Pyrrhia General Hospital: Psychiatric Ward

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A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: The events of Psych Ward do not share continuity with the outside storylines and personalities of some of the characters (e.g. Faithless, Nightingale, Aria), nor with Kittyluvver's other fanfics such as The Midnight Prophecy and The Nightingale's Song. This story, in essence, takes place in an alternate universe with greater technological capabilities.
EXCERPT FROM THE PATIENT RECORDS OF PYRRHIA GENERAL HOSPITAL:
(Further reading is impossible: the rest of the page is torn and stained with something that looks suspiciously like blood)
==Chapter 1: Hidden==
Days passed. Time did not quite exist in the sterile white ward; each day passed by as identical and repetive as each of the floor white walls in her room. Days were filled with light and blankness, a self-contained, sterile world enduring under the fluorescent halogen lights, sealed and distanced from the reality outside.
In the psychiatric ward, a sterile, artificial world, it was all too easy to forget... as days turned to weeks, weeks to months, months to years... years to lifetimes.
Nightingale had forgotten what the sky looked like. She didn't know the glare of the sun, nor the glow of the moon. Words like "freedom" and "home" meant nothing to her. 
She could not leave, nor could she stay. She was dangerous - she was told so every day. If she escaped the ward, she would do terrible harm to innocent dragons on the outside. She had killed before. She might kill again.
The doctors were trying to help. They were trying to fix her. They were trying to make her better. But every day she felt her patience stretching, her mind slowly breaking. If she stayed, she would either go mad, or die. Whichever came first. 
There was no life for her outside the ward. There was no life for her inside. There was no life for her at all.
The doors of the cell hissed open with a pneumatic whine and a puff of clean, processed air.
Nightingale's eyes snapped around. In a quick, bird-like motion, she stood up and pulled the sheets of her bed higher to conceal a few wrinked sheets of paper half-hidden under the pillow.
It was a new nurse, she saw, standing at the door with a guard at her shoulder. A SeaWing, wearing the nametag "Tuna" on her white coat. Right-handed, by the way she held her pen and clipboard. She must be new, Nightingale had never seen her before. And she was nervous; Nightingale caught the twitch in her eye and the quick, sharp movement in her throat as she gulped. Her wings rustled and fidgeted by her sides.
Nightingale saw all this in the blink of an eye, filing it away in her mind for future reference and use. Quickly she composed her face into a mask of indifference, blank and sterile as the white room. She was determined not to let even a hint of her thoughts and emotions slip out into the world.
No, she did not want her every word and action dissected and puzzled over by the psychologists and therapists. They wondered what was wrong with her. Let them keep wondering.
"Good morning," said the SeaWing nurse, her voice hesistant. "How are you feeling?"
"Fine, thank you," Nightingale responded, keeping her voice carefully modulated and neutral. "I had a wonderful night. The guard outside my cell during the night was reading The Tragedy of Orca, and I managed to scan a few pages over his shoulder. A great novel."
The SeaWing nurse faltered, for a moment lost for words, and Nightingale allowed a genuine smile to break across her face. Perhaps it would be better to befriend this nurse. Good behavior had its benefits.
After all, when the time came, she would need as much help as she could get.
"Hello," she said, turning around and smiling in earnest. "My name's Nightingale, though I think you must already know that. I don't believe we've met before." She approached and held out a forepaw - noting that Tuna seemed to get more and more nervous the closer Nightingale came.
Hesitating, the SeaWing nurse cocked her head and Nightingale saw that she was wearing an earpiece. Bird-brain! She kicked herself mentally, for allowing the gadget to escape her notice. Undoubtedly hidden cameras had caught their entire interaction on film and audio, and now the nurse was receiving instructions from her superiors on how to proceed. Nightingale felt her smile flicker, and instantly redoubled her efforts to maintain a friendly demeanor. 
But after a tense moment the SeaWing stretched out a claw too, and they shook paws. "I'm Tuna," she said, as if the nametag on her jacket wasn't obvious enough. Briefly Nightingale felt a little insulted - hadn't the nurse read in her patient file that Nightingale was not stupid? In fact, she was as near a true genius as Tuna would ever encounter in her life.
But then again, she had been away from ordinary society for too long, trapped in this white, sterile cell. Perhaps it was a social norm to repeat one's name redundantly when introducing oneself.
"I brought your breakfast," Tuna put in, and Nightingale saw that her SeaWing nurse had relaxed a little. Good. She was off her guard. Tuna motioned towards the guard at the door, who disappeared for a brief moment, and then returned wheeling a trolley loaded with several trays of steaming food. At first glance each tray looked to be the same, all cardboard and flimsy paper (they had Periwinkle the mad animus to thank for that, no one dared to give them metal utensils anymore after what she did to the poor therapist).  After all, they had been prepared by the hospital cafeteria staff - quality over quantity, that was their motto.
But more preparation had gone into the dishes than at first met the eye. Nightingale noticed that each tray was different - an array of fruit for the RainWing, some malodorous meat that might be seal blubber for the IceWing, a steak of beef for the MudWing, some raw fish for the SeaWing. Nightingale was vaguely surprised to see that they were giving Periwinkle solid food - shouldn't they feed her on an IV? Weren't they worried that Periwinkle might try to gouge someone's eyes out with a fishbone?
She wouldn't put something like that past the psychotic SeaWing. Yes, Nightingale was afraid of Periwinkle, even if she was unwilling to admit it to herself. Any dragon in his right mind, even the other patients, were be afraid of the mad animus. Nightingale had heard the screaming when Periwinkle attacked the therapist, and seen blood-streaked guards carrying out what was left of him afterwards. They had to make two trips to get it all.
Tuna reached for the meal cart and plucked out the topmost tray - chicken stew. Steam rose tantalizing from the bowl, but the smell was tinny and artificial. It was probably laced with drugs, Nightingale reflected. Still, she had no choice but to eat it. If she didn't take her medicine with her food, they might tie her down and hook her up to an IV, or worse yet, try to force feed it to her.
While Nightingale ate, swallowing the food with disinterest, Tuna fretted uncomfortably and then began to tidy up the room. It was as if the SeaWing nurse always had to have something to do with her paws - she was almost as fidgety as Glaze, the obsessive-compulsive IceWing. Over the rim of the bowl Nightingale watched with growing apprehension as Tuna got closer and closer to the bed, where her stack of crumpled and highly illicit papers lay half-hidden under wrinkled sheets.
She needed to head Tuna off before she got too close.
With a quick, deliberate motion, she opened her claws and let the bowl, still half-full of soup, fall the floor with a crash and clatter of plastic on stone tile. Both Tuna and the guard spun around, startled, as soup went flying everywhere, splattering the floor and Nightingale herself.
"Ah, I'm so sorry!" Nightingale gasped, reaching for a napkin and dabbing at the dripping orange stains on her scarlet scales. "What a mess! How clumsy of me. The bowl just slipped..."
"Oh, it's no problem!" Tuna bustled back over, and much to Nightingale's relief, she left the bed untouched. "We'll have it cleaned up in no time." The nurse grabbed a handful of towels, working industriously so that in a fraction of a minute there was no evidence of the spill left save the dented and empty plastic bowl. "Don't worry, honey," she said, straightening up and wiping her claws. "These things happen." She fixed Nightingale with a warm and sympathetic gaze - Nightingale knew that Tuna did not intend to be condescending, but the childish bedside manner irked her all the same.
All the while the guard by the door, a big burly SandWing male, stood there eying Nightingale's every move with open suspicion. The SkyWing felt her mouth twist ruefully - she might have Tuna fooled, but the guard clearly wasn't buying it. Perhaps he didn't know about Nightingale's secret papers, but he must at least suspect that she was up to something. He had been around for Nightingale's past two escape attempts.
As if she could get more than two steps out of the room. She wasn't chained to the walls or anything so crude, but she might as well have been for all the freedom she had. Nightingale had been fitted with an electric collar that would deliver a knockout shock to her if she tried to leave the confines of her quarters - it could only be deactivated by a guard, nurse, or doctor.
"Dr. Autumn Gold says that you'll be allowed down into the main yard today," Tuna chirped cheerfully, after Nightingale was clean and the empty bowl of soup was back on the cart. "As long as you're good." She gestured towards the guard by the wall again, who disappeared again but was back in a moment, pushing a wheelchair.
"Certainly." Nightingale knew the drill; this wasn't her first trip down to the yard. Her wing clips would stay on, and her arms and legs would be quietly and subtly cuffed to the wheelchair. She would allow herself to be pushed out, without making a fuss. She was not to speak to anyone, especially not anyone from outside the psych ward. She would be watched by a team of guards at all times, armed with tranquilizer rifles. If she made one wrong move, tried to make a run, they would shoot her down faster than anyone could say "Three Moons."
And then she would be stuck in her room for weeks and months without seeing another dragon face, her meals pushed in through a slot in the door, her wrist hooked up to an IV that pumped sedative into her veins. Just like she had been right after her first two escapes.
She pulled the sheets back and stood up from her bed very carefully, anxious to keep the sparse papers on the bed hidden. She grimaced as the paper crinkled slightly but Tuna did not seem to have heard - she was too busy humming. Once she was confident that neither the nurse nor the guard suspected anything, Nightingale allowed herself to be buckled and cinched into the wheelchair. She winced slightly when the unpadded cuffs chafed against her scales. The SandWing guard wasn't being too gentle about it, either. Nightingale felt Tuna behind her, fiddling with the electric collar on her neck - then there was a hiss and a beep as the collar deactivated and came off. Nigthingale sighed with relief, stretching her neck out to both sides to work out the soreness.
"It's a lovely day outside, not a cloud in the sky. All the birds were singing, and the sky was as blue as the sea," Tuna chirruped cheerfully - Nightingale half expected her to break out into song. So far Tuna had failed to impress with her intelligence; one of the more observant and experienced nurses would have instantly noticed and confiscated Nightingale's hidden stash of papers.
The nurse took up a position behind the wheelchair and Nightingale felt the wheels squeak as they started to move. They passed through the door, the guard standing aside to let them through. Nightingale flinched as one wheel of the chair struck the doorframe, jolting her.
"Sorry!" Tuna gasped, backing up and trying again. This time the wheelchair squeezed through the narrow doorway, and Nightingale found herself underneath the harsh fluorescent lights of the hallway.
==Chapter 2: Memory==
Nightingale sat limply, her cuffs and restraints so tight and constricting that they were nearly holding her up, as Tuna wheeled her along. Doors stretched along each side of the hallway, each containing a different psychotic dragon. Each room was equipped with a door and a long window right alongside - rooms with occupants that were mostly stable, like Nightingale, were allowed thin blinds to give some measure of privacy. The blinds were mostly just mental reassurance though, they were so thin that anyone with a mind to could peer right through.
They passed Glaze's room, opposite Nightingale's, and Nightingale caught a glimpse of the IceWing through the window - Glaze had no blinds. Nightingale saw the small IceWing's shape, tinkering about the private space, his paws moving so quickly that they were almost a blur. Glaze's eyes darted frantically around the enclosure, and it seemed like he was muttering to himself. Nightingale had spoken to Glaze on a few occasions, and understanding him was difficult to say the least. He had a staccato cadence, quick and excited and abrupt as cannon shots, with a tendency to leap wildly from idea to idea, conversation to conversation.
Glaze had sudden and frequent panic attacks when he felt that something wasn't right or wasn't clean - his bed had to form an exact 91 degree angle with the wall, his food had to be exactly 40 degrees warm, and he couldn't wear the same hospital gown for more than three hours without trying to claw his own skin off. He also had the rather irksome habit of curling up in a ball and weeping inconsolably whenever something startled or frightened him; a loud noise, an unexpected touch. Glaze had more phobias than you could count on your claws, and most of Nightingale's conversations with him ended in nurses hauling him away, a stuttering, nervous wreck.
The next room over belonged to Faithless, the venom-born SandWing. Faithless, of all the other dragons in the Psycho Ward, was close to the only thing that Nightingale could call a friend. Faithless was likely the sanest amongst them, although her patient sheet read that she suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder and depression. Like Nightingale she lived under a pretense of normalcy and sanity; she spoke to the nurses and doctors and other patients, ate her medicine, did what she was told. But she was venom-born, after all, and dragons of that breed were prone to madness. No one felt safe around her unless she was locked up or sedated.
Faithless wasn't without her own troubled past; Nightingale had seen the jagged scars rippling across her forearms, from her wrists to her elbows. There was no doubt that they were self-inflicted; no one could even touch the venom-born, let alone hurt her so many times.
Why? Nightingale had queried on the only occasion that she had dared to ask, a night several months ago.
Two hundred and three, Faithless had replied.
To any other dragon Nightingale would have pressed the matter, but here in the Psych Ward she knew not to push it any further.
Further down the hallway was Bracken the MudWing's room. Amongst all of them he was probably the only one to be happy in the Psych Ward, though she suspected that he did not have the faculties to complain. He moved slowly and spoke in broken, simple sentences. He didn't understand half the things that were said to him. And yet Nightingale saw in him one of the kindest souls of any dragon she had ever met. 
Nightingale remembered Bracken's pet fly. It was a bluebottle fly, and had somehow ventured into Bracken's grasp on one of the rare occasions during which the patients were allowed down into the yard. Bracken had brought it upstairs and kept it in his room for several days, letting it fly free in his room, feeding it with bits and pieces from his meals.
Inevitably the doctors found out and, thinking the insect was unsanitary, sent some guards in to kill it. That was the only time that Nightingale had ever seen Bracken turn violent. At the time Nightingale was being pushed past in a wheelchair, and had received a fine view of the whole incident as the nurse pushing her had run in to help, forgetting all about her. Nightingale watched helplessly from the hall, firmly cuffed to her seat, as Bracken thrashed and howled wildly until a guard finally managed to nail him with a tranquilizer dart.
By some miracle the fly was still alive after the whole commotion, and after that the doctors simply decided to let it be. Perhaps they decided that the therapeutic effect a pet was having on Bracken outweighed the hygiene concerns. From thenceforth Nightingale saw Bracken playing with the fly, handling it amazingly gently for such a large dragon, a radiant child's smile stretching his brutish features.
Horribly, cruelly, against her better nature, Nightingale wished that the guards had squished the fly the first time. Because it was the fly that had foiled her first escape attempt.
She'd had everything planned out. She'd palmed the sedative pills she was given at dinner to help her sleep. She'd used a twisted prong of a metal fork she'd gotten in the hospital cafeteria to pick the lock on her door. It was a new guard on night duty, the big SandWing, and he had fallen fast asleep. She had made her way into the hall undetected.
And that was when Bracken started crying.
It was inevitable that the fly would die; Nightingale had known it was coming for weeks. In fact, she was surprised that it hadn't happened sooner. Nightingale had looked into the window, startled, and seen Bracken kneeling on the ground, a tiny carcass in his paws, tears streaming down his face.
Nightingale tapped on the window, trying to get him to quiet down before he drew the attention of the guards, but Bracken simply ignored her and cradled the dead fly even closer, sobbing noisily all the while. He was making a real racket, and Nightingale heard nurses and doctor's voices coming up from down the hall to check on the commotion.
Glaze in the room opposite started to shriek; Nightingale saw him rocking back and forth on his bed, paws clamped over his ears. She had looked around desperately; escape was impossible now. She could only get back to her room and hope that no one had noticed her absence. She had hurried back towards her own room - and ran smack into the SandWing guard outside her door, who had before been dozing fitfully but was now wide awake with a tranquilizer gun in his paws.
"Nightingale? Nightingale!"
With an effort Nightingale wrenched herself out of her reverie. It seemed like Tuna had just asked her a question, as the nurse was staring expectantly at her. They were still moving down the corridor at a sedate pace, the wheelchair's wheels squeaking with every turn.
"What?" Nightingale asked, momentarily disoriented.
"I asked," Tuna repeated with an air of infinite patience, "what do you think of the new wallpaper?"
Nightingale couldn't care less. "It's very nice," she answered automatically. "The blue really brings out the highlights in your scales."
Perhaps Tuna caught the sarcasm, because the nurse did not say more. Nightingale resolved to guard her tongue - she was aiming to befriend Tuna, after all, and snide quips were not the way to go about it.
As they wheeled into the elevator, the SandWing guard close on their heels, Nightingale caught a glimpse of the rooms in the other wing of the building, belonging to Luminous the RainWing, Aria the NightWing, and Periwinkle the SeaWing. Ah, well, she thought to herself. There would be time enough to reminisce on the other inmates later.
Nightingale watched as the doors closed around them and, with a shudder, they began to descend. Glaze couldn't even ride the elevator, she thought. The moment the doors closed he turned into a blubbering nervous wreck - she knew. She had heard the screams all the way down the hall.
Nightingale watched out of the corner of her eyes as the floor numbers lit up, one by one, and went dark. The Psychiatric Ward was on the highest floor, the tenth. Nine - resident patient wards, according to a small legend by the floor buttons  Eight - cardiology. Seven - radiology. Six - pediatrics. Five - general. Four - dietary. Three - Operating Rooms. Two - trauma. One - lobby.
Nightingale had rarely been outside of the tenth floor. Once she had been wheeled to the general wing, during the mental patient's monthly physical health checkup. She had never been to pediatrics - as if they would let the likes of her anywhere near dragonets. Occasionally they would let her down the lobby courtyard or the cafeteria, as a reward for good behavior. Like now.
The door dinged open, and Nightingale looked around automatically, expecting them to leave. But it wasn't. It was the sixth floor.
A dragonet on a crutch stepped into the elevator.
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