Beautiful Ruin

Chapter 7

I stab a piece of the golden-brown chicken nugget with my fork. It breaks apart with the second stab. I don't bother eating it. Instead, I stab the little pieces left of it and stab some more until my plate is scattered with tiny bits of white chicken.

"Gosh, I can't sit here and watch her torture the poor nugget. Look at how she destroyed it," Lola says, shuddering.

I take the other pieces and stab some more.

"Poor nugget."

"I wouldn't want to be it in any life."

"Guys, stop talking."

"No! Look at what she's doing ?!"

Aavin huffs. "You babbling about it isn't going to help."

"I was not babbling! I was merely – "

I stop the stabbing and push the plate away. 

"Azalea. You, okay?"  Zayn asked. A concerned Zayn shows that the situation really was bad. Meaning, my bad day was bad as hell.

It's day 3 of my bad day. At this point, I think it would go on forever. All my days will be bad from now on.

"Of course, she isn't. I mean, look at what she did to her lunch?"

We look down at my ravished lunch. Guaranteed, it will not be edible again. Good, because I didn't like it.

They didn't have pizza on the menu today, and the only other better option was the chicken nuggets. But they soon became my enemies, so I had to stab them. I stabbed the life out of them, blood squirting from their white flesh, their screams like music to my ears.

I'm fine, I wrote. They give me similar looks of disbelief in response to my note.

Ever since that day, which was three days ago, they walked around me like I was a fragile eggshell, one hard step, and I'd crack. But I won't crack. They didn't know that I won't crack ever again. Because I had stopped believing, it wouldn't have happened if I had never believed and hadn't met him.

The man who gave me the sun. I haven't seen him since that day. We'll call it doomsday.

On doomsday, they tranquilized me with the heavy stuff they gave the likes of Marshal.

Today at the lunch line Marshal walked past me and didn't push me to take my spot. The nurses now give me my meds with trembling hands. Doctor Zahra looks at me like I will burst into flames and burn her precious office. The worst of all is my friends. I never wanted them to hear that about me, much less see me at my worst. It turns out everyone with rooms in the hall came out of their rooms and saw me hysterically screaming, biting, and thrashing at the orderlies. The rumors spread. It only took a day for it to reach the ears of every living creature in The House of Luna.

Patient 94 is no longer the subject of concern. I have replaced him.

"Don't worry, something will happen soon, and everyone will forget," Monica says. She must have caught me looking around. Even from where I was sitting, I felt the whispers and stares at me.

"She's right. It never lasts. Soon someone else will have an episode, and they'll forget all about you," Aavin says.

But my episode will never be forgotten. The girl who screamed to be left alone because she was looking at the sun when in fact, the windows were closed. But she swore that she saw it. She saw the windows wide open, the bars and curtains removed. She saw it, and when they tried to take her away, she snapped and turned into a wild animal.

So, my episode will never be forgotten, not by me anyway.

I nod in agreement to ease their worry.

"So, what have we gotten so far from the case?" Zayn asks. The topic changed.