PLEASE KEEP COMMENTING YOUR REACTIONS TO THINGS THAT HAPPEN DURING THE CHAPTER AND JUST THE CHAPTER IN GENERAL
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It was around 10:30am on a quiet Monday morning when the news was broken to Jane. Earlier that morning, Jane's shift was supposed to start with Katy. However at 8:00am, Katy had yet to show up for their 7:00am shift. Jane's boss, Joe, was not happy. He had began calling her like crazy with no answer. Jane had a bad feeling but she decided to ignore it. Katy was a wild girl; she probably just had a crazy night and was hungover. That was until Jane was in the middle of refilling a customer's coffee when she heard it.
The news was playing at a moderate volume, since many customers liked to watch the news while they ate their breakfast. The newswoman began very seriously. "Now everyone, the police reported a missing person earlier this morning. This is a picture of the young woman who is missing. If anyone has seen her or know anything, please call the authorities immediately. She goes by Katy Daniels and was last seen leaving a club with a shorter woman wearing a black baseball hat."
Jane froze as she looked up at a smiling image of Katy on the television. She looked happy and beautiful. The life in her eyes was clear and she looked just as cheery as normal. Without noticing, Jane started accidentally spilling the hot coffee onto the customer's hand. The customer yelped and Jane was startled again, quickly apologizing when she realized what she had done. "Oh my! I am so sorry. I didn't mean to do that." She started wiping the table down where she slipped with her cloth. Jane quickly scurried away, placing the coffee back onto the burner.
Joe came up to her, looking annoyed. "Jane, you are on thin ice. You can't be doing that!"
Jane nodded, extremely apologetic. "I know, I know. I'm sorry. It's just.." She pointed up to the television, Katy's face still being shown before quickly being switched to a story about a panda having a baby in the zoo.
Joe's face dropped. "Oh my..."
"How sad... I wonder what happened to her." Jane looked to her left to see her brother leaning against the counter. He had a playful smile on while staring at the television, making Jane extremely suspicious. Did she have something to do with this? Jane couldn't remember if she blacked out the night before. She had thought she was fine; she had been in control for the past couple days now, right?
He looked back at her. "Don't you want to know what happened to her?"
Come on.... you know you want to.
Aren't you dying to know?
You're curious if you did anything to her.
Are you sure you're the one in control?
You might not even be in control right now.
Jane was getting overwhelmed as she went to grab her cloth to distract herself by wiping tables down. However, when she looked down, her hands were full of blood. It was fresh and covered her entire hands. She involuntarily yelled as she looked at her hands before trying to wipe it off.
"Jane!" Joe's left hand went straight for her right shoulder. "Are you okay? What's wrong?"
Jane blinked and the blood disappeared from her hands. They were back to the way they were: pale and clean. She felt her cheeks starting to flare a little as she realized how she must look.
Wow, you're really losing your mind now.
If the blood wasn't real, how can you be so sure that any of this is?
"I-I-" Joe's hand was still on her shoulder and it was the only thing keeping her grounded, yet it still wasn't much help. "I- I'm fine. I just thought I saw a bug on my hand." She painfully shut her eyes, knowing how terrible of an excuse that was. It was the first thing she could think of and it made no sense to why she would be yelling at her hands and then wiping them on her jeans.
Joe looked at her skeptically. "Alright." He looked around the diner. "Listen, I know it must be a little stressful right now with Katy and everything but please try to remain calm. The owner has been really cracking down and he doesn't want a mistake coming from any of us."
"No mistakes allowed? Seems like a challenge." Jerome had appeared next to her. He was so close to her. "Let's see how fast it'll take for me to get you fired."
"Jerome, please. I need this job," Jane tried to speak as softly as possible.
Joe's eyebrow arched. "Huh? What did you say?"
Jane looked up at him. "Uh- I mean I understand, sir."
Once again, Joe seemed to not fully believe Jane but nodded and walked off, letting it go. When he was finally gone, Jane went back to wiping the counters. Under her breath, she spoke to her brother. "Let me have this."
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Jerome had taken that as a challenge. It was currently 4:00 pm, one hour until her shift was over. Throughout the day, Jerome and the voices threw everything at Jane: putting bugs into her sandwich, making her think a customer was Jerome, scaring her into dropping dishes. To say, Jane's boss was pissed was an understatement. Jane, herself, felt as if she was truly losing her mind. She was so uneasy with everything. The slightest sound made her flinch.
"Wow you're falling pretty easily to all our little tricks, huh Jane?" Jane was, she hated that she was. She ignored him, trying to do her best to save her job. If she made one more mistake, she was going to be fired. She wouldn't have much to live for after that.
"I can see you breaking." His voice was playful. "You're cracking and soon you'll truly break and become a crazy you never thought possible."
That's when her mind's final trick happened.
She was holding dishes, as she just cleared off a table. She turned to walk away when her brother stood in front of her. He held a gun in his hand and wore a sick smile. "Remember that night I died? I held a gun to your head and tried to shoot an apple off it. You thought I was gonna kill you that night but I didn't." He moved closer to her and pressed the gun against her head. "I could now if I wanted to. You're miserable. Being at the circus gave you purpose. You have nothing to live for now."
Jane's breathing was getting worse. All over she felt one way: panic. Jerome gave her one last smile before saying, "I'll just do you a favor and do it now."
Then he shot her. Only, of course it wasn't real. But for Jane, it felt so real. She dropped the dishes and ended in a ball on the ground, sobbing. Her hand went to her head, where the bullet would be if it were real. Pain was coursing through her. Her mind hated her. This was her mind torturing her.
Suddenly the pain was gone and her sobs softened. A small crowd of people had gathered, making sure she was alright. Joe ran over trying to disperse the crowd. When everyone was gone, Joe faced her, looking extremely done. He didn't say anything to her, just pointed to the back room.
Jane felt her cheeks turn red as she nodded and followed him there. Once the door was closed, Joe started speaking. "Jane. You know what I have to do." She nodded. She was waiting for this to come. She was a failure. "You started out on thin ice with missing work. Now all day today you have screamed, dropped dishes, spill coffee on customers. You need help. And you can't work here while you're getting it."
Jane nodded, looking at her feet. "I understand."
Joe placed his hand on her shoulder. "I do wish you find the help you need, Jane."
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Jane was maniac when she got back to her apartment. She lost her job because of what was happening to her. Along with that, the hallucinations were just getting worse. Jane was so unsure what was real and not. Before she reached her apartment, she thought someone killed her again.
Quickly, she pulled out her laptop. She had to find out what was happening to her. Google popped up as she went to the search bar. Jane stared at it for a moment, unsure what to look up. So much was happening to her, it was hard to say for sure what was going on. She thought and then typed in three words: hallucinations, blacking out.
Websites starting popping up right away with the same three words. Most referred to her using drugs and/or special medication that had side effects. But one thing caught her eye: psychosis.
According to the website, people who have psychosis experience everything it said she did. She scrolled through the website, her anxiety going crazy. She was happy to finally have a name for what she had but this, in turn, made her extremely scared of what could happen to her.
She could be thrown in with the other crazies in Arkham.
"Hmmm, Schizophrenia. What a nice ring to it." Jerome had appeared next to her, looking into the screen with a thoughtful look that was meant to entirely be a joke. He turned to her and smiled.
"Next stop, Arkham!"