The Raven's Conjuring: Dreams of Desolation, page 23
part #1 of The Raven's Conjuring Series
“Can you believe we’re halfway through our first year in college?” Chelsea asked.
“Yeah, I can. It’s been the longest four months of my life,” Morgan said.
Morgan looked up as she felt a splash of water land on her forehead, followed by another, as sludge-like rain began descending on the gray city. As Morgan and Chelsea headed back inside and packed up their notes and books, Morgan requested a ride back to campus.
“You sure you can’t stay here tonight?” Victor pleaded.
“Not tonight. I have to get up early and go to Gray Hill for the drug test. We have two weeks left. It’s crunch time.”
“You’re right,” he admitted.
He hated the thought of sleeping alone since he’d become accustomed to falling asleep in Morgan’s arms. Waking up next to her was heaven in his eyes. He enjoyed cooking for her, and providing made him feel fulfilled as her partner.
When Morgan and Chelsea arrived back at Kirkland Hall, the lobby was empty, but when they reached their floor, it felt like déjà vu of the first day. A cluster of girls gathered around Rene at the end of the hallway, the girl whose brother disappeared on orientation weekend. Curious to know more, Morgan stopped another student as she made her way out of her room and approached the elevator.
“What happened? Did they find her brother?” Morgan asked.
“Yeah, some farmer lady did,” the girl responded.
“That’s great,” Chelsea said.
“No, it’s not. She found his corpse in a field,” the girl said and continued into the elevator.
“Oh, my god,” Chelsea said as she approached Rene.
They had spoken about her brother’s disappearance before and wanted to share her condolences. On the other hand, Morgan headed into her room, sickened by the thought of a dead child. She didn’t know Rene and didn’t want to talk about dead family members—but, like when she first found out about the missing kid, Morgan used her phone to search for more information online.
“Body of Tim McIntyre Found.” she clicked on the first news clip she saw, detailing the horrible eye-witness account from the woman who stumbled upon the corpse.
“Tim McIntyre was missing for over three months. Earlier today, however, reports of a child’s body being found in a field near the city limits surfaced. When authorities arrived, they discovered that it was indeed the body of the six-year-old missing child. A farmer by the name of Sylvia Collins had the terrifying experience of finding the child’s corpse. We caught up with her earlier in the day, and this is what she had to say,” the news correspondent said as the video cut to Sylvia’s account of the events.
“I always run in the mornings after tending to the animals. After I feed the chickens and the pigs and let the horses out of the stable. But this morning felt different. It was quieter than usual. I’m used to hearing the birds early on in the day, but I spotted a flock of them hovering around the field as I was running. Usually, I would have thought nothing of it, but there were so many of them—more than I’ve ever seen, all crowded together. I saw them swoop down and start to eat something on the ground. I thought for sure, one of my sheep had gotten out and died, so I picked up a few rocks and started throwing them to scare them off, but as they flew away, I could see that it wasn’t an animal they were picking at. There were bloody limbs and remnants of hair—it was terrible. His skin had been plucked and torn, so I took off my sweatshirt and covered him up the best I could. I instantly called the cops and stuck around until the authorities came,” Sylvia said as the video cut back to the reporter.
“The corpse was identified by the child’s father, who refused to comment. A medical examiner later revealed the cause of death was by mauling, as the child’s flesh and bones had bite marks consistent with those from gray wolves and ravens. Both, prevalent species of Whispering Pines.”
The clip continued, but Morgan refused to watch any longer. Thinking about the child’s body torn up by the birds and wolves made Morgan nauseous. She closed her eyes and sat down, but she couldn’t control it, and as she knelt on the carpeted floor, she reached for the garbage can and began to hurl. All she could think about was the vision she had in the jail cell. She thought about the last boy to go missing, Billy—the raven, the keys, and the ravenous wolves that chased her in her vision. She could have thought about this coincidence all night and driven herself into a state of stress and anxiety, but she did the opposite. After she brushed her teeth, she took her prescription medication, three drops of the vial Mr. Fengári gave her, and went to sleep.
The following morning, Morgan woke up thirty minutes late. She had no time to shower, so she simply threw on her Brixton sweatshirt, put her hair in a ponytail once more, and got a ride to Gray Hill. Morgan never did drugs, so she wasn’t worried about the drug screening. However, being the first time to visit a mental hospital, she felt apprehensive about the whole thing. The asylum was a massive building situated in a field of pine trees, fenced off by a tall cement wall. An enormous gate welcomed her, reminding her of the gate on the road where she and her dad witnessed the wolf become brunch for the ravens. As she got out of the car and stepped in front of the main entrance, she looked up at the six-story building. Indisputably, it wasn’t meant to be welcoming, but if the asylum was a person, it would be a tyrant of the worst kind. Staring up at its darkened windows, reinforced with steel bars, Morgan felt lucky to only be a visitor. The main doors were made of heavy-duty steel, and the entrance featured multiple check-in points, which made the hospital appear to be more of a prison.
“Can I help you?” the receptionist asked as Morgan stepped inside the cold hallway.
“My name is Morgan Stark. I’m a student at Brixton, here for a drug screening,” she said.
“Joseph, we have another one of Carrigan’s students,” the receptionist said as she buzzed the door open for Morgan to walk into the waiting room. “Go ahead and wait in there. Someone will be with you shortly.”
The waiting room was less welcoming than the exterior of the building. The vinyl seats were peeled back, and exposed foam lunged out like the guts of a belly cut open with a scalpel. There were no decorations except for a portrait hung on the wall. A black and white picture of the building, and two people, standing at the main entrance. The description on a plaque beneath the photo read,
-Inception: November 11, 1911
Dr. Harlow Gray and Dr. Winifred Hill
Neither of the doctors in the picture was smiling, and their poise and appearance were not welcoming.
“Morgan Stark?” an orderly said as he stepped out of the office, clothed in white.
“Yes.” Morgan stood up.
“I’m Joseph, follow me,” he said.
He was older, stern, commandeering. He walked with purpose, and Morgan struggled to keep up with his fast-paced march down the long white corridor.
“In here,” he said, opening up the door to a small bathroom. “Do you have the application for the assessment?” he got to the point.
“Of course,” Morgan said as she dug into her backpack and dug out a three-page document.
“Great. This will be simple. Pee in the cup, leave it on the counter. I’m sure you’ve taken other drug tests,” he said as he walked away to give her some privacy.
Morgan didn’t know what he meant by his previous remark. She had never done drugs or taken a drug test before, but she quickly found out that peeing in a cup was more challenging than she expected. After washing her hands, Morgan stared in the mirror as her stomach began rumbling. Had she woken up in time, she would have been able to eat some breakfast, but the combination of medicine she took the night before kept her asleep longer than needed.
“I’m done,” she said, stepping out of the bathroom.
Joseph put on a fresh pair of blue disposable gloves and continued to collect the urine sample.
“Wait here, I’ll take this into the lab, and we can brief you on the patient assigned to you,” Joseph said, hurrying down the hallway.
Morgan felt overwhelmed about meeting the subject which she would be evaluating. She thought today’s visit was only for the drug test, but she closed her eyes and told herself to stay calm as doubt started to take over her, thinking she should have just taken the written exam. Of course, whatever diagnosis she came to wouldn’t affect the patient, but if she got the evaluation wrong, her final grade would plummet.
“Morgan?” a tall blonde woman in a lab coat said.
“Yes,” Morgan shook the woman’s hand.
“I’m Dr. Lansing,” she said, extending out her right hand.
“Pleasure.”
When Dr. Lansing began strutting down the corridor, the clack of her black heels echoed in the halls as Morgan followed.
“As one of Dr. Carrigan’s students, the law requires us to introduce you to the subject before you agree to participate in the experiment, but you’re able to walk away at any time. The results of your drug test won’t take long to process. They should be ready by the time you’re done introducing yourself. I know you probably weren’t expecting to meet your subject today but, this is part of Carrigan’s requirements. To assess how well her students can handle pressure and how fast they can think on their feet, preparedness skills, etc. You’re the first student to do an evaluation in quite a while. Dr. Carrigan always pushes her students to get real-world experience, but most don’t want to do the legwork. I assume you brought the necessary equipment for an observation?” Dr. Lansing walked faster than Joseph.
“All I have are a notepad and a tape recorder.”
“Perfect.”
“About the subject…” Morgan uttered.
“The subject is part of a controlled experiment. For female students, we use a female subject. For male students, we use a pig.”
“Seriously?”
“No, that was my attempt at a joke, but we should. For male students, we use a male subject. We used to assign the same female subject to everyone until a few years ago when we caught a male student trying to take advantage of the patient. She’s unable to speak, so he seemed to think it was ok to touch her inappropriately. That’s when we made the decision to only allow female students to study her.”
“Are the visitations not monitored?”
“We try our best to be everywhere we need to be. However, we suffer from underfunding and state budget cuts, so there is a lack of essential personnel. We’ve been staying afloat through private donations.”
“What else can you tell me about her?” Morgan asked.
“I’m not allowed to advise you or lead you in any manner. You will be given a file created by your professor, detailing certain characteristics and a previous evaluation,” Dr. Lansing said, approaching the door to the stairwell, which she unlocked by waving her employee ID card in front of a contactless reader. “The elevator takes forever.” She explained.
Morgan followed up the stairwell, struggling to keep up with the doctor—everyone here seemed to be in such a hurry. Whether it was a matter of time or money, it made Morgan feel more stressed out. They climbed up two flights, where Dr. Lansing used her keycard again to gain admittance to the floor.
The third floor consisted of a recreational room where patients put together jigsaw puzzles, played spades, or watched old movies on an antiquated television that hung high on the wall. A Christmas Story played on the screen while three patients sat around watching—one of them reciting all the lines engraved in her mind. A ping pong table and even an arts and crafts section in the west corner of the room, reminding Morgan of her kindergarten classroom. The room’s childlike atmosphere was a stark contrast to the smell of cigarettes, which, even after decades of being banned, lingered in the stained walls and ceiling. In another corner of the room, an average-sized Christmas tree stood, decorated with ornaments made by the patients, but there were no string lights for the safety of everyone on the premises.
“Are any of the patients here violent?” Morgan worried.
“No, they’re harmless. The violent ones remain in medical restraints or straitjackets and remain isolated on the fifth floor.” Dr. Lansing said as she led Morgan towards a patient in a wheelchair facing the window overlooking a courtyard.
“This is the subject you’ll be evaluating. Feel free to observe and introduce yourself. I’ll just be a minute grabbing her file,” Dr. Lansing said as she hurried off down a hallway into an adjacent office.
Morgan hesitated to approach the woman in the wheelchair. Her neck tensed up as she cracked her knuckles, and once more, she almost forgot to breathe. This was the first time she would come face-to-face with someone with a severe behavioral health issue. Something within her felt forced, almost wrong, but her anxiety was now a familiar feeling. Morgan looked around for a garbage can as she felt the same nauseous feeling she had when reading about the McIntyre boy being eaten by ravens and wolves, but instead of hurling once again, she closed her eyes, clutched her locket, and took a few deep, calming breaths.
“Don’t worry, she doesn’t bite—can’t even spit. Bitch hasn’t moved in years,” a harsh voice came from behind.
Morgan turned around to find an older woman holding her twisted hands close to her chest, clutching a rosary between her curled fingers. Scars covered the woman’s neck and chest, exposed by the baggy robe she wore. Morgan looked into her eyes and stared at the disfigurement for a second too long.
“I’m not worried about her. I didn’t have anything to eat this morning. I just got a bit dizzy. My name’s Morgan.”
“I’m Jacquelyn. You’re here to study her?” the woman asked, having obviously seen dozens of students with the same hesitant look displayed across their faces.
“Yes, I am. It’s part of my final assignment.”
“Good luck. Like I said, she hasn’t moved or said a word in years.”
“Was she always like this?” Morgan asked, trying to get information from someone other than Dr. Lansing.
“Not at all. She was a feisty one when she was thrown in here. She wouldn’t shut the fuck up about how she wasn’t sick. She always said she wasn’t crazy like the rest of us, and I believed it. She didn’t seem like one of us. But like the rest of us, the doctors here were convinced of the opposite. They started drugging her and performing what they called secluded conducive therapy. This empty shell of a human you see now is all that remains from the beautiful young girl left here years ago. All the orderlies had a thing for her.”
“So, how did she get to be like this?”
“She refused to talk. Refused to admit her ‘problem’. Until one day, around three in the morning, her mind finally succumbed to the demons within. I only remember it because it was the night the storm hit. For three hours, the rain hammered at the windows and flooded the first floor. Once the rain stopped, that’s when it began. She started screeching, sounded like a dying cat, and then came screaming—random blurbs, mostly. She would scream, ‘Stop. Enough. Die!’ It lasted all fucking night long. The entire floor could hear her, and none of the orderlies did anything to help. They were so used to patients screaming, they just ignored it. After an hour of her screaming, then came the pounding. It wasn’t loud. It was more like a distant sound, which I thought was someone just clanking a bedpan. When morning came, they found her in the corner of the room, silently staring out the window. She had patches of her hair ripped out, still curled up in her hands. Dried blood on the glass, trickling down to the floor. She pounded her head into the window for God knows how long… I felt sad for her, but it was beautiful to watch them strap her to a stretcher and take her up to the fifth floor. Like I said, she used to be somewhat normal, but she’s been like this ever since that night. A quiet little vegetable, who just stares out the window,” Jacquelyn snickered as she walked away.
The patient’s confession about the wheelchair-bound woman made Morgan feel guilty about studying her as an assignment, but she couldn’t tell if there was any truth to the story. The woman’s head slouched over her left shoulder, and the only feature Morgan could make out past the woman’s long blonde hair was her right eye—ocean colored but devoid of any sign of life.
It peered out through thick strands of hair like a curious child peeking through a curtain—watching something she shouldn’t. Her gaze fixed on the nonexistent future ahead of her, focused on the outdoors, hoping something or someone would come to save her. Morgan kept her distance as she knelt down to greet the patient and noticed that the once white robe she wore was wet with drool and crusted from days of neglect.
“Good morning,” she said, but the subject did not respond. “My name is Morgan Stark,” she continued, and there was a slight twitch from the woman’s eyelid. “I’m only here to observe and perhaps help you in some way. I’m not here to hurt you.”
There was no response, and Morgan wondered at that moment why this patient had been assigned to her? How could she write an evaluation on a patient, that couldn’t communicate anything? Perhaps that was the challenge in the assignment, she thought. How could she help a person worse off than she was?
“Told you, she’s a mute,” Jacquelyn said as she walked behind the wheelchair and smacked the woman in the back of the head.
“Hey,” Morgan screamed, defending the patient.
“Jacquelyn, that’s enough. You’re going to the quiet room.” Dr. Lansing said, stomping towards her and Morgan.
“Good, I like the quiet room. That’s where I talk to the devil,” Jacquelyn cackled as an orderly on duty stepped forward, grabbed her arm, and ushered her out of the room.
“Never mind her. She’s one of our more complicated patients,” Dr. Lansing said, handing Morgan her patient’s file.
“How did she get those scars?” Morgan asked as she watched Jacquelyn be dragged away.
“Don’t concern yourself with that. Just focus on your assignment. According to your professor’s instructions, you may spend up to an hour with the patient. Unfortunately, she doesn’t do much other than stare out the window and drool but feel free to travel with her around the room or just pull up a chair and observe. If you need anything, my office is just past the double doors,” Dr. Lansing said, pointing down the hallway.
“Yeah, I can. It’s been the longest four months of my life,” Morgan said.
Morgan looked up as she felt a splash of water land on her forehead, followed by another, as sludge-like rain began descending on the gray city. As Morgan and Chelsea headed back inside and packed up their notes and books, Morgan requested a ride back to campus.
“You sure you can’t stay here tonight?” Victor pleaded.
“Not tonight. I have to get up early and go to Gray Hill for the drug test. We have two weeks left. It’s crunch time.”
“You’re right,” he admitted.
He hated the thought of sleeping alone since he’d become accustomed to falling asleep in Morgan’s arms. Waking up next to her was heaven in his eyes. He enjoyed cooking for her, and providing made him feel fulfilled as her partner.
When Morgan and Chelsea arrived back at Kirkland Hall, the lobby was empty, but when they reached their floor, it felt like déjà vu of the first day. A cluster of girls gathered around Rene at the end of the hallway, the girl whose brother disappeared on orientation weekend. Curious to know more, Morgan stopped another student as she made her way out of her room and approached the elevator.
“What happened? Did they find her brother?” Morgan asked.
“Yeah, some farmer lady did,” the girl responded.
“That’s great,” Chelsea said.
“No, it’s not. She found his corpse in a field,” the girl said and continued into the elevator.
“Oh, my god,” Chelsea said as she approached Rene.
They had spoken about her brother’s disappearance before and wanted to share her condolences. On the other hand, Morgan headed into her room, sickened by the thought of a dead child. She didn’t know Rene and didn’t want to talk about dead family members—but, like when she first found out about the missing kid, Morgan used her phone to search for more information online.
“Body of Tim McIntyre Found.” she clicked on the first news clip she saw, detailing the horrible eye-witness account from the woman who stumbled upon the corpse.
“Tim McIntyre was missing for over three months. Earlier today, however, reports of a child’s body being found in a field near the city limits surfaced. When authorities arrived, they discovered that it was indeed the body of the six-year-old missing child. A farmer by the name of Sylvia Collins had the terrifying experience of finding the child’s corpse. We caught up with her earlier in the day, and this is what she had to say,” the news correspondent said as the video cut to Sylvia’s account of the events.
“I always run in the mornings after tending to the animals. After I feed the chickens and the pigs and let the horses out of the stable. But this morning felt different. It was quieter than usual. I’m used to hearing the birds early on in the day, but I spotted a flock of them hovering around the field as I was running. Usually, I would have thought nothing of it, but there were so many of them—more than I’ve ever seen, all crowded together. I saw them swoop down and start to eat something on the ground. I thought for sure, one of my sheep had gotten out and died, so I picked up a few rocks and started throwing them to scare them off, but as they flew away, I could see that it wasn’t an animal they were picking at. There were bloody limbs and remnants of hair—it was terrible. His skin had been plucked and torn, so I took off my sweatshirt and covered him up the best I could. I instantly called the cops and stuck around until the authorities came,” Sylvia said as the video cut back to the reporter.
“The corpse was identified by the child’s father, who refused to comment. A medical examiner later revealed the cause of death was by mauling, as the child’s flesh and bones had bite marks consistent with those from gray wolves and ravens. Both, prevalent species of Whispering Pines.”
The clip continued, but Morgan refused to watch any longer. Thinking about the child’s body torn up by the birds and wolves made Morgan nauseous. She closed her eyes and sat down, but she couldn’t control it, and as she knelt on the carpeted floor, she reached for the garbage can and began to hurl. All she could think about was the vision she had in the jail cell. She thought about the last boy to go missing, Billy—the raven, the keys, and the ravenous wolves that chased her in her vision. She could have thought about this coincidence all night and driven herself into a state of stress and anxiety, but she did the opposite. After she brushed her teeth, she took her prescription medication, three drops of the vial Mr. Fengári gave her, and went to sleep.
The following morning, Morgan woke up thirty minutes late. She had no time to shower, so she simply threw on her Brixton sweatshirt, put her hair in a ponytail once more, and got a ride to Gray Hill. Morgan never did drugs, so she wasn’t worried about the drug screening. However, being the first time to visit a mental hospital, she felt apprehensive about the whole thing. The asylum was a massive building situated in a field of pine trees, fenced off by a tall cement wall. An enormous gate welcomed her, reminding her of the gate on the road where she and her dad witnessed the wolf become brunch for the ravens. As she got out of the car and stepped in front of the main entrance, she looked up at the six-story building. Indisputably, it wasn’t meant to be welcoming, but if the asylum was a person, it would be a tyrant of the worst kind. Staring up at its darkened windows, reinforced with steel bars, Morgan felt lucky to only be a visitor. The main doors were made of heavy-duty steel, and the entrance featured multiple check-in points, which made the hospital appear to be more of a prison.
“Can I help you?” the receptionist asked as Morgan stepped inside the cold hallway.
“My name is Morgan Stark. I’m a student at Brixton, here for a drug screening,” she said.
“Joseph, we have another one of Carrigan’s students,” the receptionist said as she buzzed the door open for Morgan to walk into the waiting room. “Go ahead and wait in there. Someone will be with you shortly.”
The waiting room was less welcoming than the exterior of the building. The vinyl seats were peeled back, and exposed foam lunged out like the guts of a belly cut open with a scalpel. There were no decorations except for a portrait hung on the wall. A black and white picture of the building, and two people, standing at the main entrance. The description on a plaque beneath the photo read,
-Inception: November 11, 1911
Dr. Harlow Gray and Dr. Winifred Hill
Neither of the doctors in the picture was smiling, and their poise and appearance were not welcoming.
“Morgan Stark?” an orderly said as he stepped out of the office, clothed in white.
“Yes.” Morgan stood up.
“I’m Joseph, follow me,” he said.
He was older, stern, commandeering. He walked with purpose, and Morgan struggled to keep up with his fast-paced march down the long white corridor.
“In here,” he said, opening up the door to a small bathroom. “Do you have the application for the assessment?” he got to the point.
“Of course,” Morgan said as she dug into her backpack and dug out a three-page document.
“Great. This will be simple. Pee in the cup, leave it on the counter. I’m sure you’ve taken other drug tests,” he said as he walked away to give her some privacy.
Morgan didn’t know what he meant by his previous remark. She had never done drugs or taken a drug test before, but she quickly found out that peeing in a cup was more challenging than she expected. After washing her hands, Morgan stared in the mirror as her stomach began rumbling. Had she woken up in time, she would have been able to eat some breakfast, but the combination of medicine she took the night before kept her asleep longer than needed.
“I’m done,” she said, stepping out of the bathroom.
Joseph put on a fresh pair of blue disposable gloves and continued to collect the urine sample.
“Wait here, I’ll take this into the lab, and we can brief you on the patient assigned to you,” Joseph said, hurrying down the hallway.
Morgan felt overwhelmed about meeting the subject which she would be evaluating. She thought today’s visit was only for the drug test, but she closed her eyes and told herself to stay calm as doubt started to take over her, thinking she should have just taken the written exam. Of course, whatever diagnosis she came to wouldn’t affect the patient, but if she got the evaluation wrong, her final grade would plummet.
“Morgan?” a tall blonde woman in a lab coat said.
“Yes,” Morgan shook the woman’s hand.
“I’m Dr. Lansing,” she said, extending out her right hand.
“Pleasure.”
When Dr. Lansing began strutting down the corridor, the clack of her black heels echoed in the halls as Morgan followed.
“As one of Dr. Carrigan’s students, the law requires us to introduce you to the subject before you agree to participate in the experiment, but you’re able to walk away at any time. The results of your drug test won’t take long to process. They should be ready by the time you’re done introducing yourself. I know you probably weren’t expecting to meet your subject today but, this is part of Carrigan’s requirements. To assess how well her students can handle pressure and how fast they can think on their feet, preparedness skills, etc. You’re the first student to do an evaluation in quite a while. Dr. Carrigan always pushes her students to get real-world experience, but most don’t want to do the legwork. I assume you brought the necessary equipment for an observation?” Dr. Lansing walked faster than Joseph.
“All I have are a notepad and a tape recorder.”
“Perfect.”
“About the subject…” Morgan uttered.
“The subject is part of a controlled experiment. For female students, we use a female subject. For male students, we use a pig.”
“Seriously?”
“No, that was my attempt at a joke, but we should. For male students, we use a male subject. We used to assign the same female subject to everyone until a few years ago when we caught a male student trying to take advantage of the patient. She’s unable to speak, so he seemed to think it was ok to touch her inappropriately. That’s when we made the decision to only allow female students to study her.”
“Are the visitations not monitored?”
“We try our best to be everywhere we need to be. However, we suffer from underfunding and state budget cuts, so there is a lack of essential personnel. We’ve been staying afloat through private donations.”
“What else can you tell me about her?” Morgan asked.
“I’m not allowed to advise you or lead you in any manner. You will be given a file created by your professor, detailing certain characteristics and a previous evaluation,” Dr. Lansing said, approaching the door to the stairwell, which she unlocked by waving her employee ID card in front of a contactless reader. “The elevator takes forever.” She explained.
Morgan followed up the stairwell, struggling to keep up with the doctor—everyone here seemed to be in such a hurry. Whether it was a matter of time or money, it made Morgan feel more stressed out. They climbed up two flights, where Dr. Lansing used her keycard again to gain admittance to the floor.
The third floor consisted of a recreational room where patients put together jigsaw puzzles, played spades, or watched old movies on an antiquated television that hung high on the wall. A Christmas Story played on the screen while three patients sat around watching—one of them reciting all the lines engraved in her mind. A ping pong table and even an arts and crafts section in the west corner of the room, reminding Morgan of her kindergarten classroom. The room’s childlike atmosphere was a stark contrast to the smell of cigarettes, which, even after decades of being banned, lingered in the stained walls and ceiling. In another corner of the room, an average-sized Christmas tree stood, decorated with ornaments made by the patients, but there were no string lights for the safety of everyone on the premises.
“Are any of the patients here violent?” Morgan worried.
“No, they’re harmless. The violent ones remain in medical restraints or straitjackets and remain isolated on the fifth floor.” Dr. Lansing said as she led Morgan towards a patient in a wheelchair facing the window overlooking a courtyard.
“This is the subject you’ll be evaluating. Feel free to observe and introduce yourself. I’ll just be a minute grabbing her file,” Dr. Lansing said as she hurried off down a hallway into an adjacent office.
Morgan hesitated to approach the woman in the wheelchair. Her neck tensed up as she cracked her knuckles, and once more, she almost forgot to breathe. This was the first time she would come face-to-face with someone with a severe behavioral health issue. Something within her felt forced, almost wrong, but her anxiety was now a familiar feeling. Morgan looked around for a garbage can as she felt the same nauseous feeling she had when reading about the McIntyre boy being eaten by ravens and wolves, but instead of hurling once again, she closed her eyes, clutched her locket, and took a few deep, calming breaths.
“Don’t worry, she doesn’t bite—can’t even spit. Bitch hasn’t moved in years,” a harsh voice came from behind.
Morgan turned around to find an older woman holding her twisted hands close to her chest, clutching a rosary between her curled fingers. Scars covered the woman’s neck and chest, exposed by the baggy robe she wore. Morgan looked into her eyes and stared at the disfigurement for a second too long.
“I’m not worried about her. I didn’t have anything to eat this morning. I just got a bit dizzy. My name’s Morgan.”
“I’m Jacquelyn. You’re here to study her?” the woman asked, having obviously seen dozens of students with the same hesitant look displayed across their faces.
“Yes, I am. It’s part of my final assignment.”
“Good luck. Like I said, she hasn’t moved or said a word in years.”
“Was she always like this?” Morgan asked, trying to get information from someone other than Dr. Lansing.
“Not at all. She was a feisty one when she was thrown in here. She wouldn’t shut the fuck up about how she wasn’t sick. She always said she wasn’t crazy like the rest of us, and I believed it. She didn’t seem like one of us. But like the rest of us, the doctors here were convinced of the opposite. They started drugging her and performing what they called secluded conducive therapy. This empty shell of a human you see now is all that remains from the beautiful young girl left here years ago. All the orderlies had a thing for her.”
“So, how did she get to be like this?”
“She refused to talk. Refused to admit her ‘problem’. Until one day, around three in the morning, her mind finally succumbed to the demons within. I only remember it because it was the night the storm hit. For three hours, the rain hammered at the windows and flooded the first floor. Once the rain stopped, that’s when it began. She started screeching, sounded like a dying cat, and then came screaming—random blurbs, mostly. She would scream, ‘Stop. Enough. Die!’ It lasted all fucking night long. The entire floor could hear her, and none of the orderlies did anything to help. They were so used to patients screaming, they just ignored it. After an hour of her screaming, then came the pounding. It wasn’t loud. It was more like a distant sound, which I thought was someone just clanking a bedpan. When morning came, they found her in the corner of the room, silently staring out the window. She had patches of her hair ripped out, still curled up in her hands. Dried blood on the glass, trickling down to the floor. She pounded her head into the window for God knows how long… I felt sad for her, but it was beautiful to watch them strap her to a stretcher and take her up to the fifth floor. Like I said, she used to be somewhat normal, but she’s been like this ever since that night. A quiet little vegetable, who just stares out the window,” Jacquelyn snickered as she walked away.
The patient’s confession about the wheelchair-bound woman made Morgan feel guilty about studying her as an assignment, but she couldn’t tell if there was any truth to the story. The woman’s head slouched over her left shoulder, and the only feature Morgan could make out past the woman’s long blonde hair was her right eye—ocean colored but devoid of any sign of life.
It peered out through thick strands of hair like a curious child peeking through a curtain—watching something she shouldn’t. Her gaze fixed on the nonexistent future ahead of her, focused on the outdoors, hoping something or someone would come to save her. Morgan kept her distance as she knelt down to greet the patient and noticed that the once white robe she wore was wet with drool and crusted from days of neglect.
“Good morning,” she said, but the subject did not respond. “My name is Morgan Stark,” she continued, and there was a slight twitch from the woman’s eyelid. “I’m only here to observe and perhaps help you in some way. I’m not here to hurt you.”
There was no response, and Morgan wondered at that moment why this patient had been assigned to her? How could she write an evaluation on a patient, that couldn’t communicate anything? Perhaps that was the challenge in the assignment, she thought. How could she help a person worse off than she was?
“Told you, she’s a mute,” Jacquelyn said as she walked behind the wheelchair and smacked the woman in the back of the head.
“Hey,” Morgan screamed, defending the patient.
“Jacquelyn, that’s enough. You’re going to the quiet room.” Dr. Lansing said, stomping towards her and Morgan.
“Good, I like the quiet room. That’s where I talk to the devil,” Jacquelyn cackled as an orderly on duty stepped forward, grabbed her arm, and ushered her out of the room.
“Never mind her. She’s one of our more complicated patients,” Dr. Lansing said, handing Morgan her patient’s file.
“How did she get those scars?” Morgan asked as she watched Jacquelyn be dragged away.
“Don’t concern yourself with that. Just focus on your assignment. According to your professor’s instructions, you may spend up to an hour with the patient. Unfortunately, she doesn’t do much other than stare out the window and drool but feel free to travel with her around the room or just pull up a chair and observe. If you need anything, my office is just past the double doors,” Dr. Lansing said, pointing down the hallway.
