A Little Warmth (Jeff the Killer x Reader) short story

chapter one

A caretaker led you down a long white corridor. The bright lights cast by lamps hung on the ceiling, and the plain white walls hurt your eyes. Your bare feet made noise against the cold concrete as you followed the caretaker. The narrow corridor is lined with doors on both sides, some are closed, and others are open. Standing outside of them were doctors in their long white buttoned coats, their hands behind their backs as their eyes bore into you. You slumped your shoulders and drew your yellow raincoat tighter around your body. Strands of your soaked hair stuck to the sides of your cheeks and chin, framing your face. Water dripped down from your bangs into your eyes, making your vision blurry.

Walking past closed doors, you could peek into some patients' rooms from the small square window. They were all tied by the hands or placed in a straight jacket, anything that kept them from moving their hands. A shiver ran down your spine as you saw a patient's hands and legs tied tightly to a cushioned chair. About four caretakers held her head and forced an eyelid open as a doctor approached with a syringe, the needle so lengthy that you couldn't bear to watch and tore your eyes away.

The caretaker you were following stopped and opened a door. The metal door screeched open, the rusty metal hinges making a terrible noise that caused you to twitch. You followed the caretaker inside as they closed the door shut behind them. A sense of impending doom rapidly fell upon you, and the room suddenly felt like it was closing on you. The lights inside flickered, casting shadows on the filthy floors and walls. Inside the room was a metal bed pushed against the wall. The sheets were cotton polyester, the typical hospital bedsheets. Other than the bed, the space was completely empty.

The caretaker walked over to the side of the wall where a small red button was installed and pressed on it. In an instant, the door opened, and more caretakers rushed in. They towered over you as one of them held your arms straight out and yanked your raincoat off your head. They stripped off all of your clothes, exposing your bare skin to the room's cold air. You covered your chest with your arms and clamped your legs together. One of the caretakers covered you with a large towel, and you wrapped it around your body as they ushered you out into the hallway again.

They again yanked off the towel once you reached a large room with several drains and showerheads. They poured cold water over your body, and then you were scrubbed with a rough loofa and soap before more water was poured over you. After you dried, you were given undergarments and dressed in plain white pants and an oversized shirt. The sleeves covered your upper arms and stopped at your elbows.

Afterward, you were shoved back into the filthy room and left alone after the caretakers slammed the door shut and locked it.

You stared at the ceiling, your body sprawled out on the floor. You waited for something to happen, for someone to come. But there was nothing you could do. You winced every time you heard a blood-curdling scream echo down the hallway. The sound bounced off the walls and dragged down the hallways. The echoing would still linger long after the sound.

Time ticked slowly. Never in your life had you felt so closed in, so trapped. As night time came and the caretakers made their night routines of checking in on the patients, the cries and screams of the patients quieted, in its place a low and ominous humming as caretakers put them to sleep. Peeking through the square window of your door, you saw that the hall was dark and the lights had been turned off. Somewhere in the psych ward, someone started playing the piano. That or it was a recording. The music notes weren't heavy and sad but somewhat bright and joyful. But they sounded like the music would plunge into more profound, severe notes at any moment.

You had no concept of time, as there were no clocks or windows in the rooms and hallways. You knew when a day started and when night came because of the caretakers. One would enter your room, yank the scratchy bedsheets off, drag you away for a cold shower, and then shove breakfast into your mouth. The food was bland. In the mornings, you swallowed lumps of runny oatmeal; in the evenings, it was cold pasta. If lucky, you would find half an apple in your oatmeal.

The caretakers seemed only to want to do minimal work; they neglected their duties and only performed the tasks requiring minimal effort.

Due to the lack of attention, the patients would wander around the hallways, limping in their soiled clothes if they found their door had been left unlocked. Other patients would stand motionless in the lunchroom or hallways and stare off into space. No doubt this psychiatric ward was strange. You were surprised your parents hadn't looked more into the place. Indeed, its prominence didn't match its aspect.

You had been forgotten about after the span of what you could guess was less than a week. For the most part, you avoided the lunchroom since it was always in chaos, but no caretaker ever came into your room to feed or bathe you anymore. If you wanted to eat, you would have to go to the lunchroom and stand in line for the slim chance of receiving a food tray. If you had managed to receive food, you'd scurry off into a corner where the vile smell of the other patients couldn't reach you.

Painting was a passion of yours. It was not if you were good at it; it brought you ease and joy. The bristles could spread paint on the canvas for hours, and you never tired of it. What you painted, however, weren't pleasant things to gaze upon.

Rather than vivid and bright ranges of colors, dark colors were a dominating part of your paintings. You painted such horrid things with your paintbrushes that your parents were ashamed when family and friends saw your macabre artwork. So perturbed were your parents that it became a reason for them to get rid of you and send you to this mental institute for "correcting," as they had said.

It was difficult to understand why your family treated you and your interests as if it were a taboo subject. After all, isn't art supposed to bring beauty to life's grotesque and raw things?

-

The water in the tub trickled from your cupped hands as you lifted it out and poured it back in. Frigid water swarmed around your body as you arched your back, holding your knees to your chest. Goosebumps broke along your skin as you brought your arms out of the water and reached to scratch the skin on your back. Slowly, your fingertips caressed the raised border of the irritated skin on your back. Fingernails pried at the scabs, picking at the crust. The peeling of the protective layers of the scab made tender pink skin bleed. Blood seeped under your fingernails. It was an obsession, and it slowed your skin healing process. But when your skin started crawling and itching, you knew new scabs had formed over the scars. Fingernails kept tearing at the skin until it was red and inflamed. With cold water, you cleanse the skin.

The scraping sound of metal jolts you. Thinking you've been discovered, you yank a towel off the floor nearby and hold it close to your chest. Your breaths come in quickly as your eyes scrutinize for any movement. Something moves, but you can't make out a silhouette. The room is poorly lit, and the primary source of highlighting source streams through the door's narrow opening.

"Who's there?" Your strong voice directs the question to whoever lurks around the room's dark corners. One heartbeat, two heartbeats, three...

"Mhm, what do we have here?" A silvery voice speaks out as you flinch back, your back hitting against the cold tile.

At first, you assumed it was a caretaker; had it been one, you would have been taken to your room.

A hand lashes out to hold your chin up; its nails dig into your skin as its grip turns tighter, and as a result, a jolt of pain runs through you.

"Hey! What are you-" Confusion courses through you at the unexpected turn of events. You had hoped to bathe peacefully, but an unexpected intruder came along.

The unknown person came closer, and that's when you started making out his features: pale skin, probably the palest person you've ever seen, eyes that had a deranged look, boring into you through strands of uneven black hair.

The corner of his lips turned upwards in a smirk. Bringing his finger to his lips, he signaled for you to keep quiet.

"Shhh, don't want them to catch us, do you?"