Psychotic (A Harry Styles Fanfiction)

Chapter 26

CHAPTER 26

HARRY'S POV

Baking cookies. James was back and could take Rose any minute, Wickendale was doing illegal brain tests on patients, and we desperately needed an escape plan; but here we were baking fucking cookies. I was getting so sick of this kind of thing, going to therapy, having these group sessions, and my least favorite, baking. It was as if they were trying to instill normalcy into the strangest lives and find a cure for minds most incurable with everyday activities. But I was almost certain that it wouldn't help.

Plus, half of us were handcuffed so whatever we made didn't turn out very well, and the patients weren't even aloud near the ovens. It wasn't always baking, though, thank God. Sometimes it was arts and crafts or painting or something equally as stupid. I, along with a few others, didn't partake in these activities much. I mostly just found a place to sit and smoke while I waited for it to end.

And that's what I did this time, too. I grabbed a plastic chair from a small table in the corner of the "kitchen" and took a seat, cigarette already lit and in my hand. I inhaled the nicotine into my lungs and blew it out, puffing smoke rings into the air. An attendant, a woman with dark hair around 40 years old, watched over the patients and assisted them while a few guards waited outside, ready to barge in if needed. It was just her and the patients and I. I caught glimpses of conversations every once in a while, able to pick out bits and pieces of what they were saying. I never partook in this chatter myself seeing that these people were all crazy, but it was interesting just to listen. To hear how people talked and to perceive what they were saying. It was as if what they said could give you some small insight into their lives. Like a woman who's name I believed was Jane with wild gray eyes and straw-colored hair. She was much older than me, probably in her late 30s.

When she spoke her voice was quiet. Might an employee or patient say one word too loud or make a movement too sharp and she would jerk away from them. Either that or she would stare at them with wary, vigilant eyes. Just by the way she nervously spoke and hardly spoke of anything at all could tell you so much. She didn't seemed dangerous but rather the opposite. She seemed scared. She had probably been hurt, I mean really hurt, before she came here. Her constant tensity and jumpiness But she also probably also hurt whoever did it in return if it landed her a spot at Wickendale. She did something villainous and insane if she was here, in this place. Or at least, that's what I had guessed from hearing her talk in that shaky, worried tone.

But what defines insanity, really? Is it your mind or the mind of the person making the judgment? Because all of us, no matter who you are, can go insane sometimes. There are times when we either know too little or too much. The unknown can be a scary place, but the known can be even more frightening.

And that's what a psychopath was, to me at least. Someone who knows to little. Their emotions have been drained and their thoughts became scrambled. They're lost, still conscious and capable of terrible things, but lost. They don't have reasons or emotions behind their crimes, only a slight trigger or a ghost of a feeling to power them. They may know right from wrong, but a lack of feeling leaves them unaware of how to act upon them. They are psychopaths because they are violent without cause and hateful without explanation.

But there is another end, though. Those who know too much. Those who are too aware of the things around them; who are aware of almost everything. They allow these things into their minds and sometimes it can eat them alive, but others it can help them. They don't feel emotion or empathy but they listen. They understand how to mimic how others feel. They lie, they manipulate, and they make it so you never guess their true intentions.

Here there are both types. Wickendale was infested with psychopaths, sociopaths, maniacs, you name it. And you could tell who belonged in which category just by listening.