MADMAN'S ARMS

49

Wednesday, September 4th

The whole night was spent with panic attack after panic attack, and out loud crying on my living room floor after the most traumatic day of my life ever since my childhood.

The image of Brandon and how he stuck that sharp, obtuse, black lead pencil inside Joseph's delicate neck was running on repeat on the inside of my already messed up head.

It was still so hard for me to believe how Brandon could do such a thing in front of my eyes, how he could even do something like that at all after everything he had been through, yet after all he told me in our meetings. I thought it had come to my inference that he wasn't only a cold-blooded, psychotic killer, but evidently, I made a wrong estimation this time.

Earlier, Brandon made me believe he just took a rashing action after what someone did to his family, as a reaction of anger, sorrow, sadness, and fear, presuming the law into his own hands. Craving to hunt down the murderer of his own mother and siblings so badly that it got too far. But otherwise, he was not evil, he didn't enjoy killing people and he would never have done it if it wasn't for his stepdad who destroyed him.

At least that was what I thought.

Apparently, everything I thought about him proved me wrong in this horrifying moment. He was just that psychopath everyone else portrayed him as, he was just as manipulative and persuasive as they told me.

Despite every warning, both from Dorothy, yet from Harriet, Mildred and Janet, I still fell for it, so completely deep I even fell for him. I consigned myself to him, even my nudity and intimacy, every inch of my thin, innocent body and tender skin, I shared with him like I was his belonging. Beginning to trust him, I felt sympathy and pity for him, and even started to care for him genuinely.

I was so angry with myself. All along I had been so naive, starry-eyed, with the soul of a fool. Walking straight into a trap of tamper. Managing to read him like a book the first time I spoke to him, making me promise myself never to fall for anything he would say or do. Yet here I was, wrong about everything, wrong about myself and wrong about Brandon...

I walked with slow steps through the dark, damp aired corridor while keeping my eyes on the floor. I didn't want to risk getting eye contact with anyone, I didn't have the urge nor the capacity to talk or even smile at someone, I just wanted to do my job in the best way possible barring the circumstances.

My heart pounded through my chest and I felt so ill I almost needed to throw up, but I managed to keep myself steady by tying my fists as hard as I could while trying to keep the focus on my breathing.

The silence in the empty corridor was torturing enough to contribute to the rough anxiety and the humid air made it even harder to let go of the horror.

I had never been down here before, which made it appear even more foreign and scary than it already was.

In front of me was now a big, metal door with a small shutter in the height of my chest, and an engraved, small text right above the door frame.

'The mind - the true solitary'

I didn't know why those words were written at all. Maybe it was written for the nurses to feel better about throwing the patients inside the solitary cells. Maybe it was ironically, a calming veracity for the patients to realize that being stuck inside their insane brains, probably was worse than being locked up in that dark and cold, tiny black hole.

Either way, I thought it was bizarre to engrave a quote like that at all on a cellar door at a mental institution.

Even if this hospital was old, and the doors probably hadn't been switched in decades, the whole situation made me shrug with discomfort and disrespect.

"Nurse Frazier, are you ready?" I heard Frank's coarse voice behind me, and noticed how I must have floated out in my thoughts.

I looked at the broad, tall man and nodded my head insecurely at him before he took a doubtless step forward to enter the cell before me.

Swallowing hard, I took one last deep breath of nervousness before I walked behind Frank into the dark cellar.

In the corner of the chilly, damp room on the dirty floor, hugging his knees with his back against the wall, he sat. His beautiful face was sharp despite the darkness and I could see in his eyes that he had been crying. His hair was messy and his white clothes were dirty from the dusty, soggy floor he had been thrown onto.

He looked so destroyed and torn down. I bit my lip trying to hold the tears inside as I laid eyes on his complexion filled with destruction. His eyes got bigger the moment they met with mine but he kept quiet to show obedience.

"Hello, Brandon," I breathed with a raspy, unstable voice as I approached him with shy steps.

I wanted to keep my distance from him, but I didn't want him to feel more pent than he already was by staring him out on the other side of the room with Frank standing next to me doing the same.

Brandon slowly raised his eyebrows as he looked at me where I stood in front of him. It pained me only to glance at him.

"Beverly," He managed to whisper faintly.

I could notice in his appearance and expressions that he was heavily drugged, which made me feel thankful by the thought that he probably wasn't very aware of the dirty, disgusting, and humiliating hole he was thrown into, but still, it was hard for me to watch him be in that state of mind and totally out of presence.

While looking at him like he was the devil himself, I gathered my strength and distanced from my sentimental inside.

"I'm here to take you to your treatment,"

I shrugged as I managed to speak to him, studdering on my words. I didn't know what I should feel at all. My whole body reacted with confusion.

I was not afraid, but a strong presence of disgust and anxiety filled my body up in the most uncomfortable way. I didn't want to be here, I just wanted to leave and never lay my eyes on that man again.

Even if he was so vulnerable and angel-like as he sat there in the dark corner, my heart could not manage to skip one single beat of passion anymore.

"What treatment?" Brandon grated out with his weak voice as he looked at me with enormous umber eyes filled with sorrow.

The conclusion from Ms. Schwartz and the specialist doctors rushed over me with reality as he asked the question, and once again I had to grit my teeth and hold my breath tightly not to completely burst out in tears in front of him.

I looked away from his curious, big eyes to be able to answer his question and took a deep breath to fill my lungs with more pain.

"They have decided to put you in electric shock therapy,"