Crazed Minds | ✔️

forty one

"I'm bad behaviour but I do it in the best way."
-Immortals, Fall Out Boy
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My eyelids gradually part, and I hesitantly squint into the blinding light.

What the hell happened?

A voice replies to my thought in a frustrated tone, That Jasper boy knocked you out, that's what happened.

Jasper? Why would Jasper knock me out? But I can tell my questions are going to be answered soon enough when a blurred figure obscures my view of the light overhead.

I blink a couple of times to readjust my vision, ignoring the pounding in the side of my head where the rock collided with, and gaze up at the broad figure.

"Jasper?" I ask when I get a glimpse of his bright blue eyes and wave of blonde hair. But his eyes aren't a cloudless blue sky or the colour of waves lapping against the shore somewhere tropical. His eyes are ice. Cold.

Things only become more confusing when I look down at my hands, handcuffed to the arms of a sturdy metal chair. My ankles are also chained to the seat, and I hastily rock it back and forth, yanking frantically at my chains but they don't give. The chair doesn't budge.

I look around to see I'm in a small room with concrete walls and a heavy steel-iron door. The chair I'm sat on has wires connecting it to a little black box behind me. There are no windows and nothing else apart from the chair in here.

I give up yanking at the handcuffs and meet Jasper's cold gaze once more. "What the hell are you doing?" I snap.

"It may not look like it, but I'm saving you," he says. "You've got to believe me."

"You hit me in the head with a rock, Jasper. How could you do that?" I ask, my voice cracking at the end. This is Jasper. Jasper. He's one of the kindest people I know.

Knew.

"I just want to help. People aren't going to stop dying unless I do something."

"I didn't kill anyone. You know that," I say, eyebrows raising in disbelief.

"You don't know a thing. You don't know what you really are and now I have no choice," he replies, turning away when someone else enters the room.

Rosa slips through the door and slams it shut behind her. Why is Rosa here? Why are any of us here?

My hair is slightly dry compared to how wet it was from the rain outside, but my clothes are as uncomfortable as the metal handcuffs around my wrists and ankles.

"Did anyone see you come in?" Rosa asks Jasper quickly.

He shakes his head.

"Good. Have you told her anything?" she questions like I'm not even there.

"Hey, I'm right here, you know," I hiss but they ignore me.

"No, she doesn't know why she's here," Jasper informs in a quiet voice with his back to me.

Rosa nods and shuffles around him to get a better view of me. I scowl and snap, "Why am I here?"

"We want to help you."

"Sorry for not believing you but the 'knocking me out and tying me up' part didn't really sell it," I mumble, teeth gritting.

She sighs a little in frustration.

"Tell me what I'm doing here," I bark.

"We know you killed those people. Mr Jefferson, Jacob, Naomi...even Whiskers. You killed all of them," Jasper says, looking down at his feet and crossing his arms.

I retake. "Excuse me?"

Rosa steps forward and adds, "What Jasper means to say is that we know you're behind the murders. Even Mr Jefferson, who I'm aware is dead. But it's not necessarily your fault."

"What do you mean? I didn't kill anyone!"

"You didn't, Olivia," Rosa says calmly. "But everyone who has died has affected you in some way before doing so."

"Mr Jefferson humiliated us beyond belief. Jacob was a dick to you. Naomi beat the shit out of you," Jasper says. "Once I started to get suspicious, I went to see Rosa."

I can feel metal in the back of my throat as I try to hold back tears. I turn to Jasper. "You betrayed me."

"Don't say that, please don't say that," Jasper says, voice breaking a little.

Rosa continues, "Olivia, don't worry. We know you personally didn't kill them. We believe..." she shares a look with Jasper. "We believe it's the voices in your head. Like how you killed that girl at your old school. You didn't realise you were doing it."

She pulls a knife out of her jacket pocket- my knife- and drops it on the floor in front of me. It makes a clattering sound, and I see dried blood staining its edge.

My face pales and it feels like all the life has been sucked out of me. I can hear a chorus of voices in my head laughing, some quietly chuckling and others laughing hysterically. It's awful verging on painful. I...I killed those people.

We killed them, a voice says darkly.

"We believe it's down to your subconscious. If you have a distaste for someone, your voices are taking note of it and taking control of your body. They kill the person without you realising it."

It all adds up. Mr Jefferson was murdered with my knife because my subconscious knew where I kept it hidden in my shoe. Finding my knife in the bush when we found Whiskers's body. The struggle on the roof with Jacob. I subconsciously pushed him to his death. And Naomi? It was my knife that slit her throat because my subconscious knew where I'd buried it.

"Everything you know, the voices know too," Rosa explains. My heart is beating so quickly and I can feel my hands shaking and my lungs gasping for air.

We hated everyone we killed. You just happened to be our host, a voice adds menacingly.

It feels like the foundations of my brain are falling apart, my whole mind is crumbling.

Realisation sets in.

It seems I have the most crazed mind of all.

You don't say.