Ghosts Of The Attic

1. Colorless

1

     When people imagine Hell, they think of lakes filled with blazing infernos or their worst nightmares come to life. But Hell, for me, was white. It was white like snowflakes falling from the clouds, it may look nice and innocent, but, truthfully, it’s as cold as ice.

     My eyes stared through the barricaded window, hands gripping the bars. Freedom, I thought, Just let me be outside once. The usually green plants had been coated with a blanket of snow, suppressing any color. My eyes rested upon the single raven staring back at me from a dead, naked tree. It cawed once before flying off, the branch it was standing on now shaking. I sighed and brushed my fingers against the window before turning to look at my room. My grey blanket had fallen onto the floor from when I rolled off my bed earlier from my sleep, from my horrible memories.

     I could still feel it though. I could still feel the blood soaking into my clothes and the glass slicing my face, the pain it had seemed so real until I had face planted onto the floor. The memories had gotten more and more vivid these past months, haunting me in the dead of night and leaving me cowering in the morning. The doctors had prescribed me some sleeping pills, they didn’t work, but I never told them, they would just diagnose me with something else. Maybe post traumatic stress disorder, I thought wryly. It’s the most logical one.

     “When did I start self diagnosing myself?” I muttered to no one.

     Sighing, I picked up the blanket and began to make my bed, trying to clear my mind. My eyes landed on the calendar and onto today’s date. “December fourth,” I murmured. A little voice in the back of my head began to pester me about it, that today was going to be different, but I managed to shut it out. After cleaning my lifeless room, I pulled out my journal from under the pillow. The pen was lodged into where the next entry should be, but, instead, I flipped through the pages I’ve wrote in. Maddening. Innocence. Guilty. Suicide. The words stared back at me, taunting me. Uncapping the pen, I began to write in furiously.

December 4th

     The dreams are getting more real every night. The shattering glass always wakes me up and I find myself sobbing. Dr. Crowell says the dreams are my mind’s way of making sense of what happened that day; that my subconscious is trying to get me to face the facts. But that’s absurd, my mind knows what happened that day, there are no facts to face. But I suppose Dr. Crowell doesn’t really know what’s it’s like living here with all the loonies when he can just drive back home to his family. He may go and live while I, on the other hand, must stay here and wither away.

     A sharp knock made me flinch and drop the pen. My door opened, a familiar face peeking in. Andrew–my nurse–entered my room and closed the door behind him with a sharp click. His brown eyes glanced at the journal before returning to my face. Leaning on the door, he took a deep breath before releasing it; his hands were clasped together behind his back.

     “Lucas,” he breathed. “You’re going home.”

     “Home?” I echoed. “What do you mean?”

  “Your parents want you back home,” he explained. “They’re downstairs right now.”

     I stared at him, hands twitching at my sides. My parents are here, I repeated in my mind. They’re just one floor below me. The corners of my lips began to twitch, but, instead of a smile, I frowned. Andrew cocked an eyebrow, studying the grimace on my pale face.

     “Something wrong?” he questioned.

    “Why?” I murmured. “They could have had me back home months before. Why now?”