One year later
White walls with white floors, white beds with white sheets, white clothes with white shoes, white paint, white fabric, white everything. Mocking, Taunting, why did everything have to be white? It’s like a Giant movie screen for her mind, blank and waiting for the scene to play. He is coming I know he is—no wait not real, not real…but he is there waiting. NO! Her mind muddled fiction with reality, replacing it. His footsteps are there, pounding above my head I can hear him waiting for me. Evil, Evil…
“Elizabeth”?
Elizabeth looked up at the nurse, his eyes questioning. For a year now she has been here. A whole year and she is still nowhere near better, Evergreen is reformatory a torturous prison for hopeless souls like herself. Oh sure she has gotten better at hiding her illness her “delusions” as they like to call it, but she knows he is there the low whispers claiming her mind “he is waiting always waiting. Hearing each step he takes, he is an evil man an evil harming man. Evil…
“Elizabeth”?
The second time he has asked for her to answer. She looks up and stares back at him as a reply, if she were to answer using words he might think she was starting to deteriorate again.
“How are you doing this morning”?
She shrugs then nods. That’s always the best answer, better to keep your mouth shut and appear crazy than to open it and remove all doubt.
"So, Elizabeth anything new today?"
Barely shakes her head once. This is one of the nicer nurses. Some would smack her for not using words, others would threaten horrible things but that’s mostly the older doctors or those who know they can get away with it, which is virtually every staff member.
“Well my name is Eric and this is my first day, I'm going to be the new assistant that comes in”
Eric extends his hand to what she assumed to be a simple friendly hand shake. She hesitated unsure what to make of Eric. He was very handsome in his own way, he had bright bedroom blue eyes that captured your own immediately and had somewhat shaggy but groomed raven black hair. His build was long and fit going for six foot and lean muscle. She decided against the hand shake, better safe than sorry, he might be friendly right now but the others will get to him…he is coming listen to his footsteps coming closer. Wait he isn’t real not real not real, but they are closer! He is coming you know he Is, you know He is! He is at the door!... Go back go back get back get BACK GET BACK!
“BACK GET BACK! No he can’t come in! NO!”
“Elizabeth? Who is it? Elizabeth he is not there! Calm down!”
No no no “NO!”
“I need help in here!”
“NO!” NO! NO! no no…no….no
*----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------*

Elizabeth woke up with the blinding white light, she squints her eyes and the room started to come into a blurry focus, she rubbed her eyes and the room gets clearer. She was on her so called bed, more like a scratchy cot, they must have drugged her. Great. Another session will be scheduled, and right after they started to cut loose on her, more of the same stupid questions that all stated that she was crazy.

“I can’t believe I did that”. Yes she was talking to herself but she couldn’t help it why had she done that? He was at the door. Right outside your door. Now she remembered he was coming for her now. He is tired of waiting for her to go to him so now he is actually going to come after her. How can they not see him? They have to see him now if he is going to chase after her…

“Elizabeth”
She turned at first expecting to see Eric again but then she realized the tone was too harsh to cold and empty. No, it was doctor Harkins.

“Elizabeth I heard about your…breakdown. I'm disappointed in you, you were progressing so well”

She looked anywhere else but at him, Harkins was a poor excuse of a doctor, short everything, short height, short hair, and short amount of patience. He was in his mid forties and already looked well over ninety; the only thing going for him was the amount of money he pockets every week. Harkins broke the two foot barrier he had put between them and reached across slapping her across the cheek hurling her head hard to the side.

“I don’t like to be ignored Elizabeth, look at me when I am talking to you” he exclaims in his irritatingly cool calm voice that always makes others feel like they are five.

She forces herself to make eye contact. She still felt the sting from the hit; she is going to have to check it later to make sure it won’t bruise.

“Use your words Elizabeth”

She gives Harkins a hard glare, she hated being told what to do by people like him.

“Now!” He slaps her again just as hard on the opposite cheek
Giving in she sighs and replies “yes sir”. Dick face.
“Good now tell me what happened yesterday” yesterday? She had been out that long?
“Time” please be morning please be morning please be morning!
“Stay on topic Elizabeth, what happened?”
“He was coming. Time”
“Who was coming Elizabeth, be specific”
“Him. TIME?”
“Stop asking for the damn time! You ask me once more and you will get tossed into the Locker the rest of the day do you understand?” Harkins nearly shrieked at her but then smoothly calmed himself and began to use his “doctor voice” “Now tell me who was coming”?
She looked away from him, she isn’t afraid of the locker she has been there more than once before for similar attitude. The locker is a tall and thin box just big enough for you to stand in it and resembles a locker on the outside hence the name. They tell the inspectors that it is a filing cabinet but they keep it empty and put non cooperative patients in there to teach them a lesson. Once she heard that Cassandra Lynn got locked in the locker for four days. Cassandra Lynn is in the western wing of Evergreen where they have the Koo-Koo nests. It got its name because that’s where some of the more extreme cases go; Cass got her suite there because she killed her family, she believed they were possessed by demons trying to torture her and god had told her to smite them.
“Don’t believe I will”? Harkins is starting to lose his patients again
“I do”
“Then answer me!”
“I don’t know his name”
“Don’t lie to me Elizabeth”
“I. Don’t. Know.”
Doctor Harkins gives her a death glare then turns to leave without saying another word slaming the door behind him creating an echo throughout the room. Great now she is in trouble, was it so hard to tell her the time? if it was morning then she was drugged for a full 24 hours which isn’t uncommon since the nurses get too friendly with the drugs but if it was almost dinner time then they could have overdosed her and she still might have some in her system which comes with some nasty side effects. The light was shining in through her widow, if she was on the eastern side of the building then it should be morning, the sun does rise in the east right? Hoping she was right she decides to deal with the side effects of the drugs when and if they come, right now she needed to check her face for bruising. Since there was no bathroom in her living quarters she had to go to the nearest public bathroom in the institute which is at the other end of the eastern hall. The institute was a two story building, it had an eastern wing upper and lower level rooms, a large rectangle area in the middle that includes the foyer, staff and office area, recreational room/ visiting area, and a dining area, then it has an upper and lower western wing. Elizabeth was in the far end of the lower eastern wing which was about 30 rooms down, 15 on each side of the hall. She was lucky to be in the lower eastern wing; in her point of view it held the sanest people out of the entire place, although she thought she was completely sane even though the judge who dropped her in here begged to differ, it wasn’t even that bad till he came here too. She shouldn’t think of him but he is always there in the back of her mind he is always watching always waiting for the perfect moment to strike, he has been waiting for nine months now, nine whole months to plan his attack to torture you, he is torturing you by using suspense as his weapon….What was that? Footsteps, someone is behind her someone is following her only eight more rooms and she can escape to the restroom, six, five, four, three, two…
A hand grabs her shoulder “AH!” turning to fend away the pursuer when he speaks up before she can move into action
“Sorry I didn’t mean to scare you” it was only Eric “I wanted to see if you woke up ok, Steven used a little too much of the Hydroxyzine yesterday”
“I'm fine” she wanted to leave before he noticed the hand marks on her face she didn’t want his pity and defiantly didn’t want to get sent to the medical nurse, Mr. Mosley. Everyone that is taken to his care either dies or wishes they were so lucky. She did not want to end up dead on his autopsy table.
“Why is your face so red? Here let me take a look”
“No I'm fine I'm just a little hot”
“They look like hand prints”
In that instant Elizabeth pivoted and sprinted down the hall into the restroom hoping that he wouldn’t follow. She was just fine, she has been hit before and no one else has ever bothered to worry about it so why was he? It must be because he is new and it was just a matter of time till he picked up Harkins habits. She turned to face the mirror and wasn’t shocked at the sight; a giant red handprint shaped welt was growing by the second on each side of her face measuring from the jaw line to the temples. The welts covered nearly all of her face but once she pressed enough cold water on them the swelling would decrease enough that it would be acceptable and the handprint would fade. Just as she was wetting down one of the towels Sarah comes walking in. Sarah was taller than Elizabeth, thinner, and had more curves than she could ever pray to have, she was also as beautiful and radiant as when she was admitted to Evergreen with bright blue eyes and short perfect golden wheat colored hair. Compared to Elizabeth’s own long light brownish blondish hair and grey eyes she was goddess material. Sarah lived in the room across from hers and was practically her only friend. Sarah was the second sanest in the institution, she believes that she can pick up Angel conversations in heaven, but at least she hasn’t killed anyone and doesn’t go raving around about God.
“Hey” Sarah looked at the mark but seemed only slightly surprised.
“Hi” Elizabeth pressed the rag to her face “Mr. Harkins is testy today so don’t get on his bad side”
“He has been getting worse lately, the angels aren’t happy about it” Sarah does a quick hair check in the mirror then continues “I saw you with that new nurse, Eric right? Then you just sprinted off down the hall what was that about?”
“He saw the weld and I’m not about to ask for a death sentence”
“Oh.. well I took the liberty to tell him I would check on you, tell you the truth id do anything just to talk to him he is fine”
“Yeah I suppose a little” blush slowly rose to her cheeks “But the others will change him soon enough, it’s best to view from afar”
“I don’t know he seems different, nicer”
“Well better safe than sorry” She finally removes the rag sighing with relief that that redness and swelling went down. Elizabeth left to her room for solitude and Sarah went to report to Eric. Reaching her bed she lays down, Eric is really cut but I can’t trust anyone especially in this never ending hellhole.

1902

Such a mess. Those twins had been a miserable fail for his studies. He had disposed of her body little over an hour ago and he had begun to tidy up his work space before starting in on his notes. She had bled all over his table and floor more so than his other studied subjects so he might have drilled into her head a little too far to make of much use. The good news was he had made a grand discovery about his newest medication. He reviewed over what happened in his mind as he put his tools into bleach to cleanse the blood away and was laying towels out to soak up most of the pooled blood that was left. Right after drilling into the upper section of the cerebrum of the child he inserted the syringe directly to the brain to make sure his medication would begin its treatment immediately. He has recently been trying to locate the exact location that induces the hallucination. He had started in the occipital lobe at first since that is the location of the brain for the eyes but had eliminated the lobe after a series of experiments. The girls piercing screams stopped immediately after he had inserted the medication, unfortunately she had died less than a minute later. The waist of the experiment was that he doesn’t know what had caused her death. Had the brain stopped functioning within seconds after his concoction had entered? Or was the drilling and blood loss a playing factor? There were just too many unknown variables, such a waste. The other sister had blacked out after she saw the blood starting to exit and was still laying motionless on her table. Now he must figure out what to do with the child. He very well cant keep her down here too much longer and the thought of taking her back was an absurd idea after what she had seen done to her sibling. He must either kill her, which he has never purposely killed anyone before without the back up of science and medical reason, or he must place her somewhere else for further research. To take her somewhere else would be extremely difficult without anyone noticing and it would involve some very careful planning but his conscious would be clearer than if he killed her. He paced back and forth, his eyes going from the floor to the sleeping girl where his shadow passed over her, after a few moments he pauses; he has made his final decision.