the cafeteria, trying to get to the source as soon as possible. The bathroom. Unfortunatly, two burly guards blocked her way.
"I have to go to the bathroom," she snapped, trying to push past them. They held fast.
"Wisty is in there. I doubt this isn't a murder plot."
Wisty. The only one who cared.
Was going insane.
As she argued with the guards, she felt the minutes slide by.
I might be too late. And if I am- I'll have a good reason for the government to shoot me.
Fastwings finally gave up and charged past the guards. They shouted at her to stop right there, but she ignored them. Spreading her large wings, she took off, going as close as she could to the bathroom as fast as she could.
She was just in time to see the shards.
To see the shard in trembling talons.
Fastwings felt her world fall. Saw only the shard in her talons. Her worst memories flashed by her eyes, summoning rage agian. But she was detirmined to fight it- or control it.
Her rage was a shield. Against pain, against sorrow, against fear- any emotion. And she used it now, even when time seemed to have stopped.
"NO!" She screamed. In a flash, she was there, but Wisty had dropped it, shattering even that. She was now there clutching the bleeding dragon, her insides feeling like knots, her heart seeming to stop.
She felt sick. Sick of this.
I'm so sick.
She knew her last sight would be the star scales on her wings.
*****
Chrome heard screams. She whipped around, wondering if they were real or fake. She shivered.
I've had enough. I cant take it. I cant.
Chrome stood up abruptly. She pondered wether to leave. She pondered wether to stay, for her own good. She didn't know what to do.
Are they really trying to help me? Or will I be trapped here forever?
She remembered what usually happened to mental dragons: Going so crazy they died. She didn't want to die, she wanted to survive, and she wanted to get better. She wanted to have a few moments as a free dragon.
*****
Solstice thought he was really going crazy now.
He tapped his claw on the table, staring at the now cold and unappetizing soup. Why did it have to drop to room temperature?
Then he heard distant shouts. Normally, he would be unaffected by these.
But this time, it was a dragon he hadn't heard before.
Someone that hasn't ever shouted for the entirety of their stay at the ward.
It was one of the doctors, Wisteria.
He took a deep breath, calming himself. I'm sure she'll be fine... It probably is just something small...
His eye twinged at this thought. More screams could be distantly heard, slowly ebbing away.
He knew he was lying to himself.
*****
Fastwings looked up when she saw the door open, in time to see a nurse put both talons on her mouth. She back away as far as she could without leaving the room. She lifted her radio to her snout.
"Doctor Wisty...Paitent #2543...In the bathroom..There's blood and glass everywhere..." She dropped the radio and went to the floor flexign her talons fearfully.
*****
Auralyis the nurse entered the room, the sight before her grotesque. It was not grotesque in that it was too gory, there was only one bloody shard, only one bloody gash, and the trails of blood coming from the arm were moving slowly at a non-life threatening way. The shock was that it wasn't one of the patients who was injured, but Wisteria, the Wisteria who was the heart and soul of the psychiatric ward.
That came out wrong. If she were the heart and soul, she might be crazy, but lying in blood and glass on the floor, her hair a tangled mop, she certainly looked the part."Wysteria" she whispered to herself. She scanned the area, looking for a sign of what had happened. It didnt take a genius to see what had happened. There was one other dragon in the bathroom, a dragon who was known to be dangerous. FastWings.
"I need tranquilizers" she called into the radio. Tranquilizers was better than she deserved. She'd brutally assaulted a staff member, cut her open, it was unforgivable "I don't need you to be gentle, just to get here now!" She walked over to Wisteria, poised and ready to fight if Fastwings decided to come finish her work.
The blood was sickly and sticky beneath her talons and the rage she felt wanted to burst out of her. She pulled out some gauze and wrapped it around Wisty's arm, pulling a fleck of glass that had been lodged in the wound. she'd applied disinfectant, but knew it would likely get infected. "Wisteria" she said softly. she grumbled and turned to Fastwings
"YOU DID THIS TO HER!!! DO YOU FEEL NO REMORSE!" She wasn't overreacting. The damage was light, but it spoke harshly of the fate of the institute. None of the staff was safe, none of the patients were safe, they needed more tranquilizers, more structure. Wisteria better wake soon her mentality just got darker and darker the longer she stared at the limp (but living) body of this SwiftWing.
*****
Eos heard the call on his radio and rushed to the scene. Entering the bathroom he was met by a gruesome sight. Wisty was on the floor, her arm bleeding and Fastwings and the nurse who called him were there. He wasn't about to tranquilize a patient that might be innocent. He scanned her mind and found that she was in fact innocent. She was just trying to help.
He placed a talon on Fastwing's shoulder. "Get out of her and get back to your cell. I wont shoot you but others might." He shooed her off and lifted Wisty onto his back. "Its going to be okay." He said to her, then he walked out of the backroom, her weight slowing him. He motioned the nurse to follow him. "We need to get her to the doctor."
*****
Fastwings nearly growled, but stopped herself. "I'm not going anywhere until I know she's alright." She lifted him off his shoulders and set her down outside. "I trained in any way I could before I was taken here. Get em the basic supplies. NOW." She leaned over the unconsious SwiftWing.
*****
Auralyis had the sudden impulse to kick Fastwings, to shove her aside and yell in her face that she can't play nurse. She resisted the urge and instead grabbed Fastwings on the shoulders. "hun" she said "I'm a nurse. Wisteria will be alright, she just needs to get to her room." she said it coldly with an implied "you're going to mess this up" mixed in there. She didn't try to mask her rage, just restrict it, keep it at a steady volume, despite its hateful tone.
"If you would let us take her to her room" she started "she only needs rest now, antibiotics for her arm" And to be away from bloodthirsty crazies No, once she let patients do this to her, it didn't end well, she must attempt to keep calm.
"How about you accompany us to her room?" she asked Fastwings. she made a subtle gesture for a guard to accompany them, a guard with tranquilizers.
*****
Fastwings growled lightly, then stared coldly at Auralyis. "If you must know, I had one more year of medical training to become a Ph.D." Gently she ehaved Wisty on her shoulders, then brushed past the nurse, muttering to her, "Don't judge a book by its cover." She hesitated, wondering if she should go to the cafeteria or her room.
*****
"I'm not judging anyone by their cover" One year? she said one MORE year, but still, the patient at a Psychiatric hospital thinks that a little bit of medical experience entitles her to do whatever she wants with a patient, a patient she may have injured. Fastwings should be locked up in a room until this was sorted out, with guards ready to tranquilize her at any second.
She was asking too much here, Wisteria was her friend, her employer. She was a nurse and she could take care of Wisty, help her wake up. She really wasn't even that damaged either, the bandage should be enough. She just needed to clean the wound, and she WOULDN'T let this patient be in any way involved with that.
"You shouldn't carry her like that, too much strain on you, she could get hurt." This was partially true. Fastwings wasn't cut out to safely carry Wisteria, but she didn't want her touching Wisteria at all "lets get her to a nice cot or something nice like that until she wake up" The smile she flashed was too fake, too syruppy sweet, but her eyes gave her away.
*****
Fastwings rolled her eyes. Did she believe everything she saw? She replied," I'll let you know that I trained in everythign that would help me in life. And you're judging the situation. What if I was Saving her? Hmm? But noo, you just judge by what HAS HAPPENED, not what's happening NOW. Are you a mind reader? Until you get then ability, stop thinkign you know everything." She put her on the ground, now clear of glass, and started pressing down on her wrists.She knew that pressure on a minor wound- not a main artery- would stop bleeding. She peered over it, muttering about stitches. The wound was that deep and bad.
*****
Kiara was confused. A dragon had sat next to he and tried to calm her down, then got up and walked off. Fastwings, was the dragon's name.
Kiara spotted a RainWing looking at her. This one didn't look like Fluorescent, so that was okay. Kiara smiled at the dragon. Himeralli smiled back.
I could get along with this dragon maybe even be friends
The nurse that was feeding her still looked frightened. Kiara fake-growled at her and the nurse looked even more scared.
"Hi," Kiara whispered to Himeralli.
*****
Himeralli smiled widely. She nodded, "Hello."
Her gaze travelled over to the scared nurse. She flicked her tail and watched her, before looking back over at Kiara. "So, what is your name?"
*****
"I'm Kiara. What's your name?" Kiara asked.
This dragon is nice. I could be good friends with her Kiara thought.
Kiara smiled, her Dark Animus starting to crack.
*****
"What do I like to do? Hmmm. Lots of things. Mainly imagine me getting out of this place," Kiara replied.
Then she heard the screaming as well.
"Something's happening," Kiara whispered, barely audible.
"Hey! Nurse! Tell me what's happening!,"Kiara ordered.
"I-I don't know," the nurse replied.
"Then go find out!" Kiara shouted. The nurse nodded and hurried away.
"We could escape, you know. Together. Plan it every lunch time. Strike when they least expect it," Kiara whispered to her and smiled.
*****
Himeralli smiled widely. "That would be good. I keep having dreams of my lab- I do miss that place."
Himeralli looked around, making sure no dragon heard her conversation with Kiara. "So, what do you suggest?" she also in an even lower voice.
A few yells could be heard nearby, but Himeralli ignored them. She'd finally found a dragon that she liked besides Yellow.
*****
"I'll tell you the plan tomorrow at lunch," Kiara said, watching a nurse approach.
"So, what's happening?" Kiara demanded.
"Private sorry," the nurse replied. Kiara rolled her eyes.
*****
12 heard the screams. At least they were over. It hurt her head. "Stop..." She would mumble, trying to finish her food. The soup was bright, with words spelling into it. Oodles of random words. It frustration, she threw the bowl to the ground, letting the remaining soup spill onto the ground. It was a loud shatter.
"Please help me... I don't know..." She laughed insanely and looked down at her talons. They were a dark maroon, the color of blood in her mind.
Oh no. My mind is coming to me again... Stop- Wait... There is no stopping the madness. You can't stop it, 12 thought for a moment. Just let it spread. She grinned and looked around, everything distorted and swirly.
*****
It was dark, and warm. Wisty floated in the void, wings half-open, hair swirling around her face. She smiled, and her eyes were filled with stars. Stars - bright white points of light - floated in space all around her, gleaming and sparkling as bright as a million shards of glass.
Their beauty took her breath away.
She smiled in bliss, closing her eyes. It was so dark and warm, and quiet. No pain, no sorrow, nothing could touch her here. No, it was as if she was floating at the center of the twilight sky, the womb of the world, the birthplace of stars.
She never wanted to leave. No - the thought was unthinkable. She drfited here, in the silence between the stars.
And she was at peace.
The stars grew brighter, and Wisty watched as the darkness receded from around her. Slowly, a haze of doubt setlled over the pervading bliss that had obscured her mind. Something was happening. The light of the stars turned bright and sharp, burning her, cutting her. Wisty gasped as she felt pain, sudden and brighter than any light, sear through her body.
She opened her mouth to scream again, but no sound came out. And then she was falling, falling into the endless blackness, gaining speed all the while, the sharp edges of the stars' light cutting and slashing into her flesh as she fell past.
The pain took her breath away. She waited for the final impact, waited for death.
And Wisty woke at last. For a moment she thought she was lying on the floor of the bathroom, amidst a thousand deadly shards of glass that sparkled with the light of a thousand stars.
Reality returned. She was lying in a hospital gurney, surrounded by the chatter of voices around her. Briefly she saw nothing but a whirling miasma of color, light and shadow. Then her eyes focused, and she saw the faces of Fastwings, Eos, and the nurse Auralyis hovering over her.
Wisty tried to speak - tried to explain. Fastwings? Eos? Auralyis? she tried to say. But her dull mouth betrayed her, and she only managed to gasp out - "Ffffeweerrriss?"
*****
Fastwings watched her as she woke up. "I hope you know now that not all the paitents hate you," she said softly. She continued watchign her until she stopped bleedign, then sat back and swished her tail. She didn't quite know what to do. She wanted to show that she cared, that she didn't hate her. But she didn't know how to do that.
What she really wanted to do was get the doctor some real coffee.
She looked at her. "What if it's true? What if she did this? She was tortured by the fact that all the paitents here were relying on her to make them better, and she felt like she failed."
Failed. Such an awful word. And yet...
It held so much truth.
Failed. Like she did.
I'm tired of this. Sick of it.
I'm so sick...
*****
"Your input was quite nice Fastwings..." Auralying spoke flatly now PLEASE back off "Do you remeber anything that has happened? anything at all?" She hoped Wisteria remembered. Whatever patient had attacked her, if Fastwings was indeed innocent, would need to be locked up quickly and tranqued. If they were particularly brutal, they might even be transferred to a more rigid hospital for more intense treatment.
There was none of that kind of treatment at this ward, Wisteria saw to that, but if she was infact the victim of a homocidal dragon out and about, well, there were ways around Wisteria's authority. She looked around at the blank walls and bars, and the mildly rancid smell that seemed to be excreting from the walls. the gurney had been parked in Fastwings's room, a hasty compromise to get the dragoness to cooperate.
There hadn't been enough time to argue and the rooms weren't that far from the cafeteria. Fastwings wouldn't settle for out in the hallway or someplace less unpleasant, paranoid that the nurse might betray her trust and lock her away from Wisty. Now she was fairly confident that she would be involved, even though, as Auralyis thought, it would be all too easy to shove the gurney out now and lock the door.
Wisteria started to stir and Auralyis let her heart feel relieved that her employer was safe, and had come back into consciousness in a healthy fashion. This was the moment, when they would assess the damage, point their fingers, and target the culprit. It all just depended on Wisteria's next words. "Do you remeber anything that has happened? anything at all?"
*****
Wisty licked her lips - they were dry and cracked, and she winced as she touched the split, bloody cleft in her lower lip. What do I remember? she thought to herself, a sudden and dull ache of panic freezing her insides.
I remember everything. I remember seeing my own reflection murdered in the mirror. I remember breaking the mirror with my own claws. And then I remember taking a shard to my own wrist.
She closed her eyes, the memory dull and raw and fresh as the weeping wound on her wrist. But she could hardly say that aloud - that would be worse than suicide. To be condemned as insane as the dragons who were her charges - to be locked up alongside those she was trying to heal - that would be a fate worse than death. If that ever happened to her, Wisty would wish that the glass had cut a little deeper.
"I... don't remember everything," she lied through her teeth. "But I know that it wasn't Fastwings' fault." She looked at the NightWing patient standing off to the side. Finding her in the bathroom, the doctors' first suspicions must be that Fastwings had attacked her. Even if an attack would be the most convenient explanation, Wisty had to clear Fastwings' name.
Gritting her teeth, she launched into the most quesitonable story in the history of lies. She had walked into the bathroom, been struck by a sudden spell of dizziness, crashed into the mirror, and fallen, somehow incising a very neat and precise cut on her own wrist in the whole process.
It was a terrible story, and Wisty was a terrible liar. If anyone had been looking for holes in the coverup they would have had a field day, but Wisty was counting on the fact that the doctors trusted and respected her. They wouldn't be looking to doubt her - no, they wanted a nice, clean, credible explanation so that the incident could be put behind them, and work could resume as normal.
"And then I woke up here." Wisty finished her story, daring a glance into Auralysis's solemn face. Did she buy it? Wisty hoped against hope that the nurse wouldn't find cause to doubt the story, however improbable it was.
*****
Wisty was shaking and her face folded in weird patterns as she spoke. There were two possibilities, Auralyis thought. Either she was hiding something, or suffering a form of physical tramau as a result of high stress and loss of blood. Instinct told her that it was the first option, but after this scare, it'd be healthier to assume the latter. Especially with the psych patients around.
They were particularly impressionable, and if they saw one weakness, anything to suggest that Wisty wasn't solid and supportive, the result would be chaotic. No, better not confront her, far better to greet her with kindness.
She walked along the edge of the gurney as Wisty spoke, testing all the usual unnecessary things she could; ears, tongue, blood pressure, she gently placed a paw on Wisty's forehead. "Oh dear" she said, when she started talking about her fall. It was at this point she was no longer confused. Auralyis wasn't dumb, she'd wasted the best years of her life in this institution, and knew what that kind of cut was. A straight cut like that could be accidental, and dragons could have moments of total klutziness, but put those together, consider the body language...
"We'll have to send a janitor to clean the mess, and may have to reinforce the mirrors. We can't have critical patients stumbling into them" her tone was insincere, but not rude. She tried to let Wisteria know that she suspected her, without tipping off anyone nearby that Wisteria was not in the best mental state. They were used to her attitude though, and she thought it may have worked.
As Fastwings chimed in, it occured to her that her effort to conceal Wisteria's poor secret might be pointless, but she processed this new information quickly. "Silly Fastwings" she said condescendingly "It was an accident, accidents happen, we just have to learn from them."
She positioned her head, for just a moment, where only Wisteria had a good view of it. Her expression softened, genuine for the first time in a long while. "If you ever need to talk..." she whispered, and then considered where she was, leaning over a hospital gurney, in a patients room, a few staff and Fastwings watching her every move
Her syrupy sweet voice was back in place as she left the gurney and turned to Fastwings. "I am sorry." she told Fastwings. "I was wrong." There was no emotion behind this, she was just stating a couple facts.
*****
Fastwings shook herself, then bent over Wisty. She rubbed her talon over the bloody lip, then ran off. She'd seen the coffee stain on her sleeve. Soon she was back.
She'd found some real coffee for the SwiftWing.
*****
Wisty looked at the taut expression on Auralyis's face, and felt a sinking sensation in the pit of her stomach. She might be cut and disoriented but she wasn't a trained psychologist for nothing - Wisty could recognize disbelief and doubt when she saw it. And in the fraction of a second before Auralyis mustered and concealed her own throughts, smoothing her face back into a customary mask of indifference, Wisty saw it plainly.
Oh moons. Wisty thought to herself, another rush of panic overtaking her. Wisty wasn't worried if Fastwings decided to speak the truth - it would only be dismissed as the ravings of a psychiatric patient. But if Auralyis spoke up - and then someone decided to check the story against the cut on her wrist -
She can't say anything! If she reports this to anyone else.... the guards, the hospital management...
Maybe - maybe if I talk to her, I can persuade her to keep this between us. I have to talk to her, convince her that this MUST be kept quiet.
But how?
"Thank you," Wisty whispered to Auralyis as the nurse leaned over her. "Can we go to the cafeteria now? I will be fine." She gestured to the bandages enclosing her paws and tried to signal with her eyes. No - here, with Fastwings and Eos and Moons know who else in the room, it would be too hard to converse in private. But in the cafeteria, with all its noise and bustle and the chatter of two dozen patients to mask their voices, it would be absurdly easy for a conversation between a doctor and a nurse to go unnoticed, lost in the hubbub.
Besides, her screams would not have gone unheard. She might have agitated the patients, and the other hospital staff would want to know what had become of her. She had to clean herself up and present a convincing face to the others, to reinstill confidence.
If the patients think I'm hurt, or dead, who knows what they'll try to do? No, the more Wisty thought about it, the more convinced she was that she had to get back on her feet and take care of her duties.
Wisty took in a deep breath and hoisted herself up on the bed. "I'll be fine," she said more loudly and with more conviction, looking up in surprise as Fastwings materialized at her side with a cup of coffee. She accepted it thankfully, wincing as she held the cup in her lacerated and bandaged paws.
She tried not to think of the last time she had handled a cup of coffee - she remembered the cold brown stain and the broken shards of glass spattering the wall of her office. It was unlikely that anyone had found it yet - she had locked the door and pulled the blinds, barring entry to anyone until she'd gotten a chance to clean up. But still her hands trembled slightly as she held the mug, and a few drops spilled out to stain the clean white sheet.
*****
"Of course" Her answer was blunt, but not uncaring. She offered a paw to the doctor, to help her out of the gurney.
"Wisteria is alright" she said to Fastwings. "Go back to the other patients." She then motioned for another staff member, to come and take the gurney as well as the other medical supplies she had sprawled over the patient's limited counterspace.
Wisteria would want to walk in casually, Auralyis knew, because she wouldn't want to draw attention to herself, wouldn't want to appear crippled, would want to mantain her strong reputation she'd worked so hard to endure. Auralyis didn't have this problem, apathy filled the gaps in her own reputation, she didn't care as much as she should about the patients, and they weren't really worth her time. Most of them were hopeless, which is why she got paid.
She had no respect for the patients, but she had respect for Wisteria. She was the one who tried and as silly as she found it, she had some respect for her. She reangled her arm to be more convenient to Wisty, to help her up and out the door.
*****
Chrome continued to sit at the table in the cafeteria, her mind at ease, for now. This was the first time she had been calm in... well... forever. She sighed, her vision perfect for once, not being terrorized by the crazy voices or nightmare monsters. She looked around, her head clear. Everyone looked... normal, as if there were really no patterns on them. She hoped that her sanity would never end, but she knew in a matter of time, her psychotic self would return, and everything would be terrible again.
*****
Wisty took a deep breath and closed her eyes briefly, as she walked to the cafeteria doors with Fastwings and Auralyis at her shoulders. Was it just her imagination, or could she really feel Auralyis's critical stare searing the back of her neck? She didn't dare look around to find out.
Wisty was feeling much better - or at least looking it. Her previously torn and bloody doctor's coat had been replaced with a clean, new one, and her hair had been brushed back into a passably neat, if slightly impromptu, ponytail. She'd washed her face to clean the cut on her lip and erase the puffiness around her eyes.
Some things could not be so easily changed, though. The dark circles under her eyes would not clear away, no matter how hard she scrubbed. And only time could close the wound on her hands and wrist - though they looked much less threatening after being doused with disinfectant and water.
Wisty closed her eyes, took a deep, steadying breath, and pushed open the door to the cafeteria.
Before the cafeteria had been abuzz with chatter, the tinke of cutlery on plates and the clink of hand and leg restraints as their wearers pulled them taut. But as the door opened and Wisty stepped through, the clamor died suddenly as all eyes turned to face her. Even patients who Wisty had chalked off as too feeble to notice anything around them had turned, as if realizing that something important had happened.
All of them noticed, patients, others doctors, nurses, that a dark change had fallen over their head doctor. The patients saw it immediately, as they were no strangers to the realm of twilight and madness. The hospital staff were slower to perceive the difference - although they might have been aware of it on a subconscious level, they were professionals, trained to disregard appearance and suspicion. And yet even they saw that something had changed in Wisty - something had broken, shattered into a thousand stars - and something else, something shadowed, had taken its place.
Wisty looked around, matching the watchers eye for eye, refusing to be stared down.
She was back.
*****
Fastwings met some of the stares, flexing her talons to show that they were not to mess with any of them. When some of them finally looked down, she found an empty table to let Wisty sit down. Then she went to another table, not far enough to lose sight and not close enough to hear.
*****
Emeralda was in the middle of eating her food, when Fastwings had left the cafeteria to the bathroom. She looked in a hurry. Emeralda only shrugged and went back to eating. After a while, a nurse ran in and both Fastwings and the nurse were dragging Wisteria out of the bathroom.
Emeralda stood up at the appearance of Wisteria collapsed. She gasped in shock and saw Eos leave to help.
I hope she's not hurt, Emeralda thought. Wisteria is the kindest and the most concerned doctor for all the patients. I was also hoping she'd be the one, besides a Nightwing, to believe me.
*****
Kiara knew that something was wrong as soon as Wisteria walked in. Everyone around her went silent. For they could see what Kiara could see. A dark cloud hung over their doctor. Wisteria's eyes gave away everything. They were full of emotion. Sadness, anger and fear. Kiara shivered.
The old Wisteria is gone. Now there's darkness on her place. Kiara thought grimly.
Then she noticed the wound on her wrist. It looked like it was there on purpose.
Oh my god, Kiara thought.
The doctor that was so kind to many of the patients was gone. And she was never coming back.
*****
Ten orderlies came into Updraft's room. They roughly picked him up, strapped him to a table, and wheeled him out. Feeding time again, he concluded. Let's see if there's a fight today. He felt a kind of cold fury. They'd captured him and kept him here for months. It was time to escape, and today would be the day. Whenever his straightjacket was put on, he took a deep breath to give himself a little wiggle room. The orderlies had also forgotten to add the metal chains today. So all that stood between him and freedom were a straightjacker, Kevlar straps, and a small army of nurses, doctors, assistants, and fellow inmates.
He was wheeled into the cafeteria. He saw, out of the corner of his eye, that one of those awful doctors had a bandage on her arm. I wonder who gave her that, he almost chuckled. I wish I could have seen it myself. I would have aimed for her throat, of course. It was probably one of the weaklings who are just insane and don't know how to kill targets efficiently.
With everyone in emotional disarray, this is my chance to make a break for it. It seems the others really cared about Wisteria. That's very helpful.
*****
Wisty followed Fastwings to the table that the Nightwing led her too, only all too aware of the eyes that followed her every step. The prickling on the back of her neck got worse - now Auralyis's critical stare was joined by two dozen more, coming from all directions.
She struggled to hold her head up high, looking everyone in the face but not meeting their eyes for too long. Finally a moment of relief came when Fastwings chose a table near to the end of the line, and Wisty slid gratefully to a seat opposite her. Now that she was sitting down she wasn't drawing quite so many curious and dubious looks.
*****
Fastwings whipped her head around when she saw the newcomer, starign at him with narrowed eyes. The straightjacket told her that this one was one to beware. She didn't avert her gaze as she studied his every move, knowing that he was one of the paitents to make a break for it.
And a straightjacket in the world... she doubted it would end well.
*****
Paradox looked up from her sparrow as the doctor Wisteria came in. Ugh, her. She couldn't understand most of us here. From the looks of it, the doctor looked as if she got into a fight with another dragon. She glanced at her fellow inmates and the staff. Most were staring at Wisteria, paying no mind to the dragons that were planning escape. Like me, she thought gleefully. This was her chance. Unlike the most dragons that wanted escape, Paradox was free to move aside from her wings since the staff thought she was well behaved. I just need to get these things off and I'll be free.
*****
Solstice shot a quick glance to Wisteria. She didn't seem so professional and energetic as usual. In fact, she looked... Broken. He tore his attention from her. She'll recover. Hopefully... Maybe.
Probably not. He shuddered.
Beside him, Updraft was sat down, still in a straightjacket. If there was one dragon with a worse multiple personality disorder (that might also stray into Schizophrenia) than he did, it was that strange SkyWing. He decided to be a bit friendly.
"Hello," He muttered to him as the SkyWing sat down in front of his lukewarm soup.
*****
Updraft whispered, hoping the guards wouldn't hear, "Hello, NightWing. What are you in here for? I'm here for sociopathy, psychopathy, dissociative identity disorder, paranoia, schizophrenia, delusions, and insanity. Watch this. They'll spoon-feed me because they're too scared I'll kill them all to let me out."
His tone turned more serious. "But enough about that. You need to know what they do to us here. You might've heard the rumors of just what they did to patient WQ-13. If you haven't, here's the story."
"A long time ago, about twenty years or so before this new facility was constructed, the doctors were making a fair amount of progress with most of their patients, except for a few. Their worst was WQ-13, given that title for using the alias Wingless Query. Wingless was an IceWing-SandWing hybrid who went insane from the effects of hybridization, among other things. He went on a killing spree, ranting about the NightWings not having powers and about the SeaWings having an animus."
"It took twenty dragons to finally defeat him, not out of combat prowess, but because he literally could feel no pain. They tried him, but the lawyers argued that he was insane and so not responsible for his actions. He was finally put in the old asylum because it was decided immoral to kill him."
"The doctors tried everything: medication, therapy, even hypnosis. Nothing seemed to work. Eventually, they got so tired of him mauling their nurses they were willing to try anything."
"Enter a quirky NightWing scientist (his name is unknown), disaffected with the paradigm and eager to test out his latest concoctions. However, he was prohibited on dragon rights grounds, and so he never got a chance to see if they worked. He approached the old asylum and offered the doctors a wonderful deal: they'd get all of his untested medicines for free, no questions asked, and no paper trail of this transaction. In return, they just had to report to him about how well the substances worked."
"They accepted instantly. If it could cure this lunatic, they'd finally have fixed their worst problem. And if it couldn't, it might at least kill him or put him into a coma so he wouldn't be their problem anymore."
"They went ahead, and drugged everything he ate with the substances. Unfortunately, all of the different chemicals--each, on its own, at worst moderately harmful--combined in some way that no one had expected, and something began to happen to WQ-13. He stopped being so violent and insane. He got very quiet, and wouldn't talk to anyone for any reason, even if they begged him. He just sat there, all day, not even eating. On some days, he wouldn't even breathe for hours, but somehow he wasn't dying. They took him to the medical wing of the asylum to try to figure out what was going on."
"After a few weeks of the chemicals staying inside him, he was a completely different dragon. He began to mutter to dragons who weren't there, believing they were. By a month, he still hadn't eaten, drunk, or even breathed, but he kept talking to himself. Every biometric test they ran said he should have died long ago, but somehow he hadn't. His blood wasn't even flowing."
"At seven weeks, three days, five hours, and eleven minutes since he had first taken the mixture, he abruptly stopped talking. He never spoke another word again."
"Naturally, they thought his freak survival had finally come to a stop, and he was at last dead. They gave his body to the scientist to see if he could extract any further data."
"Now, this is where the strange part comes in. No one knows what happened after the scientist took him, but a week later a bright orange wingless dragon that glowed in the dark appeared mysteriously near where he had hatched. He never harmed anyone, as far as we could tell, but every single one of the doctors that had worked on him swore they would see him everywhere--in the newspaper, in reflections, even on their monitors. He was said to be able to walk through solid matter, to levitate objects with his mind, and to conjure up illusions of a dragon's worst fear."
"After a while, the scientist came back. He said he'd made a breakthrough. He showed the doctor in charge of experimental medicine something. And then... nothing. He never returned. We know he's alive, because he continued publishing. I've even read a few of his documents after begging the nurses to let me. He seems to be very rich now."
"So, what happened? We don't know. But what if that breakthrough wasn't fake? What if the doctors ordered a lifetime supply of that chemical he made, and they've been dosing it to us ever since? It could be doing things to our brains beyond what we can imagine. What if it turns psychopaths into neurotypicals? Well, that sounds like a good thing, but what if it makes us into something worse, like it did with him? I don't want to become a wraith like WQ-13."
"We need to get out of here, now. These doctors are doing things to us. Are you with me?"
*****
Solstice listened silently, taking it in. A large part of him knew this was a crazy psychopathic, sociopathic, paranoid, and insane dragon.
Yet some part of him was curious about this. He wanted to know more.
"Was there any other cases like WQ-13?" He asked, choosing to ignore the question Updraft pressed him with.
*****
He sighed deeply, partly to help expand the straightjacket so he could escape. "Any other cases? Yes. They're not as well-known, but I've heard a few even stranger ones. They're less well-accepted, but they might be even more alarming."
"The one that comes to mind most is DG-42, or Database Glitch. She was (or, perhaps, is) a NightWing dragonet about ten years ago, diagnosed with savant syndrome so severe she couldn't even talk. But she was a true genius, one of the smartest dragons in history. She specialized in computers, and prior to coming she worked as a software programmer. She was obsessed with the number 42, which is why she was assigned that (or, some say, because she was the forty-second patient.) Either way, eventually, they brought her here for therapy once a week."
"Naturally, she couldn't say anything, and she was far smarter than all the doctors, so to keep her from getting bored they let her on a computer. This computer was a weak, old model. They hoped that being on a computer near another dragon would help her cope."
"So, she enjoyed it. Every week, she got to experiment with the computer, and they made some progress. But then, strange things started happening. The lights would flicker exactly every four minutes and twelve seconds. All the locks would switch from being locked to unlocked every forty-two minutes on their own. The temperature rose to 42 degrees Celsius and fell to 4.2 degrees Celsius on a cycle every 25.2 minutes."
"No one could figure out what was going on, until one day her psychologist looked over her shoulder. They saw that she had accessed the asylum's central system. She was giggling as she changed the dosages of all the medicines to the patients to 42 of whatever unit they were in."
"The psychologist didn't understand at first, but after a few minutes of watching her, he suddenly realized what was going on. This little dragonet of no more than three had somehow broken into their security and was causing the vital systems to go haywire."
"She'd even changed the password, but luckily for them, they guessed it quickly. It was '42'. The technicians fixed everything, and none of the patients died, but it caused a panic among the staff. They realized that this little dragonet, despite having no obvious mental problems, was brilliant enough to outsmart them."
"They faced a severe problem. If they let her go, she'd be a loose cannon, and there was no way to tell what she'd do. So they almost certainly couldn't let her go. They gave her a glass of water and ordered her to drink it. A few days after, it was clear she was rapidly mentally deteriorating. She was getting harder and harder to control. Eventually, after much persuasion, her parents agreed, tearfully, to give her up. She was put in maximum security, like me, and since then her whereabouts have been unknown."
"So, what happened? Did the doctors, seeing that there was a superweapon they could never control, spike her water with something to drive her insane? Perhaps even something that scientist had given them? And once they had her, what did they do with her? Did they decide that she was just too dangerous and 'dispose' of her?"
"I think so. Otherwise, there'd be reports on her, but the nurses can't bring me anything, which brings me to my last point. None of the doctors even acknowledge her existence. Doesn't that strike you as suspicious?"
He narrowed his eyes, clearly very grim. "So, now that you know some of the things that happened here, are you willing to help? If you reach over and pull off one of these bands, I can do the rest. Please?"
*****
Paradox looked for potential allies. She was a dragonet against the entire staff after all. Her head turned toward Updraft and Solstice. It seemed like they were discussing something important, paying no mind to Wisteria like most of the other dragons. They might prove helpful in my escape. She thought as she approached them as unsuspiciously as possible.
*****
Sobriquet sat silently, eating her soup with a mild disinterest. She had thought that she and 12 had made some progress, that she now had a friend, but she could no longer tell. 12 had ditched her for Wisteria, the Wisteria who hated them all, the Wisteria who dissapeared with her as they went outside and now came back looking drained of her energy. Sobriquet had tried to follow 12 and Wisty out, but it was weird for her. She didn't know what to say.
Everyone around the ward seemed to disregard her whenever she spoke, because they never expected anything serious from her. She'd stayed with them for a little while, and then went back inside to eat her soup in silence, the same silence she would have eaten it in if she were out with them. Wisty was back now, everyone eyeing her as if something terrible had happened. Sobriquet picked up on how the doctor looked, and flashed weird rapid scale patterns at her, hoping secretly that she was eppileptic.
She didn't hate Wisteria, as much as she wanted to. It would only be fair if she did, but she couldn't hold onto anger as well as the other patients. It was why she wasn't taken seriously, why she was never considered a threat. She turned to the ghosts beside her, frantically hoping to see Iradescence in their midst, but knowing she wouldn't. She was relieved to see that Rilus wasn't around, and when she finally went back to her soup, realized that there were some dragons talking about escape.
Escape? that would be stupid. Where would she go? Into hiding? If she went back to the rainforest, everyone would still think she was crazy, and she didn't want to go to the wilderness, too much effort. That is the problem, Sobriquet considered. She was unwilling to fight the battle against conformity, the battle that started as soon as she let herself be taken away to a place where they fix dragons who are not like everyone else. She could not fight it, because she did not know what to do with herself once she won.
"Uerrgh, running away. running into the night, fleeing this cage" She then scolded Quietus for drawing attention to herself. Regardless of how fast she was flashing her scales, she didn't want to be the center of attention. No matter how badly she wanted Quietus to continue, to make a scene, to irritate the guards and seem like a threat, she was afraid to. She wanted a friend, and she wanted respect, but she didn't want to be seen.
It's funny, she thought to herself. There's so much wrong with me, and the only part of me they want to fix is my ghosts, the only dragons who are there for me. She sat in silence, waiting for them to escape. Waiting to wish that she were with them, that she were less logical enough to be with them, or confident enough to charge in anyway, or could hold her anger in at Wysteria, so she would join them to see if she could make this doctor crack.
Unfortunately, none of these were the case, she just felt empty.
*****
Friga twisted and fidgeted on a cold metal table. Light shone into her eyes, making blurred red and green spots appear and fade in her vision. Scars swirled and flared all over Friga's body. Spatters of blood dotted her wings, and huge puddles of the bright red liquid were gathered in her scales. Friga wasn't a fighter, though. She was too soft and always alone. Gashes from her own rigid silver claws ran through her chest.
Friga squirmed against the restraints on all her limbs. She was going to fight for her life, and her sanity. When she wanted brute force, it came to her, and usually everthing around her ended up destroyed. But another emotion, not anger, not determination, not fear, overwhelmed her. Sadness started to beat down on her, weighing her against the metal. Friga felt her heart become restricted and her breathing slow down. When this happened, she usually curled up into a tight ball until the anger came back. Friga curled up as much as she could, being spread eagle on the table. She hoped she could find a better home than this. She'd heard of one place, but it was about a million miles away.
Still, Friga held on to her dream that one day someone from the Pyrrhian Psychiatric Ward would be sent to her to fix her broken mind.
What she didn't know was that the bright red SkyWing just coming through iron door was about to make her dream come true.
*****
The SkyWing had to cart Friga to the Ward in a cage. Her emotions were too unpredictable. The cage, however, didn't rattle or shake at all on the journey across Pyrrhia. The red dragon suspected she had escaped, but if she had the cage wouldn't be so heavy. Besides, the IceWing seemed eager to leave.
As the cave brushed against stone outside the Psychiactric Ward, Friga liked to think that the crowd of starry black dragon surrounding her were her welcoming committee. Friga already felt safer and... less sad here. She didn't remember the word for it, but it was something that sounded funny when you said it. A few NightWings escorted her into a large room with several other dragons in it. Some dragons showed what was wrong with them right away, like deformities, odd colors, etc., but a few just had odd behavior. There was quite a few animi, one or two fire breathing IceWings and frost breathing SandWings, and dragons with overall furious, depressed, or insanly happy. Friga fit right in here. She sat down beside the wall, not bothering with food. She had been so starved, her stomach was probably the size of a walnut. Finally, she was at her dream home, her safe haven. Friga leaned her head against the stone, deciding on a nap.
*****
Solstice immediately found the hole in his logic. "And how do you know of this carefully guarded information? I'm sure they wouldn't freely tell someone like us." He didn't mean it hurtfully, but it was true. Why would they tell any of the patients something like that?
He looked carefully at the NightWings around. None of them could get into his head - Equinox creates too much confusion for them to find a coherint thought, though he is quite used to the mix of emotions and thoughts they had, and knew which was which - but he wasn't as sure with Updraft. He had tried once, very early into his stay, and he could barely find his thoughts through static. But then, he wasn't lucid. Right now, he seemed to be aware, and not away in a private world.
*****
Updraft answered, quietly, "I don't. All of this, except those scientific articles by that scientist, is hearsay from what other inmates told me. It could all be just legend, and nothing more. But look around. There's no way to trace back the chain of rumors. This is the kind of place that things like those would happen, even if the details aren't precise."
*****
It was definitly unsettling, if he were to tell the truth. He could tell that part of it was either extremely good lying, or truth.
He decided with one more explaination. If he were to just release Updraft, and end with him going on a rampage and killing all the nurses and even patients, he would never forgive himself. And if Up decided to go docile, those years of acting good for the doctors whenever he could would go down the drain. He would be the convicted.
"What would you do if I released you? How can you get us all out of here?"
*****
Updraft considered it. Part of him wanted to see his tormenters die, but a bigger part of him just wanted to escape somehow. After a lot of thinking, he decided, "I would try to get out and bring the rest of us. I wouldn't use lethal force if I could avoid it, but I might have to. As long as we got out, I wouldn't seek revenge." Well, I wouldn't, but there are a lot of dragons up here in my head that aren't me, he didn't add.
*****
She got to the table where Updraft was and sat there. Paradox glanced around at the staff and saw that mind reading NightWings were around. She created an emotionless face and shielded her mind with thoughts of the sky and stars. Beneath all of that she thought of one thing. Escape.
*****
Himeralli shuffled her talons, casting suspicious glances at the staff that stood around the perimeter of the cafeteria.
When the nurse returned to finish feeding Himeralli, she did so willingly, eying Kiara. She kept her mind blank, hopefully not to attract the attention of NightWing staff.
When Himeralli finished, the nurse took her soup away, and she rested her head on the table, daydreaming of her marionettes and puppets.
*****
A navy blue SeaWing lay on the floor of her own room. An iron mitten covered her talons, a result of her clawing herself and others. Maelstrom moaned miserably, thrashing her head side to side. Her tail tapped the floor impatiently, wishing for some fish at the moment. How dare they chain her up and stick her in a room without water! The Maelstrom cannot be contained!
"I can break these cuffs!" She squirmed, hollering into nothingness. Maelstrom pulled on her chains, feeling her talons constrict tighter and tighter. Ooh, progress! She yanked, the chains cackling on the ground.
*****
The bowl of vegetable soup in front of her shimmered with an oily rainbow slick. It smelled unnatural and bland, as if it had been synthesized out of a chemical reaction rather than grown, harvested, and cooked like any normal dish. But then again, it hardly mattered how it tasted. Its purpose was to provide adequate nutrition, not to appease anyone's gustation.
Wisty looked away from the soup - somehow, despite the fact that she had seen the exact same concoction at every lunch every day without the slightest variation - today the sight of the cafeteria brew made her feel slightly queasy. She looked around, scanning the patients with a practiced eye. To her great relief the attention of the cafeteria had turned away from her, and normal conversation had resumed - although Wisty thought she saw a few curious eyes stray in her direction every once in a while.
Wisty looked around, frowning. No one was eyeing her now, but yet the hairs on the back of her neck were still tingling. She looked around, her years of psychologist training overriding her own turbulent emotional state for the moment. Yes, something was up.
She saw it clear as day, in the urgent twitch of a tail, the nervous shuffle of a wing, the secretive flicker of eyes back and forth down the table. Perhaps Wisty had been locked in combat with her own mind for some time now, but she was still a very good psychiatrist. She hadn't been invited as one of the first integrated students to an all-NightWing medical school for nothing. Now Wisty's every fiber of medical training told her to watch out, that someone was thinking - hiding - planning something.
The question was, who? And what?
Wisty got up from the table and moved towards some of the NightWing doctors lining the walls, intending to ask whether they shared her observations.
*****
Solstice decided that it would be interesting to say the least to see Updraft try and escape. He would just have to be quick about it, and make sure no dragon knew it was him that cut the bonds. He leaned in, as if chatting with Updraft, and held his wing up slightly to block the view of the NightWing doctors that were nearby.
"How do I help?" He asked, gauging Updraft's response.
Besides, even if he was caught, he could feint Equinox.
Though chances are, in a second she was probably going to break the chains. He might not have to pretend.
*****
Updraft whispered, "Cut those straps. Quickly. I can get out of the straightjacket myself. We've probably got about fourty-five seconds until we're stopped. Hurry!"
*****
Solstice hesitated, tempted to speak up about how he had no claws, then decided that they were sharp enough to rip a good amount of the straps if he pushed down hard enough.
They ripped, one by one, and Updraft was free.
His eye twitched a little as Equinox strained again.
*****
Updraft felt a kind of cold glee run down his spine. Finally, he thought. He backflipped off the table, kicked two nurses in the face, and wiggled the straightjacket off. He grabbed some of the utensils on the table and threw them at more nurses. "FOR FREEDOM!!" he yelled to the assembled patients.
*****
Fastwings lept on Updraft, starting to claw him furiously, despite the guards rushign up. Fire blasted everywhere, not bad enough to actually hurt anyone, but meant as a warning. She continued to claw this... monster, as she saw.
*****
Solstice felt claws crash into his chest. He yelped, pressed against the table.
He ducked his head, trying to dodge whatever strikes FastWings threw at him. One of them hit, knocking his head against the bowl of soup.
That really was all it took, and with Solstice's concentration disturbed Equinox broke free. He roared with fury, throwing FastWings off him and in turn swinging around to attack the NightWing. With a well placed talon, she threw him off of Updraft, the only current way to her freedom. She had to protect him, and destroy everything else.
Her spines lept up in aggression, and she attacked everything in sight. Starting with the most suicidal route: The group of NightWing doctors and the one SwiftWing.
*****
Fastwings was back onto Equinox, smashing her to the ground and tearing at the NightWIng's wings. Then she started attacking her underbelly furiously, driven by pure rage and hate.
*****
Friga opened her eyes, surprised she'd slept through the racket going on. It seemed to be a fight. Friga suddenly had to use every last drop of willpower to keep her against that wall. But the tiniest splash of blood pooled just a tail's length away. Friga slithered toward it, inhaling deeply, flicking her tongue out to let the metallic taste seep into it. That's when she went wild.
Soon, blood was spattering everywhere. Friga had burst into the fight, lashing out, get clawed and whacked until blood was pouring over her too. She relished the copperlike taste, biting into wingtips, slashing claws over snouts, whipping her tail and spattering bright reds, maroons, even purplish colors across the stone.
And suddenly she stopped. The fight was still raging half-heartedly around her, but Friga could feel tendrils of despair wrap around her as she curled up on the floor. Warm crimson liquid trickled into her snout from the SkyWing she's just bitten. Who knows how many dragons she'd injured, how many she could have almost killed, when she didn't know any of them. Their names, their personalities, she didn't even stop to think of their tribes before attacking. So many of them could have been her friends. All along, this wasn't her safe haven. It was a graveyard for everyone around her. Friga sobbed, still lying on the ground, and the clicking sounds of talons and the grunts, yells and moans of the fighting dragons lulled her back into an uneasy sleep.
*****
Maelstrom opened her eyes to the sound of something going on. She could not pinpoint the noise, but it sounded very chaotic. "Who's there?" She gurgled something unintelligible, standing up. Her feet led her to the wall, and she put her ear to it. Hollering and thumping, pain, lots of pain and confusion.
The SeaWing stood back, studying the handcuffs around her talons. She yanked on them again, feeling them tighten with every tug. Maelstrom pulled until it felt like they were going to rip off her claws. With shaking arms, she raised them slowly, bringing them down on her chest with such force she was sent backwards. In her moment of instability, the SeaWing dropped to the floor with a vehement "oomph".
Stars in her eyes, she looked down at her claws.
Freedom.
*****
12 blinked and looked at the chaos unfold. She gasped, seeing nurses and doctors being dragged off and beaten to death.
"Stop! Stop it!" She would shout. Of course, no one would hear poor little 12. She just wanted to see the world like everyone else.
Her eyes fixed on a dead doctor in the corner that no one noticed. They didn't care. They trampled over him! It was horrific! 12 ran over to the dragon and saw the guts squeezed out of his chest area. It made her sick.... The blood bright blue and the dragon purple. So much blood... So many things from inside of the dragon... She sobbed and stroked her claws down his face. It made it worse. "I want it to stop... The madness... They won't calm down!" 12 screamed and thrashed, the blood splashing everywhere.
*****
Escape. She savored the word before making her mind focus on what happened around her. Pandemonium had erupted in the lunch area and some patients were fighting for freedom, others for the staff, and more just standing by. Nearby, doctors and nurses were trying to keep peace. For freedom!
The words that Updraft had shouted screamed in her ears, pulsed through her veins, and gave her strength. She hurtled toward the the NightWing doctors blocking the doors and used her wing binds to shove them out of the way. She pounded the metal binds against the door until they broke along with the door. She was free. Waving her wing, she motioned to the others that were willing to follow.
Freedom is worth more than anything.
*****
Himeralli wriggled, biting at the chains that bind her down to the table. After a lot of effort, she broke free, and whipped her head around.
She smiled at the dead dragons. Scurrying around, and grabbed a dead body, before ripping her talons through a few of the limbs. She found another body and did similar.
Himeralli looked around for anything she could use to sew the dragon limbs together. She eventually just ripped a bone out from another dragon and sharpened it, before ripping out some muscle and sewing the parts together. She did similar, and completed her marionette.
Himeralli smiled, playing with it, making move around. She smiled at the chaos and the marionette. This had been a better day than expected.
*****
Wisty stared at the chaos raging around her - her violet mane and hunched shoulders a single point of stillness in the midst of a pulsing, raging mob. As if in a trance, she watched as a snarling IceWing sank her fangs into a screaming SkyWing's shoulder. Blood spurted out from the wound, spatting the floor with bright crimson droplets.
It was only when a passing blow from a burly SandWing patient caught her right between the wings and sent her careening across the room. Thoroughly winded, Wisty landed on the cafeteria table and sent bowls of greasy vegetable soup flying everywhere.
It was utter chaos - and every fiber of Wisty's being rebelled against the idea. Order - order was everything in the Psychiatric Ward. Wisty sat up, coughing and gasping as she struggled to regain her breath.
Out for the corner of her eye she saw the SandWing patient coming in for another swing at her, claws bareed, murder clear in bloodshot eyes past reason. The sight of him struck fear into her heart, activated some deep internal animal instinct for survival, and her SwiftWing powers kicked in at once. Wisty was a good aerokinetic, and she had learned one particular trick to help subdue rowdy patients. Now her eyes glowed pale violet as she summoned her aerokinesis, and she felt the air currents and stray breezes around her bend to her will. And mustering her willpower, she bade her SwiftWing aerokinesis to suck every last particle of air from his lungs.
The SandWing's eyes bulged and his throat worked futilely as he struggled to draw breath with lungs that remained stubbornly empty. Wisty clenched her teeth and pushed ever harder with her power, her eyes glowing brighter and brighter as she funneled more and more of her inner strength to maintaining the magic.
His struggled grew weaker, and Wisty snarled a gutteral scream as she pressed ever harder, her eyes glowing so brightly that they shone almost white. All of her anger, all of her fear, and all of her own brand of madness was funneled into the desperate effort, and she watched with a fevered kind of vindictive fury as he dropped to his knees, hands clawing at his throat. Then his eyes went blank - his mouth slackened, and he was suddenly very, very still.
As he fell senseless to the ground, the full magnitude of Wisty's deed struck her with the force of another blow. She inhaled sharply, realizing that she had been holding her own breath. Her head swam and the world tipped dizzyingly around her as she scrambled down to the cafeteria floor, seeking out the pulse on the patient's neck.
Please don't die, she thought, panic threatening to consume her even through her own oxygen-starved delirium. She had taken it too far - the suffocation spell was only meant to knock a patient unconscious. But she had let it grow too strong, left it for too long.
Please don't be dead.
Please.
Her fingers closed around his neck. There was a flutter of life - a feeble pulse, and Wisty felt a rush of relief course through her with the strength of a tidal flow.
Two faint quivers of pulse - then -
- nothing.
Wisty watched in horror, heart frozen, as his life flickered out right under her fingers.
*****
Sobriquet sat at her table, still sipping soup. She wasn't feeling lonely anymore, she was feeling thrilled. The whole thing was comical if you put it into perspective, dragons jumping around desparate for their so called "freedom." Funny she thought, how the institution designed to rid these dragons of their illusions and to supposedly ease their minds directly resulted in the even worse illusion of freedom, and many more troubled minds.
The soup was rancid. An odd symbol of stability amongst the chaos. No matter how unstable things became, she could always rely on the soup tasting terrible. She was greedily gulping it down when another patient bit her tail- Her tail!! She spewed soup all over the patient and slashed at them with a talon before leaping up and moving to a spot where she had a better view.
Wisty was battling a SandWing and Sobriquet watched intently. She'd never seen a SwiftWing before Wisty, and never really knew what they could do. It was odd for Sobriquet. The SandWing was passing out of consciousness, and Wisty was concentrating intently, a shockingly unfamiliar look of hatred on her face. Then the next thing she knew, the patient was perfectly fine, and Wisteria was holding him, in a look of despair. The SandWing was almost smiling, as if he had some secret- as if he had some escape. Could this be?... could Wisteria have...
Her thought was confirmed as the loud annoying one called Murder. It's a shame she thought, if anyone deserved to kill a pest or two, it'd be Wisteria. She'd put up with their crap for years, and she hated them all, so her conscience wouldn't be too scarred. It's a win win.
Once again the scene seemed comical. The gore was a nice touch, the pretty reds flying out of the edges of bodies like water balloons from the paws of dragonets. She was entranced and amused. A small part of herself wanted to jump around in it. She'd seem psychotic, she'd be respected, and she wouldn't have hurt any of the staff, so they couldn't possibly treat her bad, but again she stopped. It seemed her fate to just sit and take whatever was thrown at her, incapable of fighting the conformity and passiveness she hated so much.
*****
Updraft saw the SwiftWing suffocate a SandWing. He felt a sort of whoosh, as his eyes dialated. It's true, he realized. It's all true. He roared across the room, "SHE JUST KILLED ONE OF US! NO MERCY!" He grabbed two chair legs, popped the flat parts off, and impaled two dragons on them. With a psychotic laugh, he ripped them out and hurled them both towards Wisteria. "FOR VENGEANCE!"
Suddenly, the world spun, and he saw everything differently--a sequence of moves, a group of targets, dragons to be killed. With horrifying accuracy, he snapped a NightWing's neck and flew into the kitchen. Hundreds of knives lay there, ready for his use. He grabbed four, one per leg, and flew back over. He stabbed another doctor, and then shot towards Wisteria, blades angled towards her. "DIE, MURDERER!"
*****
Paradox shot out of the cafe and started to look for any stray doctors. They could not be allowed to pull the alarm. If anyone pulls the alarm we will all die a horrible death, even the innocent ones. They will take us to be experimented on. Paradox remembered the large needles in the room she was brought to. She shuddered at the memory.
She heard, far off, the words "DIE MURDERER!" from Updraft and she noticed a guard and doctors coming toward the cafe. They can't find out. She bolted toward them and used her wings to hit the doctors in the head, knocking them unconscious before they could use their walkie-talkies. She whirled toward the guard who was making for a red button on the wall. Snarling, she tackled him to the ground. Quickly, she used her tail to hit him in the head before he cried for help. 2 doctors and a guard... Not bad for a dragonet.
*****
No time to think.
Just action. Reaction.
Wisty heard the words, saw the SkyWing hurtling towards her armed with a blade in each paw. She looked up from where she was crouched over the dead body of the SandWing patient. Each blade glinted in his paws as he charged towards her, wings outspread, mouth agape and howling for blood.
Time seemed to slow, and Wisty watched in horror as each kitchen knife sparkled in the light, their edges sparkling like shards of glass. Wisty saw them but felt no fear. She felt the same way as she had back in the mirror, watching the glass slicing over her wrist, watching her own death coming towards her. And welcoming it with open arms.
It's true, she thought with an eerie sense of calm. I am a murderer. I just killed a patient. One of my own. I took a life - an innocent life. A life that I have tried to save, but failed.
I deserve to die.
I want to die.
She let her arms fall to her sides, waiting for the knives to pierce her skin, to rend flesh and bone, to spill her blood and end her rotten, worthless life.
I'm a murderer.
I'm a murderer.
I'm a murderer...
... Just like you.
A moment of clarity seized her thoughts, and suddenly Wisty was electrified as if by a current. The sense of apathy and calm and shattered, to be replaced by cold fury closing around her heart, grasping her chest as if with icy claws.
You dare call me a murderer? she railed, fury building in her heart and tinting her vision as red as blood. You dare? You, who have killed countless innocent dragons, nurses and doctors and guards who only want you to return to sanity and health. And you call ME a murderer? Me - a dragon who has labored selflessly for years - to help you, to heal you!
I should kill you now, she thought savagely. I should avenge the countless innocent dragons that you have killed, now and in the past. You deserve to die. There are families, friends - wives, husbands, children, who cry for your blood. I will avenge them.
You ungrateful, foolish SkyWing. I've tried to help you.
I've failed.
And now, the only thing left to give you is death. In the name of mercy.
"For vengeance," she whispered through a raw throat. "Die, murderer."
Then her eyes glowed white, as she summoned her magic once more.
*****
Kiara's eyes turned black. A dark shadow appeared around her body. She was the most dangerous dragon here.
" ATTENTION!! "
Every dragon in the room turned to Kiara.
"This is our chance! They've chained us, threw us in cells and forced us to be there slaves! Today we fight back! Take over the ward! Throw the nurses and doctors in our cells! Put them through the pain and suffering we once endured! We are stronger than them! Better than them! AND NOW WE WILL SHOW THEM WHAT BEING A PATIENT IN THIS WARD REALLY FEELS LIKE!" Kiara shouted.
The patients kept fighting. In barley any time the patients had tied up the doctors and nurses. They had started to carry them to the cells.
I'm not a monster. I'm the savior of the patients in the Psychiatric Ward
*****
The majority of doctors and nurses were in cells. It had been a good battle. Kiara loved the feel of blood on her claws again.
"Kiara! What should we do with Wisteria?" An IceWings asked. Kiara stared at Wisteria, the IceWing holding her up by the wings. She had been knocked unconscious in the chaos.
"Put her in my old cell. We'll deal with her later. Oh and remember to cut the communications," Kiara replied.
Kiara searched for Himeralli. She found her playing with a marionette doll. It looked like it was made out of dragon's body parts. Kiara shivered.
"Come on, Himeralli! Let's explore the ward!" Kiara said.
Together they flew through the corridors and found a door.
'HEAD DOCTOR'S OFFICE'
Kiara pushed open the door and walked over to the desk. She sat down in the leather chair.
So this is power.
On the opposite wall, the hours-old coffee stain still dripped like viscous blood.
*****
Paradox headed toward the Offices and peeked in each one to look for remaining doctors. She had dragged the others into a closet and locked the door, binding them with the same chains that binded the patients. Upon the last office, the Head Doctor's Office she found something surprising. Kiara was in there.
*****
"Hello Paradox," Kiara said as Paradox walked into the office. Kiara quite liked the office. Especially the part where she got to look through most of the patients files. But she didn't pay attention to the others files. She just wanted to find hers. After nearly half an hour of looking she had given up. Now she was facing Paradox.
I hope she's not here to steal the office from me. Otherwise, we could be good friends.
*****
Lance sheathed his weapon once more, a sense of calm rolling over him. He had fought over the Psychiatric Ward with the patients...
And we won.
He sighed, looking outside through the heavily barred window. Something about this just doesn't feel right to me...
What did we gain from this? What about the doctors... The dragons whose lives are hurt by our rampage? What was this for? He looked down at his bloody talons. Why am I even here?
It was fairly obvious that he was the only one who felt remorse for his actions. The other dragons had no qualms for locking up the doctors. Yes, he didn't like them much, either, but did it need to be solved by rioting?
The troubled SkyWing unsheathed his lance once more. He envisioned the rough talons of his father, worn from seasons of battles for the SkyWings in the military, tightly gripping the lance as he sprang into battle beside his team members. My most treasured heirloom... My most prized gift...
It had been made by the late SkyWing blacksmith Emberstorm, as compensation for a long-ago deed completed by Lance's father. One day, Lance's father's voice entered his mind once more, a long-lost memory from back when he was a tiny dragonet. One day I'll be gone... And you'll have this, Lance. Lance's lance! His father's booming laugh made him smile in spite of himself. Bring glory to this lance... Just as I have before you.
Lance sighed. I don't think this was the right way to do it.
~ ~ ~ ~
Dreamstalker had a doctor pinned down beneath his sharp red talons. Though the SkyWing doctor squirmed and cried out for mercy, it was a long-lost cause. Shadowy tendrils outstretched from Dreamstalker's back and, before the doctor could feel a thing, snaked around his neck and throttled him to death.
As the shadowy tendrils receded, and the SkyWing's head dropped to the brick floor with a loud THUD, Dreamstalker felt a rush of satisfaction fill him. This is what I was made for.
Death...
Destruction...
Vengeance...
Blood spilling upon the gray stones beneath my talons...
With a scornful 'Tch!', Dreamstalker turned and kicked dust onto the body of the SkyWing doctor. He didn't deserve such a painless death. I should have tortured him first... His tribe shall pay for murdering my parents...
A balloon of pain tight in his chest, Dreamstalker turned and left his prison room. He left the body of the SkyWing on the drab gray stones. Opening the doorway, he exited the chamber, locking the door behind him.
As he walked through the hall, he passed a fellow patient. It was a dragon... A confused-looking one... As if it hadn't even left the room it was in...
Wait...
He turned and looked at the dragon. Peering into his mind, Dreamstalker was surprised to find out that the dragon had severe amnesia. Alzheimer's, perhaps?
Wait, what had I just screamed about? The dragon slammed their tail into the wall. What did I just slam into the wall, with instinct? Wait, what's instinct?
There was silence for a moment. Dreamstalker, slightly fascinated, watched the dragon.
Then, the dragon asked one last question, a question that rang true with Dreamstalker as well: What am I here for?
What am I here for? Dreamstalker thought, backing up and staring down at his red talons. Is it really just to get vengeance on SkyWings? Or... Or is there something more to my life?
What if I've been looking at it the wrong way...
This entire time?
*****
Killing.
For Wisty it was easy - so absurdly easy. The feeling of air rushing out of a pair of struggling lungs, the terror in his eyes as he looked at her. The hiss of his last breath, the flicker of his pulse as it dimmed and died.
She liked it.
No guilt. She was surprised at how calm she was.
I'm not guilty, she wondered, vaguely surprised at her own indifference. Strange, as mere hours ago she would have fallen to her knees and wept over the SandWing's body. Why? Why do I feel nothing?
Because... it was the right thing to do.
She thought of her patients - how they curled up in tears in the darkness of the night, how they howled for blood, how they screamed for mercy. Mercy from pain, from madness, from their twisted, tortured lives.
This is mercy, she thought to herself, a blissful smile crossing a bloodstained and bruised face. The answer stood in front of her, clear as shards of shattered glass. Years and years of labor and agony, wondering how she could possibly heal these dragons, save their minds.
It was so obvious. She couldn't believe that she hadn't seen it before.
I can heal them, she thought, a sense of pure, unadulterated joy filling her heart. Each and every last one of them. I can save them. I can give them peace. No more pain, no more madness.
The Psychiatric Ward had been a maze, a maze that Wisty and all of them had wandered endlessly, looking up at the stars above and praying, hoping, dreaming of escape. A way out of this prison, this endless nightmare.
She had glimpsed it once before, in the shard of mirror she used to slash her wrist. But now Wisty saw the exit clear and bright in front of her, shining with the darkness of the shadows between the stars.
I know now, she thought, elation surging through her, and for the first time in days Wisty laughed as joy filled her heart. I know how to escape. Not just me. All of us.
No more pain. No more sorrow. No more madness.
Escape.
Death.
*****
Fastwings dropped 12 and flew off, her insides churning and her head spinning. She cast her senses around, her anger quieting and her mind awhirl. The world seemed to tilt as she slowly seemed to get to update with what had happened.
A takeover. A murduering doctor. I killed. Everything has changed.
Nothing is the same.
I don't know what's right anymore.
Fastwings shook her head. Spreading her large wings, she shot up the corridor, nearly knockign over Paradox, but she didn't stop. She didn't until she reached where Wisty was.
But when she got there, she knew Wisty wasn't there.
What was there was an empty SwiftWing. The soul and spirit was gone.
Dead. The soul of the doctor was dead.
Fastwings was too horrifyed to do anything. She couldn't even move when this monster looked at her.
*****
Wisty stared up at the big iron door to the cell. Three solid feet of metal and steel. No handle on the door - it could only be opened from the outside. A tiny barred window, sealed with bulletproof glass.
There was no way out of here - she was sure of that. She hadn't spend several years working in the ward for nothing. Several years of patients striving, doing everything they could to get out, to no avail. No one had gotten out.
But Wisty had one thing - a weapon - that no patient ever had.
Patience.
She sat down on the cold floor, violet eyes fixed on the window set in the doorframe. She could be patient. She could wait, biding her time, for someone to come. Whether it be patient or rescuer, she didn't know or care.
Wisty tilted her head, propping her face on her hands. Alarms would be going off already - somewhere, somehow. The Psych Ward sat on top of 9 floors of operating hospital, after all. Sooner or later help would come. The police would surround the hospital. SWAT Teams would storm through the ward, shooting anything and everything that stood in their way.
Wisty smiled beatifically at the thought.
*****
Auralyis thrashed as the patients bound her up and chained her. SHE was the nurse, the one who went through years of medical training just to spend even more years of her life dealing with these miserable brats. They didn't get to touch her, they ruined the best years of life, filled her memories with agony and the rancid smell of sterile chemicals, masking the secret of their own. Everything masked a secret, and her own mask had fallen off.
"I hate you all." she grumbled, not realizing until too late that that would only make it worse for her. A cell door opened- they put her in a cell! and she was gracelessly thrust into it. If she were another person, she might've understood how the patients felt, if she were Sobriquet, she'd find the situation ironic and giggle, but she was Auralyis, and this couldn't happen to her.
She tried to suck her rage back, to calm herself like she used to do back when she first started, back when she was a popular nurse. A tear crept from the edge of her eye, and she gave up trying to calm down. Anger was better than sorrow, it kept her strong.
The chains were loosened when she was tossed into the cell, she managed to shake them off and wipe the tear from her eye. The sickly sterile scent still crept into her nostrils, but she could get a better view of where she was... and who she was trapped with.
Wisteria. The head doctor who she'd helped patch up after her incident, who she'd sat just a few feet away from as she murdered a patient in cold blood, and then as she'd done another.
"Wisteria! What in the three moons is wrong with you?!!" Auralyis really was a different nurse when she'd first joined, she would've never asked someone in critical condition what was wrong with them, but she didn't have time for tact, nor the patience. She was the victim here more than anyone else.
*****
Wisty looked up in mild surprise as Nurse Auralyis was thrown into the cell, landing next to her with clash and clatter of chains. Despite the commotion and the sudden shock of Auralyis's entry, Wisty could not muster any sense of surprise. A cool sense of calm and settled over her heart, as cold and as sharp as a winter frost. It was as if her soul, her mind had been encased under a layer of ice. Auralyis's voice seemed to penetrate from far away.
"Hello, Auralyis," she said quietly, her voice sounding rather distant even to her own ears. Then Auralyis's curt question struck home, and she blinked at the IceWing nurse in surprise. "Wrong with me?" she asked, an expression of confusion crossing her shadowed face. "Of course not. Nothing's wrong with me. I'm perfectly fine."
Nothing's wrong. In fact, I couldn't be any better. I've finally figured it all out. After all these years, I finally see clearly.
"I know what we need to do," she said, her voice taking on a more firm sense of purpose. "We need to escape this cell now. We need to get outside, so we can help the patients." She smiled sadly and yet kindly, as if talking about some miscreant children under her charge. "It's not their fault, after all. We need to help them, as best we can."
And I know exactly how.
*****
"Help them?!! You're freaking killing them!" This wasn't really a fair accusation. Auralyis had wished so many times that she had the right to kill the patients, she'd even had herself surgically altered so she couldn't shoot death breath, to resist the temptation, but Wisty needed to know what she was getting herself into.
"This is a long dark path Wisteria, a path you have no business going down. Of all the staff in the ward, and all the patients, I've hated them all, but I've never before felt anything against you. What's going to happen now? You can stop, say you were cornered, act in self defense, muster up a tear or two and host a needlessly extravagent funeral for them both. The staff will jump to your side, we can cover this all up, we've done it before.
"But if you continue this nonsense, things will not bode well, you can lose everything Wisty!" her face was right up to Wisteria's, her breath seeping into Wisty's nostrils and her nostrils flaring.
"I can't let you out." even if it means I don't get out either. That part of herself still acknowleged the obvious. Auralyis was still the most important, still the one who mattered.
She sat back on the beat up cot they called a bed, and tried to calm herself down. Anger wasn't any better than sorrow she decided, and she was glad that she had Wisty as an outlet to pour her anger over. She felt suddenly sympathetic, but buried that feeling to. Her yelling was for her own sake, to vent her frustration of being locked in here, but now that she was content with staying, she realized that it might actually do the doctor some good.
"What is your thought process?" she asked, feeling like a real nurse for the first time in quite a while.
*****
Paradox tapped at the word doctors on a paper that was on the desk with her tail. All of them are locked up. She turned to leave and started toward Wisteria's cell. She looked into the window to find Wisteria and that nurse talking, waiting.
It was strange. After being here for a year, Paradox had only thought of waiting for freedom, when one day they would realize she didn't need to be here. Now they had gotten it, but there was no real satisfaction at all. She felt.. empty.
*****
"Oh Auralyis," Wisty smiled sadly and sympathetically, her violet eyes filled with stark clarity. She felt sorry for Auralyis, so wrapped up in her own world, her own mind, so focused on saving herself, blinded to the rest of the world.
"It's not about you, or me. We can't be selfish like that. This is bigger, more important, than any one of us." She paused for a moment, thinking of how to frame her words. "So what if I die? So what if you die? All of us die eventually, sooner or later, somehow and somewhere. It hardly matters when. All that matters is how.
"Finally, after all these years, I see the truth. That every day, every week, every year, we are slowly dying. And soon, all too soon, our short lives will end.
"But what if we chose to make our lives meaningful? If by our own deaths, we could save and deliver a hundred more? That, my friend, would be a good life, and a good death. This is about freedom. For mercy. For doing what's right. For all of us."
She looked at Auralyis, her eyes suddenly sharp and brittle as shards of glass.
"Do you know what it's like to suffer? To truly suffer? To wake up in the morning, to walk slowly through all the days of your life, knowing that there is no hope?
"For too long I have wandered these empty halls, trying to solve problems that I myself am the cause of. Too many lives have wasted away here, steeped in pain and misery. Have you ever been in the Ward at night, Auralyis? Have you ever stopped, ventured out of your own comfortable, closed world and looked - really looked - at those around you?
"I have. I've seen them crying - crying for their mothers, their children, that they would never see or be allowed to see again. I've seen the tears of grief - grief for their own lives, the lives they've taken, and the lives that they would never have. I've seen them raging, breaking their paws on the doors of their cells, knowing that there is no way out but trying all the same.
"And this would go, day after day, year after year. Some die, and more will replace them. Doctors leave, and doctors come. It is an endless cycle, a circle of pain and misery, a trap, a maze, a prison unlike any other. A self-perpetuating balance of horror and pain. And it will endure. Unless.
"Unless we do something to change it.
"I've seen this, and for a long, long time I did not know how to change it. How to solve it. How to set them free. I thought I had failed." She looked at Auralyis, and her eyes burned with cold, clear light. "And then I saw."
"Escape. That's what they want, all of them. It is their dearest heart's desire. They would give their hearts and their souls to breathe free. But they cannot be free. If they leave the Ward, they will brought back in chains. There is no way out.
"But they can be free. We can all be free."
The light in her eyes intensified until it was burning bright, like a white, flickering flame. "Mercy," she whispered. "This is mercy. We can set them free. We can end their misery and sorrow, let them find peace and rest in the light of the stars."
Freedom. Escape. In death.
She smiled, and her face was suffused in radiant light.
*****
"Free? they'll be dead," Auralyis hissed. "They've come here so we can heal them, not chop off their heads and be done with them. This whole institution was based around the idea of hope, the staff has toiled for hours under the illogical belief that we can save these people, that we can take their minds and fix them so that they can fit into society without killing themselves or anyone else. This is our goal.
"These dragons are getting better too, more sympathetic for normal, 12 has been seeing the world lately, if you can't believe in hope, what else is there. You acknowlege that we're wasting our lives away in this cesspool, and if you think that's the solution, you're undoing all of our work, and you're no better than the rest of them.
"Think clearly Wisteria, we can't have these patients die. We can cover up one or two deaths maybe, but after a while, the authorities will know and they'll come for you. They'll come because you're trying to make these people free when freedom is not what they need.
"They need comfort, a place to belong. They need to know that society would rather lock them up than give them venom injections because things can be better, things WILL be better. Once you give up those ideas, you turn yourself into a monster. This is not mercy.
"That's why I can't let you leave this cell. Please, let the real Wisteria hear me."
*****
From the snippets of conversation she had overheard Fastwings knew she had no choice. She opened the door and walked in, leaving the cell door slightly ajar behind her. Kneeling down, Fastwings gently took Wisty's snout in her talons, gazing into her violet eyes with her own dark, fathomless pools.
I won't let you become one of them.
You will stay. Wisteria, the doctor we all know...
Fastwings spoke evenly, pronouncing every word clearly, letting each one sink in. "Wisteria, doctor of this Ward, a SwiftWing. If it was that easy, I would've died a long time ago. Did I? No. I kept going, struggling through life, knowing my family would've wanted me to stay, keep their memory alive. I know you don't belive me, Wisteria, but listen to this. Keep this in your mind.
"Everyone is here for a purpose Wisteria. Some aren't missed, some have sad families, others are just here. They might not be completely sane, but they are here for something. Encouragement, changing the world, death, but they are here. Their prupose isn't to just come in here and be killed Wisteria. They have something better in thier lives, and they aren't short, meaningless lives. Everyone has a purpose Wisteria. They might try to diverge, but each one has their life laid out in front of them the moment they are hatched. The path might be dark, or they might be bright. But its a path. A purpose. You've found yours Wisteria. Now you're trying to destroy it."
Fastwings still gazed into the doctor's eyes as she spoke, letting pure emotion flash through her eyes.
Pain. Anger. Sorrow. Madness.
I won't let the doctor go.
She will never be lost.
Lost.
A word that meant falling through endless darknesss, not knowing where to go. Fastwing's talons curled, but she didn't let go.
*****
Wisty looked at Fastwings and Auralyis, a frown of confusion creasing her brow. For a moment her clear violet eyes turned troubled and clouded, the radiant light that had once shown so clear fading to blackness.
Not mercy. Lost.
She looked at the NightWing and the IceWing, her mouth falling open a little in surprise. How they were looking at her - a mixture of revulsion, horror, and pity.
How could this happen? she wondered. Could it be that I was wrong?
She looked up into Fastwing and Auralyis's eyes, and saw herself reflected small and pale in those dark pools of light. She was infintesimally small, the bruises on cuts on her face sharp and dark against her pale gray scales. Her hair was once again in disarray, the badnages on her wrists had once again become stained with blood - crimson and scarlet dapples, blood that was hers and of others.
But most terrifying of all were her eyes. Wisty had spent enough time in the Psychiatric Ward to recognize madness when she saw it, and she saw it clearly, written her eyes. They were creased and shadowed, bloodied and swollen, and yet there was no light within them. They had gone dark, dark as shadow. Something inside her, her essence, her soul, had broken, and extinguished the stars that she had once seen shining so bright.
The sight of her own face filled her with grief. Pain, stark and terrible as a physical glow, filled her heart as she mourned the life and duty that she had once held and cherished, and that had now been broken - shattered - in a such a terrible and spectacular way.
Life.
So delicate and beautiful - so precious - a true and wondrous gift, given out of kindness with nothing asked in return. A flame, a star, a point of light than shone in each and every one of us. A gift to be cherished and protected, loved and nurtured.
And she had been about to give up her own life, in those dark moments in the bathroom, surrounded by glass and the light of a thousand glass shards and false stars.
Tears welled in her eyes as she thought of the anonymous SandWing and Updraft, who she had throttled and cast aside so carelessly - she remembered the breath fall from their lungs, the light fade from their eyes, the crumple and clatter of their lifeless bodies as they fell to earth. In her minds' eye she saw the bodies of the doctors and nurses and guards who lay out on the hall, bleeding and broken. So much meaningless death.
The callousness in all our minds disgusted her.
The darkness in all our hearts terrified her.
Now, locked away in the depths of a patient cell, Wisty saw the depths of her own depravity, and it appalled her. She saw the hidden evil and darkness in all dragon hearts, as it warred in an endless battle with good and light.
Life. A dance of light and shadow.
Wisty wept, sobbing suddenly as tears came to her eyes with the crippling power of a summer storm. She wept as if there was no future and no past. She wept for her own crimes, for her own troubles and for her own pain, and for the pain shared by all of dragonkind. She wept for all of the lives lost on this terrible day, wept in grief for all those who had passed into the starlit heavens, wept for all of those who had sought healing and had never found it.
And when Wisty looked up again, her face was calm and smooth, her violet eyes filled with nothing but sorrow, nothing but love.
*****
Fastwings hugged the doctor, humming a little song she'd known for as long as she could remmeber. It was her mother's, the song she always sung to Fastwings when she was upset or frightened. She gazed at the SwiftWing and gently wiped the blood off her, now messy. She hugged her close again and startign singing, each word a sligth breath of wind, a tiny whisper.
*****
Wisty looked between Auralyis and Fastwings, her eyes glistening with barely concealed emotion. "I'm sorry," she whispered to the IceWing and the NightWing.
"I was wrong."
The words were almost painful for her to say - not just because her lips were cracked abd bloodied and throat was hoarse from screaming. And yet she knew, deep in her heart, they were true.
She glanced down at the bloodstained bandage hanging in tatters off her wrist. It had come undone, and the barely-closed gash below was clearly visible, crossed with crimson and scarlet, weeping ugly blood.
Healing. All the patients that had come to the ward sought healing. And yet, Wisty thought, the irony was that she, the head doctor, needed healing most of all.
Wisty lowered her head, tears prickling in her eyes. She felt shattered. Broken. She didn't know what to do anymore. She didn't know what to feel. She didn't know what to say.
Once she had been so confident about her destiny. She was going to be the savior of these poor psychotic dragons. She would be the doctor who cured them all. Wisty thought back on her former self with bitterness. How arrogant she had been. How callous and cruel.
And then once again she thought she had found her purpose - to give all of these dragons peace - in death. She would once again be their savior. She would end their pain and sorrow. It had all been so clear, so beautiful, so perfect.
And now she was lost again.
Her own words resonated in her own mind. Life. So delicate and beautiful - so precious - a true and wondrous gift, given out of kindness with nothing asked in return. A flame, a star, a point of light than shone in each and every one of us. A gift to be cherished and protected, loved and nurtured.
And once again tears prickled in her eyes, not tears of sorrow but tears of gladness and joy. She wept, for now she saw the truth, its all its glory and depravity. It was as if a mist had been lifted from her eyes, as if she had been blind for her whole life, but now suddenly could see. She saw the world, and it was bloody and dark and barren. She saw the world, and it was filled with starlight. Its beauty took her breath away.
She saw her own purpose now, and it was clear as day, stretching before in a winding, endless path.
I know now. My purpose is to protect. To heal.
And a blissful smile graced her lips, even as her eyes streamed with warm tears.
This is my destiny.
*****
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