Crazed Minds | ✔️

six

"Will you be here suffering?"
-Suffering, War on Drugs
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I wake up to sunlight streaming through my window, illuminating the white sheets of my bed with yellow light and the dust fragments falling to the floor. It's a pleasant morning, all the nice colours and nice feelings that are flooding through me.

But then my eyes fall onto my clothes beneath the sheets. I'm fully dressed. Huh. That's strange. I'm certain I changed into my pyjamas last night. And then I see the door. It has a slight gap, exposing my room to the corridor outside. Which is also fairly bizarre since I would've definitely closed it last night.

But I don't have much longer to think about it when my eyes brush across the alarm clock on my bedside table, saying I only have ten minutes to get ready before breakfast.

I dart out of bed and hope I left my door open by accident.

***

When I was younger, maybe six or seven, my dad told me that if you stay in a certain place long enough, you'll go crazy, and you'll experience sudden outbursts of anger towards those who are around you. For example, you could murder someone because they burnt your toast. Cabin fever.

"Have you read The Shining?" I ask out of nowhere to Sky the next day at breakfast. I barely slept last night, Alec and Jasper racing around my mind like by meeting them I had permanently locked them in there. Great. Exactly what I need right now.

Sky looks at me and blinks, chewing on her toast at a slower pace. "Huh?"

"The Shining. By Stephen King?" I elaborate.

She swallows and frowns, thinking. "I think I saw the film. Creeped the shit out of me though. Couldn't look at my dad for a week," she says, eyes flicking across the dining hall for the rest of the group. Jessica and Thomas are already sat down, and are chatting about their 'bastard stepdad' through wild hysterics. "Why'd you ask?"

"After I got diagnosed, I found it in my home library back in London. Obviously, I'm not as crazy as Jack. But it's recently got me thinking- what if all these insane kids trapped in this school go crazy like Jack? What if they just snap and start murdering their friends and teachers and stuff?"

She chuckles just as Daniel and Louise sit down, and replies casually, "You need to stop thinking too much. It'll drive you crazy." I know she said the final part sarcastically, but what if it did happen? What if all these teenagers snapped and this school turned into the newest Hunger Games arena?

I imagine the whole thing going down, daggers and cross-bows and all. It's a sadistic thing to think, but just like Alec had told me last night, everyone outside this school thinks we're psychopaths anyway, why not live up to the assumptions?

You'd be the tribute that sets the arena on fire by accident. But it wouldn't be an accident, would it?

I grip the sides of my head, willing for the voice to just leave. I squeeze my eyes shut, and when I open them again, everyone on the table is staring at me questioningly.

"You alright?" Sky asks, putting her hand gently onto my shoulder.

I nod quickly, and jump from my seat when the bell sounds, letting her hand fall. "I need to get to class," I say, although all of them need to get to class too, and they could potentially show me the way. But I turn anyway and jog out of the dining hall.

However, I take one last glance back, and just as I do, I collide with someone else. Their hands grip my arms to keep me on my feet. I'm about to apologise and carry on, until I see those icy blue eyes and stop in place.