Abigail was sitting alone in her room. She was looking for someone safe. Safe…? What is safe, what was safe? What was the feeling of safety and security beyond the ward; their home? Who in the prison they trapped her in was safe? No one. 

No one was safe. Aiden was getting food, the boy’s hunger never satiated. Michael… Where was he? Right, he was in his room alone. Alone but how? Where? We were never allowed to be alone for too long anymore. We are not free anymore. Me…? No, the rule doesn’t apply to me. Damian was pacing his room. The boy was watched by our nurse. Our nurse? No. Just his and Aiden’s nurse. And Michael. I think…

Nurse Stacy was their nurse. I think that was her name… She was kind, she knew we wanted freedom. She knew we deserved more freedom than what we were given. The prison was suffocating, walls closing in and lights blinding. The nurse walks past Abigail’s room making sure she was still in there, making sure she didn’t break out again. 

She felt trapped, they didn’t know but she was trapped. The prison of her mind was causing the world around her to spin, like a spiral, like the world was closing in on her and the walls were moving, 

- The world’s always spinning, I would know. Well, I wouldn’t be trusted to know. I don’t really understand this world that we all seem to live in. Me? I’m Abigail. The others…? I’m not… I’m not sure who the other voices are but they’re really loud, they need to shut up. I’m Abigail yet I’m not her… “Her” is too loud… she’s very loud all of the time now… Sometimes, this all gets too confusing… -  

Abigail was alone in her room again. For the third time. For the third day. Three? What was with that number… It's like a sign. The new girl just months older than Abigail was numbered patient 333. That number has been everywhere now… Ever since Angelica left. The third person to leave, the third day of the third month that Aiden and Damien were friends with Abigail. The third death that happened while Abigail was a patient. 

- If I lost Michael… what really would happen…? Does he really like me? Does he really care…? Or will he leave me? Like everyone else… That’s okay. I’d like him to be happy today… today? No… today’s not a happy day is it? No, it’s nobody's birthday today. Maybe it’s not a happy day today… -

Abigail wanted attention but she didn’t want anyone upset. She didn’t want to bother anyone. She thinks she’s already upset everyone, she thinks she’s already bothered everyone. She knows people are really annoyed with her. She knows people would be better off without her. She may just be better off dead. Maybe she would be better off dead… better off not burdening everyone, better off gone; wiped off the face of the earth.

Sometimes, thinking like that is okay. Thinking like that is fine once you’re in the ward. Thinking like that is perfectly acceptable. Because that’s what allows you to be trapped in the prison that is the ward. It’s hell, that’s for sure but it’s also a safe haven for people like Abi. They don’t have to worry about food, shelter, or robbery. They just need to worry about staying alive. Getting better. Fixing themselves. Except for that they cannot be fixed. 

Recently, the entire ward was on edge as a new arrival, a transferee came, a 16 year old girl named Iris Moreau, admitted for murdering her eating disordered sister, Clementine, and a three year old child she was babysitting. The small three year old girl named Kerttu Kask was adopted by the sweet 40 year old Korean couple known to the Moreau family for their kindness and cooking during their neighborhood potlucks. Kerttu was a small girl whose parents had immigrated to California from Estonia before dying in a car crash, leaving the small girl orphaned at two years old. 

Iris, while babysitting the young girl, shoved her into the oven, baking the poor child and eating her during an episode of derealization, leaving the small bones on a baking tray in the oven. Her sister Clementine caught her in the act of trying to kill Kertu and tried to stop her, getting herself killed by her skull crushed, causing internal bleeding to the brain from the baking tray being hit repeatedly on her head until her skull cracked and collapsed into the brain, causing brain bleeding. To “hide” the body, Clementine’s body was thrown into the bathtub and held down with the stove grates, releasing an ear screeching sound as she pushed the metal square into place, trapping the older girl. 

With both the little girl she babysat, Kertu, and her older sister, Clementine, dead, there was no one with the ability to cry out for help, and it wasn’t until the time their parents came home, that Iris was found with what she had done. The police were called immediately and Iris was quickly taken into the custody of the ward where she was later permanently admitted to. 

She fought the officers trying to take her, leaving half a dozen of them with scratches, cuts, and bruises; she would not go down without a fight, and if she were to be trapped, she may as well bring hell down with her. She did not want to be trapped; no one would want to be trapped. It was just what they thought she needed, though all she needed was.. Well, what did she need? It wasn’t imprisonment, it wasn’t aid or help. I think she needed punishment. I think she needed the prison, not of the mind but of the body. She was not like us, Not that I think, she was just evil, with the vile mind of a criminal and the twisted heart of a murderer. She wasn’t protecting herself from a monster. She was the monster. She doesn’t deserve the same help as all of us here, we didn’t hurt for fun. We hurt for protection, we defended ourselves. 

Abigail, Damian, Michael and Aiden all avoided her. Abi was scared of her, especially scared of the fact that she had killed a little girl, who she could have been in the shoes of, but she also knew better than to show it. Fear attracts violence; fear is the enemy to peace.