visited me since? I started shaking, so I stopped. I was a few feet away from the wire fence separating us, the patients, from the main gate and alley leading to the front entrance. Not that we could have ever escaped through there, but it was the Institute’s way of ensuring that any potential visitors would be protected from the patients.
I’m losing time. Hours upon hours, weeks, maybe months… What day is it? What month? My chest started to hurt. I touched my temple with trembling fingers, anticipating a headache. My anxiety was through the roof. I looked around me, lost and confused. Nurse T was still with her buddies, smoking and laughing. She didn’t have a care in the world. She stayed away from the sun, intent on maintaining the paleness of her skin, which was almost gray. The other patients were walking around, most of them in circles. Wild eyes, dirty, uncombed hair, stains of food on their shirts… They all looked terrible, and I wondered then… Did I look the same? Since I didn’t have a mirror in my room, I had no idea what I looked like these days. I couldn’t remember when I’d last had a shower, though it must have been recent, because when I discreetly raised my arm to sniff myself, I noticed I smelled rather good. My hair felt soft today, which meant Nurse T must have helped me wash it. I hated that I depended on her! I hated that the potions they gave us made us depend on them, made us lose track of time, made us forget.
Well, now I could confirm that the doctors were right. The sun bathing me in its warmth and light did help clear my head. I was asking questions, although I wasn’t doing it out loud. I had to keep my mouth shut, otherwise they’d inject me with God knew what concoction. I wondered what kind of person had to be someone who worked for the Asylum. Were they aware of how much harm they were doing? Of course not. All they knew was their life’s work was to keep the crazy, evil supernaturals who’d gone rogue sedated and confused, so that they wouldn’t be able to use their powers. All the patients in the courtyard who had wings were in a deplorable state. Their wings were shriveled, dried out on their backs, limp and lifeless. They couldn’t fly anymore. The more I stood in the sun, the more I looked around me and took in the patients, the staff, the looming building that was the Karmic Asylum, with its dark, dirty walls and shattered windows up in the tower, the more anxious I became.
What am I doing here? I can’t be here. I have to be… Where did I have to be? At Grim Reaper Academy? Classes must have already started. Judging by the weather and the state of the trees and the landscape, it was probably September. Mid-September, even. Could it be later in the year? I rubbed at my face and eyes. I felt the strong need to just slap myself. Maybe the shock and the sting would force my brain to think faster. I resisted. The last thing I wanted to do was to draw the staff’s attention. I took a deep breath, curled my hands into fists, and forced them at my sides. As I looked up at the cloudy sky, I released it with a loud sigh. No, I didn’t want to be at Grim Reaper Academy. I couldn’t have cared less about the classes, about year two, about graduating eventually and becoming a Reaper. What I wanted to do was dream jump. I needed to see my aunt, I needed to talk to her and ask her what the hell I did wrong. I’d dream traveled to the dimension of the Great Old Ones countless times, but instead of finding the flower of eternal youth, I’d gotten lost each and every time. I needed to understand why. What was I missing?
And at the same time… I needed… something else. Maybe I wasn’t supposed to understand any of it. Maybe it was all bigger than me, and I just had to… I just had to…
What? I have to… what? I pressed my fists to my stomach. It rumbled loudly, but it wasn’t because I was hungry. I felt like there was something inside me, something that traveled between my organs, settling in each for a day or two,