Madness (Madness #1)

Chapter 22

Chapter Twenty-Two

“Is he too far gone?”

“No, no, no. He’s just nearly mad enough,” Queenie sighs, “But still is not nearly mad enough either.”

The voices in my head are becoming harder and harder to pull apart, and I am no longer able to keep them in separate cages inside my mind.

“Have I gone round the bend? Have I finally lost it?” I whisper to myself in the reflection of the mirror, hoping for some semblance of sanity to answer back.

The mirror remains silent… as if it could ever talk back, and offers me no solace.

My eyes look normal – no wild, frantic gleam, no shadows of delusion… nothing to indicate that I’ m entirely mad. Yet the voices and the conversations they are having, as if I’m not even here, tell a different story.

“I’m afraid so, Alice. You’ve finally gone mad… bonkers even… entirely off your head.”

“Head, head, head!” Queenie chants in a rhythmic loop.

“Mad… I’ve gone entirely freaking mad.” I mutter, sinking to the cold, hard floor.

“He has, he has, he has!”

“Do you think we can push him far enough? To do what his legacy is prophesied?”

“There is no prophecy. I am just Al.”

“No, you are Alice. You just aren’t Alice enough to do what is needed to be done.”

“Then what do I need to do? How do I get rid of you?”

There’s a knock at my door before the masculine voice can answer, and a guard enters, searching for me to escort me to get my medication.

“Time for your medication, Al,” he says as I come back into the room.

The red crimson-uniform-clad guard morphs, and I rub my eyes to try to make sense of what I’m seeing as he transforms into a giant red playing card.

“Guard, card. Guard, card. Guard, card. Card, card, card.”

I expect Chesh to appear before me, the wide, toothy grin to apparate as he reveals that he’s played another joke, but when nothing happens, I sigh in defeat.

Maybe I am destined to be mad after all.

“Come on.” The guard card snaps at me, clicking his fingers, “We don’t have all day.”

I follow him from the room to the medical ward, hoping that it’s the nicer nurse who is handing out meds today and not Nurse White.

Just as I step out of the room, the masculine voice echoes in my mind, making my steps falter, “You cannot get rid of me, not until death rids you of me.”

The medical ward is always cold and sterile. Even the stark white light seems to rebound off of the white walls, making it almost blinding in its emptiness.

The distinct clicking of Nurse White’s heels against the tiles is almost mocking as Queenie shouts inside my head, “Click, click, click!”

Nurse white appears; her head seems to swell three times the size each time I come down here, and I swear I’ve seen her wobble a few times, too. The weight of the dome on her shoulders entirely too much.

“Time for your medication!” she says cheerily, holding the small white cup of pills in her hand.

I take them, holding them for a moment, and see a new one has been added to the ten I’m already forced to take.

“What’s the new one?” I ask .

“Does it matter? You want to be sane, don’t you?” she quirks an eyebrow at me, and I nod along because I do, I really, really, really do.

She holds out a manicured finger, tipping the cup up to my lips, “They’ll help.” She says, but I know better.

I’ve been here for weeks now… or has it been months? But they’ve never managed to rid me of the voices, only amplify them louder.

Maybe I’m too mad to be helped?

Too bonkers?

It doesn’t matter anyway, so I take the pills, swallowing them down with the bitter taste of resignation, and the world around me blurs for a moment, tipping me off the edge of the chair I’m sitting on.

“Poor Alice. Forever falling down the rabbit hole…” The masculine voice fades for a moment, and I sigh in relief, hoping the new pill has helped, but he reappears, “You have a purpose, Al. A legacy. Remember that.” It says with an intensity that sends shivers down my spine.

I shake my head, trying to clear the lingering fog from my mind, and push myself back to my feet when no one makes a move to help me.

The sterile smell of antiseptic fills the air, mingling with the faint scent of something metallic… blood?

“Interesting,” Nurse White mutters, scribbling something hastily down in a brown file that is littered with brown and red stains .

Her eyes glance up briefly, scanning me as if I’m a specimen under a microscope before returning to her notes.

“Back to your room now, Alice. Try not to get too lost.” She waves me away with her hand, and I try not to run from the room, hating how different I feel every time I leave.

As I step out, the weight of her words clings to me like the shadows that grab at me in the hall. “Try not to get too lost,” She had said, but it was already too late.

Every visit down there chips away at me, giving the voices a way to be somehow louder – a way to grow until I feel like a stranger in my skin.

The hallway stretches and turns, and I have to force myself to walk, each step feeling like a chore, and the door to my room seems as if it’s miles away.

“Red.”

“What?”

“I do quite like you, Alice. Go to Red. You are not safe enough to be alone right now. I will keep Queenie quiet.”

“Why do you have no name?”

“I have a name, but you won’t like it. Now go to Red. You have some solace for now,” it says sternly, and for the first time, I listen to the voice, needing to be near someone who understands Wonderland.