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Her fingers pinched her skin hard
Hard enough for her to realise she was still the one laying there. Nikki. The real one.
She let out a quiet whimper and curled herself into an even smaller ball, barely registering the hard mattress underneath her.
In the late hours of the night, the entire wing she found herself in was completely quiet, save for the steady tick-tock of the old clock somewhere down the hall. There was not a soul awake other than her, and still Nikki refused to open her eyes. She desperately clung tighter to her pillow, nails nearly digging through the cover into the cotton.
Late at night, opening her eyes and looking anywhere in that room terrified her.
Sleep was bad enough, with a torrent of nightmares that seemed to loop into each other, each more grotesque than the last.
Nightmares she would never truly be able to explain to any of the nurses, doctors or the orderlies.
Nikki had spent three weeks (or was it four?) locked within one of the soundproof rooms. She had underestimated how badly she would miss the sun during the day, though hesitantly thanked God for not having the darkness seep into her room during the night—not that it mattered much, losing track of time in complete isolation happened far quicker than she had anticipated. You have to stop screaming, Nikki, one of the nurses would often tell her. Otherwise you'll have to stay here for longer.
That was by far the worst nurse in that place, though most of them weren't particularly nice either. Nikki barely ever stopped to think about the employees in that fucking place anyway, her mind was far too busy eating away at itself for that.
To avoid being sent back to the padded room, Nikki forced herself to stay awake, with barely four hours of sleep on any given day—refusing even the occasional nap, no matter how badly her body needed it. Even now, it would be far too easy to just remain there with her eyes closed and drift off; but doing that meant gambling with her own sanity. How bad would the nightmares be this time?
Then, she pinched herself harder, the crummy blanket tangled between her legs. A quiet sniffle and then she bit her lips, shivering. A heavy hand climbs up her arm, pins and needles poking through her entire body. Nikki pressed her eyes closed even harder, nodding her head repeatedly in an insistent nonononononononono!
OPENYOURFUCKINGEYESLETMEINSIDEOFYOULETMEWEARYOURFUCKINGSKINNIKKI! a loud voice erupts from within her and echoes through the entire room, bouncing off the walls as the hand grabs her neck and presses down tight, the other clawing at her eyes, so sharp Nikki could swear it was flaying her skin.
Nikki lets out a scream, the sound coming from the depths of her throat as loud as she could muster. As she thrashed in the bed, her eyes suddenly shot open. Jumping off the mattress, she nearly faceplants.
Nikki crawls to the corner of the room, arms pressing her legs tightly against her chest as she buries her face in her knees, rocking back and forth and mewling like she used to when she was five.
As cold sweat trickled down her back, tears cascaded down her face, her eyes were sunken, red and irritated. The wounds on her face had all but healed wrong, several ugly scars in places they didn't belong.
Once two nurses blasted through the door, Nikki started rocking harder, her toes curling and her lips shivering as they approached her. The smiles they wore were gentle, and though there were worried grimaces on their faces, Nikki was terrified of what they might try to do to her next.
They had increased her meds just a few days ago, far too many pills to count.
Nikki could not bear the thought of being put in a straightjacket again.
Ms. Freeman, could you tell me what happened one more time, please? The detective asked her in a monotone voice, barely hiding the fact that he, much like everyone else, despised her.
This was his third visit since she was first admitted to that place, each one lasting a little longer than the last. He had barely gotten a word out of Nikki the first time round given she had started screaming as soon as he entered the room. That's when they put her in isolation—when she started to understand they saw her as no different than the hundreds of other crazies in that place. The way they spoke of her when they thought she couldn't hear, or how they treated her like she was some batshit crazy unrecoverable case.
Case.
That's all she ever would amount to now. Another case filed, another lunatic permanently tethered to that place. Another number on a list that would soon be forgotten.
So Mr. Bailey, your ex-boyfriend, raped you and was physically violent toward you?
She shuddered when those words left his mouth. Ex-boyfriend. Briefly looking down, Nikki tugged gently at the restraints keeping her in place. She wiggled her toes, cringing at the flowery socks they had magnanimously given her for "improving" her behaviour.
Bear hadn't been a friend to her in any sense of the word, and thus Nikki assumed it could only be some form of divine punishment or cosmic irony that all she would be remembered as would be: Bear's crazy psycho killer ex.
We found his prints as well as yours on that revolver. It is your claim that, after coming home and finding your friends, uh... Mr. Ian Tomlinson and Ms. Sarah Harper, deceased, you also found Mr. Bailey on the floor, dead due to an overdose, is that correct?
Nikki could feel herself itching all over, lips trembling slightly, fingers clasped together and her eyes unable to meet the detective's no matter how hard she tried. "No." is what she should have told him. "He made me fucking do it. He bought a One Wish Willow and made me fucking do it."
One Wish Willow. Change your life with just one wish. Amaze your friends for only $6.99!
Thank you for your cooperation, Ms. Freeman. I wish you well.
Nikki couldn't help but stare at the man as he walked away. Short and far too hairy, like he had been summoned straight from the 60s, the man had this weird wobble in his step. The kind that seemed to apply exclusively to short detectives. Nikki blinked a few times, wincing away once he opened the door and left.
Well done, Nikki! the nurse said, patting her on the back like she was a dog waiting for a reward. That was very good, I'm sure detective Norman appreciated that very much.
There was a wave of disgust that washed over her at the words of the skinny woman, a nauseous feeling clawing its way up her throat as she was wheeled away down the corridor.
It's time for your pills now. If you're good and take them all, I'll speak to Mr. Carter about getting you the pen and paper you're always talking about.
No matter how many times situations similar to this one happened, Nikki would never, ever get used to that feeling of inferiority. They genuinely believed she was completely incompetent, too crazy for her own good. Like she wasn't even there, like her brain was too fucked to understand what had happened or where she was.
Sighing profoundly and closing her eyes, Nikki relaxed and let the nurse help her down the putrid-tasting pills.
Nikki hated her father.
She wasn't really sure exactly when it happened—she couldn't place the blame on one single thing he did or on any specific day. Now, however, it had been so long she could barely remember why she hated him.
When he came to visit her, Nikki burst into tears and hugged him as tightly as she could. They didn't exchange too many words that day either, not that she would have been able to say much at all, other than maybe: "Hey, dad. I fucking hate you. Please, please, please, please don't leave me here, please stay please please please!"
There weren't a lot of people left that wanted to speak to her. All her friends were dead. Sarah's dad despised her very soul, Ian's mother wanted to kill her and Bear's parents even tried suing the state to push for the death penalty.
For whatever fucking reason, when she overheard the nurses talking about it, Nikki smiled and laughed so hard it terrified even her. It was the sort of out-of-body experience that had no logical explanation, though, in her case, it truly had no logic at all. To everyone around her, it was just crazy Nikki acting up again.
At first it used to bother her, that everyone in there, even the other patients, would all just stare at her no matter where she went, like she was some fucked up kind of celebrity. Hey guys, I bashed my friend's skull with a brick, shot my other friend in the head and watched B̷͎͂e̷a͛r̴̞̾ end his fucking selfish and miserable and cowardly existence, look at me! However, that was just one of the dozens of things she had gotten used to in that place.
The same day they finally gave her pen and paper to put her thoughts into perspective was the day she overheard them talking in the corridor.
It should have bothered her more than it did. She should have cried and screamed; she should have pinched herself to make sure she was still there, should have used the pen to gouge her own fucking eyeballs out before stabbing her own neck
Should she ever be found stable and competent, Nikki would stand a new trial. Jail time was inevitable no matter what she did or said; no matter how much she cried or begged.
But Nikki found herself laughing instead. Tears streaming down her scarred cheeks as she smiled and giggled and laughed, letting her hand flow along the paper as she poured her fucked up mind onto the blank page.
I love you in every reality, Bear.
Nikki stopped, reading that sentence over and over and over and over and over again. Tilting her head slightly, her laughter was gone. She scribbled out those words so fiercely she ripped through the paper. With a loud, paranoid screech, Nikki crumpled the piece of paper into a ball and threw it across the room.
Embracing herself, she quietly rested her head on the table, whimpering quietly. When the nurses came in to check on her, Nikki shivered and cried, desperately trying to hug one of them.
As the skinny nurse promptly laid her on the bed and started to sedate her, Nikki's final thought of the day was one she often found herself coming back to:
I'd rather be dead.