Chapter 5 Old and Streamy

Lucy's POV

As I'm looking across the table at Tendon, we have a sort of silent...talk. He knows what it feels like, and I'm relieved.

I've never know any of the people here to have as many pills as me. But here Tendon is, sitting in front of me with the same amount of pills, maybe a little less.

He knows how it feels to have five different prescriptions added to your list, after the doctors find even more things 'wrong' with you.

I personally think they're just making it up.

Looking down at the little cups, I start imagining ways to get rid of them. Swallowing them is the most obvious thing that pops into my head, but of course that wouldn't work, 'cause that's what you're supposed to do with pills.

Glancing up, I see Tedon scrutinizing his pills too, and I avert my gaze from him and look around at the doctors surrounding the room. All the exits are someway blocked by one of them.

They make it seem like a casual placement, but if you know what to look for, you can see their flickering eyes wandering around the room, the tightness of their lips, the stiffness of their shoulders.

Ready for anything.

Well...almost anything.

Under the table, I tap Tedon's foot with mine and he looks up, a questioning look in his eyes. I make a shoving motion with my hands and at first he doesn't get it, but then he does.

Nodding a little, we countdown silently.

At the same time, we take our hands and shove our pills off of the table. The cups go clattering to the floor, the pills falling out in a flood.

Everyone's attention is immediately drawn to us, and the doctors are starting over.

Probably to tie us down and shove the pills down our throats.

Oh well, like that's going to happen.

I start running, and I hear Tedon follow me. We go up the stairs to my-our- room. The minute we get in, I slam the door shut and it automatically locks.

Collapsing on my bed, I close my eyes and put a hand on my forehead.

A headache is forming...

That's not good.

That's really not good.

"That was awesome." Tedon says, slightly out of breath from the run up the stairs.

"What's wrong." He asks, concerned. I hear him coming closer, but I wave him to a stop, keeping my eyes closed.

I point towards my head and he seems to understand.

"Headache?" He asks.

I nod and listen to the bedsprings as he sits on his bed.

"I'll be quiet." He says, and I almost smile.

The boy is smart, I'll give him that.

At some point in the next hour or two, Tedon gets up and starts pacing. Lifting my head up off of my pillow, I look at him.

He looks... frazzled to say the least.

And his movements are making me dizzy.

Scowling, I pick up my pillow and throw it at him, hitting him square in the face.

"What the fuck?!" He shouts at me and I glare at him. We have a stare down for a few seconds and then his gaze softens and he sighs, dropping down onto his bed.

"Sorry." He says, and runs a hand through his hair.

Rolling my eyes, I fall back onto my bed, and gradually let myself fall asleep. Hopefully the headache will go away... hopefully.

******.........

-flashback-

"Kid, you gotta get off now."

I look up at the man in front of me, he's looking at me like I'm some sort of alien.

Maybe he's considering taking me to a hospital... I wouldn't blame him, because of my appearance. I know my shirt has blood on it, and I know my shoes do too.

Silently, I stand up and slowly step off of the bus, standing on the sidewalk. I have no idea where I am.

"Little girl? Come with me, come on." A woman calls my name and I look towards the voice.

It's one of the people from the bus...

Wordlessly, I walk over to her. She takes my hand and starts pulling me in some direction. As much as I want to pull away from her steely grasp, I can't.

As I try to keep up with her brisk pace, I don't notice where I'm going.

Until we get to the big building. It's a hospital. Immediately, I freeze, unwilling to walk through those doors.

"Well come on!" She tugs me forward and I follow unwillingly. She practically has to drag me through the doors.

The minute we enter the waiting room, a nurse rushes over, asking what happened.

"She just got on the bus in a town, she was alone and covered in blood-" the lady starts telling the nurse what she saw, while I'm examining all of the other people in the room.

A few of them are looking at me with barely restrained shock. I guess it's not every day that they see a young girl covered in blood.

Well that's their problem, not mine.

"Sweetie? I need you to come with me now. It's ok." The nurse takes my hand from the lady and starts walking me somewhere.

"My name's Anne. What's yours?" She asks, and when I don't respond, she sighs.

We stop in front of a blank door, and Anna pushes it open to reveal an office.

The first of many psychologist's offices I'll be in.

And so starts my life of pills, appointments, doctors and hospitals.

I jerk awake, breathing heavily.

-Flashback over-

"What, what is it?" Tedon asks, and I can hear the edge of panic in his voice.

Eyes wide, I look over at him, and he looks back.

I try to take deep breaths, but it's not working. So, I start holding my breath to calm my heart down. And when that doesn't work, I start to panic.

"Shh Lucy, it's ok." Tedon comes close to me, almost touching. "Breathe, come on, it's ok. Nothing's going to happen, I'm here, it's ok." He soothes, and I can see his hand reaching up to touch my shoulder, but he pulls it away at the last second.

He keeps talking to me in his calm voice, and to my surprise, it actually helps. My heart is still racing, but I'm not hyperventilating anymore.

"There. You're better now. Nightmare I suppose?" He sighs, and stands up.

"I'll be downstairs... you're probably hungry."

A few minutes after he leaves, I scoot back until my back is touching the wall, and I pull my knees up to my chest.

How the hell is he going to get food that isn't drugged?

Then a thought hits me.

I don't know how long it takes, but eventually Tedon is back in the room, holding a plastic bag.

"I stole it from the kitchen." He explains as he dumps all of the food out. I look at it all, and see that this could last for a week at least.

"Don't worry, it's not drugged." He says, and I know he's telling the truth. But still, I watch as he eats an apple, and when he doesn't start getting dizzy and falling over, I start eating.

He sets it down on my bed, and then kneels next to it.

I only eat a little, but it makes me feel better. Tendon puts the food back in the bag, and then hides it in the corner where no one can see it if they walk in.

Getting up off my bed, I stretch and the grab some of the clothes that the people gave me. Heading out of the room, I go down the hall to take a shower and just get away from people for a while.

******.............

When I'm done with my shower, I get dressed and walk out into the hall. Instead of going back to my room, I walk the opposite way, down to the other end of the hallway.

I pass the stairs and keep walking.

What the doctors don't know about this hallway up here, is that it isn't just a hallway. It's actually one big...room.

There's a hallway going all around the building, with different rooms. The doctors don't know about it because the lights down here always flicker, and they're afraid to go down there.

I've actually heard a few of them talking about how they've heard ghosts down here, making creepy noises.

Although I'm pretty sure it's only the wind coming through the cracks in the glass.

Another thing about this part of the hallway, is that the windows aren't all there. The glass has been broken during storms and things, and no one's brave enough to come down here and fix it.

So, I come down here to look out the windows, even though there are bars blocking any chance I might have of escaping.

But that doesn't bother me, as long as I'm able to at least seesome of the outside world.

Taking my regular place against the wall across from one of the windows, I sink down to the ground. It's warm outside today, and it's raining.

Pulling the hood of the jacket they gave me over my head, I look down at the tile under my feet.

The only sounds are that of the rain outside, and the wind coming through the windows.

Soon though, I hear footsteps.

Jerking my head up, prepared to run, I wait for whoever it is to show themselves.

Tendon steps out of the slight darkness, and takes a seat next to me quietly.

And just the fact that he doesn't bother to say anything, makes me feel so much better.

After a while, I start to get a little sleepy, so I lean my head back against the wall and close my eyes, fully planning on just going to sleep sitting there.

I don't doze off for long though, because eventually Tedon is whispering something in my ear.

"Come on Lucy, you can't fall asleep out here, you'll get sick. Come on, get up." I can feel his breath on my neck, and I have to stop myself from squirming away.

That's just a little too creepy.

"Don't make me pick you up..." He threatens softly, and my eyes shoot wide open. Biting my lip, I move into a kneeling position, and Tedon stands up. "Come on..." He says, and smiles.

Rolling my eyes, I stand up and start following him back down the hallway towards our cell. As soon as we step in, the door slams shut behind us and I cringe, glaring down at the floor.

Stupid fuckers.

I drop down on my bed face first and then lift myself up on my elbows, so I'm staring at the wall. Suddenly, Tedon's face injects itself into my line of vision and I almost freak out.

"Hahaha calm down Lucy...I'm not gonna eat you or anything...I was just wondering what you were staring at. Y'know, the wall isn't interesting... "

Oh and you are?

I stare at him for a few minutes, until he gives up and moves back to his bed. I flip over and turn on my side, so I'm facing him. Then I start staring at him.

He doesn't notice at first, but when he does it's kind of obvious. He was lying down, with his arms under his head, and when he felt my stare, he just... tensed up.

And after a few more minutes of me staring, he tensed up everywhere if you know what I'm saying...

Smirking slightly, I stare for a few more seconds, then roll over and pull the blanket up over me. I hear him rustling around, and I know that if I turned back around he'd be blushing.

After a few moments, the rustling stops, and I start drifting off. I fall asleep with a smirk on my face.

The next morning, I wake up before him, and I sit on my bed until he wakes up. For some reason they don't open the doors unless both of us are awake at the same time. I don't know how they know when we're both awake, but somehow they do.

Eventually he wakes up, and lies there for a minute.

I pretend not to notice, only going over and waiting by the door. As soon as he sits up, the door opens and I walk out into the hallway and go down the stairs, knowing that he's coming after me.

"Hey! LUCY!" I stop and turn to look at him. With a 'what do you want?' look on my face.

"About last night..." He whispers, and his cheeks get a little red. I smirk and turn back around, going towards the cafeteria.

Just because the staff and I are in a sort of war, doesn't mean that I won't get food from them. Good food that is.

Not that drugged up shit.

He keeps trying to stop me and talk to me but I don't listen, and I go through the cafeteria, to the door to the kitchen. I burst in, surprising a few of the nurses inside, and they glare as I raid one of the refrigerators.

Well they can go fuck themselves. I'm not going hungry.

Tedon grabs some food too, and follows me out of the kitchen and back to the cafeteria. We go to our usual table and sit down. He sits across from me again and I start eating slowly, not even paying attention to him.

"Senna please..." he whispers.

Jeez, what's his deal. So what, I made him...ahem...hard, but that's okay, I'm not mad about it or anything.

"Just let me talk to you." He says and I look up at him and roll my eyes, signaling him to go ahead.

"Okay well... last night, I didn't mean for that to happen. It just...did..." He doesn't look at me while he talks, just stares down at his food.

After a few moments he starts eating and I do too.

Awkward...

When we're done eating, we both go back upstairs, and he stays on the opposite side of the hallway from me, until we get to our cell. Then we have a dilemma.

He's on one side of the door and I'm on the other. He's staring down at his feet, while I'm staring at him.

"Would you please stop staring at me?" He whispers, and I silently sigh, and look towards the door. Eventually he looks up at me and I motion for him to go into the room first.

"No, ladies first." My eyes narrow, but I go in first, and then sit on my bed.

He comes in and sits on his, facing away from me.

I wonder if he's going to be like this forever...

Reaching under my bed, I feel around for the hole in my mattress and pull out one of the small books I stole from one of my psychiatrist's offices. Lying back, I open it to the first page and commence to reading it all over again.

****

"Hey Lucy?" Tedon's voice snaps me out of my reverie and I look over at him. He's looking at me curiously.

"Is it okay if I call you Lucy?" I nod just slightly and he smiles.

"Okay Lucy..."

Everything gets quiet again for a while, until he interrupts it again.

"I think it's time we thought up a way to get out of this place. There's something seriously wrong going on here."

And he leaves it at that.

I know he's right.

But what can two lonely patients do against a whole institution?

A whole damn lot, that's what.