MADMAN'S HAVEN

Prologue

Shaking hands, a pounding heartbeat with blood rushing aggressively through my veins.

The high trip slowly started to become a part of me again, and I loved it. Never before did I enjoy the rush from the heavy medication as much as I did in this state.

The venom that affected every vein of mine with calmness and delight was nothing new to me, but I didn't remember it being so extremely wonderful.

The trip from insanity and depression to satisfaction and dulcet peace made me feel complete and normal. I couldn't handle being present in my brain after everything I had been through recently, so the anodyne morphine helped me stabilize at work and at home.

As long as no one noticed, I figured that I could use the medication to keep going with my life just as normal. I managed to go to work every day without being terrified, and I managed to come home to my empty apartment without trying to get rid of the misery by killing myself.

With soused veins, I could do my job properly without leaving one single thought for the dreadful murderer in room number 401 that destroyed every part of me.

After leaving Brandon, I was sure that I had made the right decision. I didn't care anymore if there was no other nurse that could treat him because that was not my problem anymore, he was not my problem anymore. Ms. Schwartz respected my decision after what happened with Joseph Acker right in front of my eyes, and I was thankful for that.

The obscene situation was hard to let go of, and the graphic imagination haunted me in my sleep as it did with my wake self. It was so hard to forget about the sharp, wooden graphite pencil as it penetrated Acker's artery to his death. The blood that squirted to leave spots all over Brandon's evil black face and cover the white attire clothing they both were wearing with red color made the pictures inside of my head even more graphic and loathsome.

Another picture I couldn't let go of was the horrific look on Brandon's face as he laid his eyes on Joseph and approached him in the most sudden and belligerent move to murder him in front of every other patient, nurse, and guardsman in the room.

I saw every detail of how his eyes turned completely black and sharp, how every emotion ran out of his expression just like he got possessed with the tantrum. I saw how he turned into the monster everyone else was describing him as.

That moment made me realize that every rumor and every description of him was true, because he was not just a broken and misunderstood man as he manipulated me to believe, he was a true psychopath who could snap into danger within the most sudden and unexpected second.

I witnessed all of it just an inch away from me, and it felt too intimate and intrusive not to be completely traumatized. Not only because it happened right in front of my eyes, but because the man who committed it was someone I had shared myself with just a moment earlier.

I got close to him, too close, and I got to know him in ways no one else did. I managed to treat him in a way no other nurse ever had, managed to get through with his treatment.

He told me things he never told anyone else, and he opened himself up to me. He even shared his nudity with me, not only his appealing body but also his mentality, which made our relationship feel so intimate and exceptional.

He let me get into his damaged brain, let me see things from his perspective, and made me understand that everything about him was a pure misunderstanding.

He made me feel things I didn't know I could feel, he took me to places I had never been before. Every touch from his hands was something special with pleasure, and it took me somewhere that could be described as heaven everytime his cold skin grazed my own.

Every moment with him felt like a trip, and the adrenaline rush was so enticing it felt like a drug.

From my past experience with drug abuse, I knew exactly what it was like to be addicted, and that was what happened to me. He dragged me into addiction with his toxic way of existing, and I got stuck without even noticing.

He made me feel special with the way I managed to treat him and had me believe that I was better than the other nurses who ever dared to attempt to treat him. He led me so out of track that I lost everything. There was not one single bit of sanity left inside of me, and I was left alone in his manipulative grip.

I shared my body with him and let him take a piece of me. I allowed him to use me the way he wanted to, and I remained weak in his dangerous embrace.

Never before in my life did I put myself through so much danger, which was only another proof of how sick he got me.

But that was over now.

I was finally in control again, and even though I took help from medication by using again, I felt more stable now than I ever had in Brandon's injurious proximity.