Guest always looked like she was one fly landing on her shoulder away from a mental breakdown. If I was being honest, I felt that down in my soul, but where I was violent, tearing things to shreds, drawing as much blood as possible, she confines herself. Curls up into a ball and cries. She’s really amazing at isolating herself, actually. I mean, being in a mental asylum is hard, especially when she barely needed to be there, but hey, she can be batshit crazy sometimes. I’ve seen her writing in her notebook, I know what goes on in that seemingly peaceful head of hers.

Each member of the asylum was given twenty-four hours of outside time a week, but Guest’s condition allowed her more time, and I always took my hours whenever she was outside. Which was currently right now. The asylum, or what the people who lived there called it, The Prison had fitted the courtyard with a brand new punching bag, and since my hands were not tied for the first time in two days, I attacked the bag with as much might as I could.

Another thing about Guest, she never really seems to be improving any. Neither have I, it’s wonderful, actually. Quite the pair we are. She’s sitting under a tree, in my direct line of sight, which is just stunning. Her hair is blowing slightly in the wind, her eyes trailing over the new book The Prison had given her. She practically consumes them, and from what I hear, is burning through a shitton of money.

Honestly? Go her. My knuckles are bloodied now. So raw that they hurt. Pain is something that I have tried and mostly successfully suppress into nothing, but that’s mental pain. Something that Guest has very well made her feel so much that she’s gone insane. Guilt and hurt and tears are foreign to me, but the physical pain is what I can allow myself to feel.

Every splinter from tearing apart my cell, every cut, every burn, and right now, every raw knuckle. She doesn’t move much in the few hours that we’re outside. She stays lonely and quiet, staying under the radar until she breaks.