Young Writers Society

Thomas stopped shaking and screaming and blinked at the nurse in confusion. The nurse sighed. “He was hysterical,” he explained to the shocked Kaila. “When someone is hysterical, you slap them.”

“But you don’t slap a kid with possible PTSD!” Kaila managed to gasp. She glared at the nurse and grabbed Thomas’s shoulders, lightly hoisting him up. Thomas wobbled and leaned on Kaila. “It was quite obvious that it was a flashback! And, if it was, it was obviously upsetting and painful to him! Why would you do that?” Her voice raised up an octave, her becoming hysterical herself. “I can’t believe you! I thought that this was a mental hospital to help people, not make them worse!”

The nurse sighed. “Ma’am, that’s how you do it,” he said, obviously exasperated. Thomas stared at him in shock. “It doesn’t matter what mental condition they have.”

Kaila stared at him in disgust. “I’m going to take him in myself, thank you very much.” Like a mother, Thomas noted, even though he didn’t know about his maternal side. “What’s his room number?”

The nurse shook his head. “No, we need to sign him in. You’re not allowed inside. We’ll take him from here.”

Kaila shook her head. “No. I don’t trust him with you. I’ll work here. I’ll take care of him. I’ll-”

“Sorry, but we’re not taking nurses right now,” the male nurse interjected. “Unless you want to be a janitor, you’re out of luck. Come on kid, with me.”

Kaila stood there in shock as Thomas was led away by his hand, looking as if she just washed her mouth out with sand. Thomas looked back dejectedly. He did love Kaila and he didn’t want to go, but he felt like that there was nothing that he could do.

They pushed open the front door and Thomas entered. He looked around the office. Right in front of him was a screen separating himself and the receptionist—Thomas glanced at her name tag; Winnie—who was currently on a huge, black landline phone. To the left, he could see beige walls, fluorescent lighting (though, as Thomas noticed, one was broken), and a tiled floor that looked to be recently cleaned. To the right of him, there was a wall and a corridor leading to some stairs. The nurse marched him over to the receptionist and, after she put the phone down, exchanged a few words, tugging on a very overwhelmed Thomas to show the receptionist the new patient. The receptionist nodded and pointed to the left, talking about directions.

When she said the room number, however, the nurse winced. “We’re putting him with that?”

“Unfortunately, the other rooms are full. I’m sure that she won’t do anything to him, as long as he keeps quiet. She was talking about having company anyways,” was the answer.

“Who’s to know that she won’t kill him?” the nurse asked, looking a little panicked. “And I’m not taking him there.”

“Well, he’s not going to take himself!” the receptionist snapped. “He doesn’t know his way around yet, so I suggest you get going.”

The nurse snapped a few words at “Winnie” and grabbed Thomas’s shoulder. “Let’s go,” he growled. “I’m going to do this as fast as possible.”

He shoved and pulled Thomas and, though Thomas was resistant, had much success. After about a half and hour of pulling and tugging, they finally arrived at Room 13. The nurse held onto Thomas with one hand and unlocked the door with the other, looking nervous. Unceremoniously, he shoved Thomas in and closed the door.

Thomas looked around the room. There were two beds—one was creaking, even though no one was on it—padded walls, and some more tiled floors. The fluorescent lighting provided a harsh-looking environment, and Thomas couldn’t see what was so dangerous about what was in the room. Then, he saw it.

There was a short, red-haired girl perched on the thin windowsill, standing up by just her toes with her knees stuck out like a frog ready to jump. An eyepatch covered her left eye and she wore a grey jumpsuit that was also noticeably padded. She hopped down from the windowsill with the grace of a gymnast and stood up fully, though she wasn’t much higher than the middle of the window. Thomas guessed that she was about five feet tall.

“You’re tall,” were her first words out of her mouth. She grinned, revealing braces on her teeth. She had the strangest accent that Thomas couldn’t place. “Really tall. Taller than Storm, even.”

Thomas didn’t answer her. He didn’t know what to make of the situation. Who was she? Who was Storm? Why were people afraid of her?

“Ah, yes, I forgot my manners!” the girl said. She laughed—no, giggled, like a little girl—and put her hand behind her head to scratch her neck. “I’m Crystallo, but you can call me Crystal. I’m assuming that you’re Thomas, right? I got really lucky to get you in my room.” The way that she said it was very nonchalant, but it was quite obvious that the tone was meant to be mysterious. “Anyways, welcome to the Oswald Asylum!”

Thomas didn’t answer. He thought that it was called the Oswald Psychiatric Hospital.

“Oh, it is,” Crystal said. “That’s the official name, anyways, but it’s obvious that this is an old-school asylum, filled with electroshock therapy, torture, needles, and more!”

Thomas shivered when she said “needles” and forced his mind back to the present.

Crystal frowned. “You’re boring. You don’t talk at all! Did that old geezer of a nurse tell you not to talk to me? He must have. Imagine that, people not wanting other people to talk to me!” She laughed again. “I only killed someone. People are such stuck-ups sometimes.”

The boy stared at her in shock as she shrugged and hopped on the left-side bed. “This one’s mine,” she proclaimed. “You can have the right one. It’s more comfortable.”

For the life of him, Thomas couldn’t figure out why she didn’t take the more comfortable bed, but he sat down on it anyways. Crystal was rocking back and forth on it, it making creaking noises. He copied her, and noticed that his bed had a lot less creaking.

So she didn’t lie to me.

“Of course I didn’t! I mean, I have lied before, and I’m pretty dang good at it, but that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t trust me! You don’t even know everything about me!” Crystal shouted, mocking sadness. Thomas stared at her. Did I say that out loud? “And no, you didn’t say it out loud. I can read your soul!” She made a presumingly spooky noise and wriggled her hands like Thomas had seen in the movies.

Wait, when have I seen movies?

Crystal shrugged. “I don’t know, man, you tell me.”

Thomas didn’t answer and, instead, stared at the wall in a trance to process what had just happened to him. A girl who can read souls? Doubt it. I'm sure that she can only read my face well. Crystal gave him an annoyed face and flopped onto her bed, making a loud creaking noise that snapped Thomas out of it. He glared at her and went back to contemplating, but Crystal bounced on the bed some more. It was obvious that she wanted attention, but Thomas wasn’t going to give it to her.

“I swear, you should cooperate with me. The only reason I’m in here is because you went missing,” Crystal mumbled to herself. Thomas turned his head, wondering if he had heard that right, but after some likely uncharacteristic silence from Crystal, he assumed that he had. He stared at the off-white padded wall and wondered if he was going to be stuck like this forever.

---

Marco thought some curse words to himself as Star kept looking out of the janitor’s closet to see if the coast was clear. However, as this was a popular station in Medford, Oregon, Marco knew that that wasn’t going to happen anytime soon. He glanced around at the cleaning supplies, just visible by the small crack of light coming from outside of the door.

“Can’t we go back and move five feet to the right?” Marco groaned. “People know about Mewni now, so they won’t be as surprised. Also, let’s not forget the new rise of the genetically enhanced-”

“Shh! I don’t want to listen to nerd-world again,” Star interrupted, holding her finger to her lips. “I’m concentrating.”

Marco leaned against the shelves, careful not to knock anything over. “It’ll be more embarrassing if the janitor finds us in here. He’ll probably freak out on us.”

“But maybe he’ll be nice!” the ever-optimistic Star exclaimed. “You never know. Either that, or he’ll be mean about it but he’s a nice person, like you thought Tom was!” As soon as she said that, she winced. She had forgotten that Marco was still not over Tom’s death.

Marco’s eyes turned from annoyed to upset in an instant. Star abandoned the door and, after knocking a bottle of bleach down the shelves, hugged her boyfriend and repeating: “I’m sorry. I forgot,” over and over again. Marco hugged her back, mumbling that it was okay back along with her. When they broke apart, Marco gave her a weak smile and Star strode towards the door again, peeking outside. After a few minutes, she gave a quiet shout of triumph and quickly rolled their luggage out from behind the door. The victory pushed all thoughts of Tom out of Marco’s mind.

Her boyfriend trudged out with some bags slung over his shoulder. They snuck out and sat on a bench, staring at the slightly opened janitor’s closet. If it was bothering Marco’s OCD, he didn’t show it. However, Star noticed his nervous glances towards the door.

“It was slightly open before,” she explained to him. “People might notice if it was closed.”

“They’ll assume the janitor closed it,” Marco pointed out. “But that was a nice observation anyway,” he said shyly, closing his hand around Star’s and smiled.