NOCTURNE » Nathan Prescott

» prologue

It was late at night when I wandered along the corridors.

Those seemingly endless, white and blue corridors which I had gotten so used to over the past two years.
Like my room. The uncomfortable bed. The scent of hand sanitizer that burned in your nose. The woman in the room across the hall waking up every night, screaming.

You get used to everything, eventually.

I stopped in front of one of the barred windows -- the full moon was illuminating the otherwise entirely dark night sky. Over time I had accumulated enough drawings of the sky, especially the moon, they could fill an entire book.

Wrapping my hands around the bars I stared out into the night -- the hospital was in the middle of the woods, there was nothing around here but nature. There had been an intern about a year ago who I managed to convince to sneak me out at night, so I could draw. It didn't work out more than just a few times though. The next few weeks there was a security guard assigned especially for this one corridor, to make sure it wouldn't happen again. And it didn't.

I settled for staring out of the window all day long, sketching trees and animals and people and their auras.

Everybody in here just dragged their feet across the floor and stared at the walls with empty eyes -- but if you looked closely you could see their souls. How much they were suffering. How they were trying to fight their demons. Or even how they were starting to give in to them.

I had given in long ago -- when I was sixteen I bought a bunch of drugs from some shady guy behind a diner and overdosed. My parents came home early that day and found me on the kitchen floor, rushing me to the hospital immediately. They managed to save me, at least that's what they called it, and I was brought here.

In the beginning they had me strapped to the bed and there was at least one person watching over me the entire time. When the medication and therapy started to show smaller results they left me alone at night, until eventually they removed the straps.

They were able to fix the extreme hormonal imbalance in my brain which they deemed the main source of my depression and anxiety and they seemed content. Still, I was far from being okay again.

"Madeline. What are you doing out of bed?" One of the nurses spoke up behind me and I turned around.

"Couldn't sleep," I replied, shrugging it off as he placed a hand on my back.
"Let's get you back to your room, alright?"
Pushing me through the door the nurse bent his head to the side and smiled at me.

"Now I better not see you roaming around again, if you want us to let you out of here next week."