vitreous / hs. (DISCONTINUED)

i think i saw you there

song attached: another wave from you // m83

V I T R E O U S - O N E
atlas





"So," Ines, my roommate said, still curled up in a ball at the foot of her cot. "What are you in the asylum for?"


"T-The asylum?" I stuttered.


"This place," she said monotonously, as if it was obvious, raising her hands up in the air and waving them around.


I bit my lip, fumbling with my fingers in my lap as I sat cross-legged at the foot of my cot, just as Ines was.


"I..." I thought for a moment. "I think I'm here for attempting suicide."


She rolled her eyes. "You won't be here for long,"


"Long-term depression," I added. "bulimia, self-harm, and slight anxiety disorder."


She slowly turned her head towards me, short, chopped blonde hair hanging over her eyes like a veil.


"Never mind," she said, still holding her legs against her chest. "You'll be here for quite a bit."


I nodded my head, disappointed. I didn't want to be here.


"What're you here for?" I asked her.


"Dissociative identity disorder," she muttered without any second thought.


"Pardon?"


She sighed, probably having been asked this question multiple times. I knew I would be tired of answering it, too.


"I have trouble with my memory, consciousness, identity, and general awareness of myself and my surroundings."


I raised my eyebrows slightly. "So like, amnesia?"


"No," she said immediately. "not like amnesia."


I nodded my head, and she turned away from me suddenly, staring at the wall instead. I moved my gaze to the dresser that held both our clothes. It was small, and plain, and I hated it.


I hated everything about this place. It was so, forced. It wasn't an effortless attempt to rid the patients of their mental disorders, it was a hard-on goal and they did not resent to fulfill it.


My thoughts were consuming my mind, and I found myself already on the break of tears. I shook my head from side to side, trying to shake the thoughts out. I don't know why I did this every time, it never worked. The thoughts only became even more overwhelming.


It happened so fast, the way they consumed me. I hadn't even began to think about anything dark, or anything about myself that would lead to them. But instead of me heading to them, they came to me. As always.


"Wh-Why did they take my things away?" I found myself saying without thinking, in attempt to distract myself from thinking too many things. My arms and legs were shaking.


Ines kept her body and head facing towards the wall, but she answered me anyways. "To make sure you don't try to kill yourself with anything that could be used as a weapon."


I didn't answer her. I hadn't even thought of that. It could have been so fucking easy. I found myself growing to dislike Jill, no matter how nicely she had treated me earlier. It was her job to do so, it was her job to pretend to be my friend. And it was now my job to hate her, and the fake persona that she swam through.


"Girls," a voice echoed through the doorway as someone poked their thread though the creak in the metal door. Ines and I looked up. "Lunch time."



-X-



Only moments later, Ines and I walked into what I assumed was the cafeteria, behind the woman who had recruited us minutes ago.


The large room was lined with dozens of white picnic-like tables. The walls and floors were white, and everyone inside the room was wearing white.


White is the colour of purity, and considering we are all here inside a mental hospital, no one here is relatively pure in any way.


Wincing at the bright lights suspended from the ceiling, giving off such a bright lure, I followed behind Ines, who followed the woman. She led us to a table, where I sat down.


There was faint chatter amongst the patients in the room, but it wasn't the normal peppy buzz you would hear from a normal cafeteria. It was rather hushed, but people were talking, and having conversations nonetheless.


Ines and I were handed a tray of food, and in a small plastic cup placed in the right corner of the tray, were pills.


I stared at the pills. I wasn't going to take them. They weren't going to drug me. After all, the pills wouldn't make me better. They would only make me seem better, and feel better, and after a lapse of time, I would return to being consumed by my own monsters.


Ines took her pills, downing them with a glass of water. I watched her blankly, no expression on my face. How could she let them control her like that? Ines is her own person, she has the choice to get better or not. Perhaps she wanted to, but I, on the other hand, wasn't about to let them own me.


"It's the Bones!" Someone from my table yelled, standing up and pointing at a group of patients coming into the room.


The whole cafeteria burst into an uproar of laughter and hollers, everyone either pointing or yelling at the rather large group of patients. They made their way over, some of them sitting in different spots at different tables. A few came over our way.


I noticed they were all skinny. Very skinny. It was unhealthy.


The same boy from my table who had yelled earlier stood up again, and went up to one of the patients who was now standing a few metres away from me. He was stick thin, and he looked brittle.


Dark eye circles, and just a completely hollow face. He looked absolutely drained, lifeless.


The boy who had stood up went right up to his face, but the brittle boy didn't even flinch. He just stared straight ahead.


"Hey, kid." His tone was anything but friendly. It was cold, and menacing. The boy still didn't flinch as the other continued. "Look at yourself," he spat. "You're fat."


Then, the boy did flinch. At that very word, his eyes winced shut and he puckered his lips slightly as if he was about to get hit. The other boy laughed, and went to sit down.


Ines moved away from him, hence away from me. I looked up at the brittle boy, and he stared at me. I watched his pale green eyes scan the length of the table and land on the empty spot beside me.


"Sorry," he said before sitting next to me.


"You don't need to apologize," I said, looking at him clearly.


Dark brown hair, curly, messy and sloppily swooped over his forehead. His skin was almost the same colour as the tables, and the walls, and everything else here that was purely white.


He had pale, chapped lips, and fine eyelashes framing the palest of emerald eyes. Though he looked in the midst of dying, I knew he could have been beautiful.


Before, when I said he was stick thin, it was a mere understatement. He was hardly even a body. He was visibly vitreous, cracked at the edges and seemingly prepared to shatter at any moment. He was just bones, and skin.


Bones, I thought. That's what they called them.


"What are you here for?" I asked him, not even picking at my food, though I already knew the answer to my question. I only wanted to confirm my assumption.


He stared at his tray of food, scrutinizing it. He nibbled on his bottom lip, and blinked once. I watched him out of curiosity, trying to find the reason for the gears grinding in his head.


"Anorexia nervosa," he mumbled.