Left In The Dark

Chapter 29

"Ssssssssss."

I shuddered feeling the stinginess. It was the only time I didn't feel numb. It reminded me that I was alive still. Yet, now... I didn't want to be. I watched that blood drop stream down my arm along with the others. Memorized by the color. My eyes parted from it to behold the room and its sterility. I looked down at my new paintbrush. The silver tip now stained with a vibrant red.

The room needed some color.

I placed my palm flat on the white floor and smeared the blood with a circling motion and watched the whiteness disappear.

I was beginning to run out of red. My fingertips were drying out. I opened my palm up. Then I took the scalpel and aimed it at another finger, but instead rested it at my wrist. I hesitated. I thought about Shawn and the tears I thought I no longer had formed. The numbness disappeared and I was struck with an overwhelming pain. Now I wished I was numb again. I clutched my chest as I combusted. I covered my mouth with my other hand wanting to scream. I cried. The pain intensified. I couldn't bare it. I just wanted it all to stop. Looking back down to my wrist, I breathed in and slid the blade across in one clean swipe. I gasped and shuddered. My palm filled within a few minutes. The blood emptied onto the floor and began to form a puddle. I sighed and closed my eyes. Leaning my head against the wall, I sat there and felt the life slowly drain from my body. I increasingly became light headed. My heart went through weird palpations, first speeding up and then gradually slowing down. The pain was subsiding. I slumped over to my side, too weak to sit up anymore. I released a tear into the blood pool. The room wasn't all white anymore. I gave it some color that it desperately needed.

"Miss. Knol-, OH MY GOD!!" I faintly heard the nurse scream. "I need a doctor in here now!!!"

Everything went black. A peaceful darkness.
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I was held under a 72-hour watch in the psychiatric ward. I had been resuscitated. Some nurses and doctor's aids stopped the bleeding, stitched my wound and wrapped it in gauze. They said I almost lost half of my blood supply and could have died if they showed up even a minute later. Oh how I wished they waited one minute. They sent some psychiatrist in my quarters to try to get me to talk during the first 24 hours because I wouldn't speak to anyone. The man tried everything to "connect" with me he said to the one of the other doctors. By the second day he flat out gave up. They all talked about me in front of me like I wasn't there. I might as well have not been.

When they tried to feed me, I wouldn't eat. I'd just lay there silently with my eyes trained to the wall. A drip had to be given to me so that I would get nutrition. I was monitored extremely carefully because they feared I would rip it out. A nurse was stationed by my bedside every hour on the hour. They rotated in shifts. Some of them tried to talk to me but I'd ignore like the others. By the third day everyone had given up. No one attempted any more conversations with me. In the final hour I was released because they could not legally keep me there against my will. I was discharged and sent back to my original room in the surgery ward. I looked at the room in disdain. The floor was scrubbed clean, erasing my art. Everything was back to normal. Sterile and white.

I was back in the same position again: lying flat on my stomach facing the bland wall, as if I never left. After some time, Dr. Orwick entered my room with sheer disappointment written on his face. He stood in front of my view. My eyes only met his legs. I made no effort to look up so he stooped down to my eye level.

"Why?" He only asked.

I didn't respond.

"Why would you try to kill yourself Miss. Knowles? After all the trouble that was put into restoring your vision? All the time and money? You would just throw it away like that?" He quizzed.