It was just one of those days, when everything and everyone held no meaning, no significance. When voices rose and fell like tidal waves, words meaning nothing, words that fell into darkness. Patients in pale blue robes and sweats, others in varied clothing brought in by family members passing by, some rushing, others dragging feet in shoes with no laces, others in slippers dancing to music only they could hear. Across from him a girl was glaring at her stuffed bear. She tore off its floppy ear with her teeth and spat out fluff. Another kid sitting on the couch with his feet curled into him, he always sat that way no matter if it be a chair, or mat, or in the lunch room when he ate. Maybe he thought the empty space beneath him will give way. Or maybe that's just habit. Everyone has one.
At times the habit can evolve into OCD or addiction. Least that's what he thought what habits become. Nothing was safe, any little thing could just latch into your head, like a hook, and if you let it sink in, it'll pull you up and away. Such was the case with him. He'd allowed his anger and frustrations to get the best of him. Allowed his own craptastic habits to fog his view of what was important. Of course his walnut as the doctors would say, had some psychological issues, just a damned excuse to make him take pills that knocked him out for hours. Maybe that's why he felt so detatched from the walls that surrounded him. From the other kids that were lucid enough to notice, say hi. From the nurses and orderlies that stood looking in through windows, scribbling their observations into papers that would determine his freedom. His "watcher" a woman named Mily with huge eyes and an even huger smile always kept him within ber sight. Like a friggin hawk. She was a shadow that constantly followed him.
The bandages winding his wrists itched like hell, but he ignored them. She'd only rush in asking if he was in pain, then make him take a pain pill. Or call Dr. Shriver to "talk". The thing is, talking didn't help. It never helped at home. It never helped at school. Why would it help now? Standing up, bored with checkers he played alone, he left the room, and right behind him followed his little duckling.
"Dr Shriver please come to Ward C, East Wing." A mechanical voice announced over the PA. Dante glanced back and stared, but Milly shook her head.
"Not for you Reddington, you know Dr Shriver has other patients right?" She used a soothing, calm voice, speaking over her words nice and slow. He wasn't an idiot, he just had some baggage to deal with. Since he didn't speak, she must have thought he was.
Nodding he stuffed his hands into the pockets of his robes, kept walking, old chucks threaded with strips of his shirt barely lifting from the polished, white floor. Down the lengthy corridor, passed rooms with other nurses standing outside looking in. Some doors with no watchers closed, he could glimpse inside the little windows to see other kids doing whatever, but he didn't care to. What for? What they did or didn't do wouldn't surprise him the least. Sure maybe spook him, he'd seen kids go from normal to running into walls 'till their faces bled. Others scream at empty spaces, at beings only they could see and hear. All the more why adults controlled where they migrated, where they slept, when they ate, and if they didn't join a group, something was obviously wrong. They were all in a prison, everydoor had a lock, every nurse and staff had a key.
Maybe he was projecting too much negitivity into his surroundings, things after all could be worse. Much worse.