Tears began to prick at Connie's eyes, her room, her home, she was leaving it all. She looked down at the bandages climbing up both her arms and sighed as a thin red line appeared near the top of her left bandage. She cut again last night, hidden under her blankets she felt the sweet, cool kiss of the razor blade glide across her arm.

Her parents were furious, she'd promised to stop; but; the empty feeling sitting in the bottom of her stomach kept eating at her insides. It would get so horrible that it would take several slices to make it stop. But; only for a little while.

"Connie, time to go," her dad called.

Taking one last look around at all the posters, the stuffed animals, and the various books lying around made her stomach twist with sadness. The gnawing void in her body was coming back. Sweat began to bead her forehead as she turned and dashed for the top of the stairs.

"I have to use the bathroom!" she called, somehow able to keep her voice calm. Running back up the hall she entered the bathroom and carefully shut and locked the door. Opening the medicine cabinet, she began to dig through all the pill bottles and makeup that filled each shelf before finding what she needed. Carefully she pressed down and slid one of the razor blades out in one quick motion. Licking her lips, she lowered the bandage several inches on her right arm. She bit her lip as the point slipped through her skin, and slowly drew it across her underarm several inches.

The relief was euphoric as the emptiness in her vanished back into its lair. She covered her mouth with her hand to keep from letting out a moan of pleasure. Grabbing several squares of toilet paper, she placed the razor in the middle square and folded them over each other before pressing it against her newest cut and sliding the bandage back up.

After flushing the toilet for effect, Connie headed downstairs to see both of her parents waiting for her. Her dad hadn't shaved this morning, the dark bags under his eyes told her he hadn't slept much. Her mom's face was hard, and emotionless, Connie knew she was furious, but; her eyes said she was sad.

"All ready to go?" her dad asked.

She nodded, like she really had a choice.

"Don't worry Connie, you'll like Cold River," her dad said, as they pulled out onto the freeway. they'd driven in silence for several miles. She could tell they wanted to break the tension. Connie doubted she'd like Cold River Mental Hospital at all. "Your mother and I drove up to see it last Friday, it was a lot better than we could have hoped. They'll take good care of you."

Neither of them brought up her bandages, or the fresh scars on her arms when they helped change her bandages the other night. Connie felt that she wanted them to actually say something about it, to not skate around the fact she kept slicing her arms open whenever she felt alone.

She thought about school, and all the kids. The name calling, the racist jokes, the punches and kicks.

It was their fault her parents were carting her off to the nuthouse.

Cold Water was larger than she expected. The main building had to be 3 stories at least with several more outlying buildings around it and a fence that ran completely around all of them. As they pulled though the gate, she caught a glimpse of people, probably patients dressed all in white, out in the yard.

"Here we are," her dad said. Connie looked down at the small suitcase beside her, then up at her mother as she opened the door.

"Let's go," she said, her voice emotionless.

Approaching the door, they were met by a tall woman with white hair done up into buns. She was dressed in a white nurse's uniform. Connie stared out at the dark clouds growing in the distance, lightning shot across the sky and thunder rolled after several seconds.

"I have no doubt that Connie will be happy here," the nurse said to her parents. Connie didn't buy it.

The nurse, Holly Blue her name tag read, led the three of them inside. They went through two sets of door before coming out into a waiting room.

"If you'll please wait here i'll get Dr. Trager for you," she said.

Connie hugged her suitcase to her chest and stared down at the checkered floor, kicking her feet. She didn't belong here, she wasn't crazy. Her dad wrapped his arm around her and she leaned against him. Glancing over she watched her mother looking around, impatiently tapping her foot.

"What's taking so long?" she asked.

"He's probably busy, it is full of patients and he is the head doctor," her dad replied.

Connie looked down and sighed.

"How long do I have to be here?" she asked.

She looked up to see her dad nervously rubbing the back of his neck.

"Well, I wouldn't think very long," he said finally, looking down at her. "Your not sick like a lot of the people here. Your just…."

The door opening cut him off, Holly Blue had finally returned. Dr. Trager was tall, with broad shoulders. A thick, bushy handlebar mustache hung below a hooked nose.

"Mr. and Mrs. Maheswaran, my name is Rickard Trager," he said in a thick English accent. "Holly Blue, please show Connie to her room while her parents and I discuss her treatment."

"Of course, come along sweetie,"

Connie looked up at her parents, before quietly following after the nurse.

She changed in the bathroom. The all white outfit and shoes seemed to make her dark skin pop out, she looked down at her bandages, and felt a coldness in her belly. She began to sweat, she bit her lip and cursed silently as the coldness began to climb higher and higher. Rolling down her bandage, she quickly unwrapped the razor fro the toilet paper and slowly slid it across her right underarm. She took a deep breath, holding it in for several seconds before slicing her arm again. Letting her breath out, she was relieved to feel the coldness retreating. Connie wiped her arm with a paper towel and waited for the bleeding to stop before rolling her bandage back up. The razor was carefully wrapped up in clean toilet paper and hidden back under her other bandage. They would probably find it.

The rec room was full of activity. Several patients were sitting cross legged around a coffee table, a tall house of cards built before them. A short pudgy girl with long white hair was stretched out on a recliner eating chips. In front of a TV she saw two boys, one with curly dark hair holding a pink stuffed lion, the other was extremely pale with a single clump of blond hair on the top of his head.

"This is the best episode of Crying Breakfast Friends yet, right Onion?" the dark haired boy asked excitedly.

"More like the same episode," the chip eating girl mumbled.

Around the corner they ran into a pale skinned woman furiously scrubbing the floor. Connie noticed her hands were cut and bruised. She looked up at them in surprise.

"Holly Blue, I need more lemon pledge!" she exclaimed. She jumped to her feet and seized the nurse by the collar of her uniform. "Its too dirty, I need more cleaning products!"

"You need to take your medicine, Pearl," Holly Blue replied. Connie noticed the nurse motioning quickly with one hand. Within seconds a massive, extremely muscular woman grabbed the woman named Pearl and pulled her away. "Jasper, please take Pearl back to her room and see that she gets a big douse of her medicine."

Jasper nodded. "You want me to be gentle-" she was cut off by Pearl reaching back and scratching her face. Three long scratches began to ooze blood. "-Hard way it is!"

In one swift motion, Jasper release her hold on the smaller woman before decking her with a punch that made her spin completely around. Connie watched as Jasper carried off the unconscious Pearl under her arm.

She kept quiet, that looked like something she shouldn't bring up. She imagined herself with a lobotomy scar, sitting in front of the TV with those other kids, drooling like an idiot.

"Here we are," Holly Blue said. The room had no door, none of them did. Apparently it made getting to more severe patients in an emergency easier. The room was slightly bigger than her room at home. On one side was a mattress with a sheet and blanket folded up into squares on top of the other with a pillow resting on the top. "Over there is your roommate, Lapis Lazuli."

The other bed was a mess, the blanket and sheet were balled up and discarded on the floor. The mattress was covered in long scratches leaving the foam exposed. Lapis Lazuli was curled up in a ball up against the corner of the wall.

"What's wrong with her?" Connie whispered, afraid to speak too loudly.

Holly Blue shrugged. "She was here when I started," she replied. "I'll leave you to get settled in."

Connie kept glancing nervously over her shoulder every few seconds. She kept expecting the older girl to have moved or to have found her staring at her. After fixing the sheet and folding out the blanket, Connie climbed up onto her bed and opened her suitcase.

She pulled out a beaten and battered book about the various gods of Egypt.

"Sobek, Anhur, Anubis, Isis, Set," all the pages were dogeared and some were torn in places, but; she loved it. The pictures were well drawn, and it was a perfect memory game to see if she could remember all the gods by just their picture. "Wadjet, Thoth, Osiris, Ra, Horus-"

"What're you doing?" Connie jumped when a new voice filled the air. Looking over at the other bed she saw that Lapis hadn't moved an inch. Looking to the door, Connie saw the girl that had been eating chips earlier.

"I'm trying to remember all the names of the different Egyptian gods," she said, setting the book down on the bed beside her.

"Sounds booooring! i'm Amethyst by the way," she said, before running and hopping up on the bed. "I see you've already met the living statue, just kidding, she'll move when Jasper comes by later."

"What's that mean?" Connie asked.

Amethyst wiggled her eyebrows and smiled. "You'll see, so what're you locked up for?" she looked down at Connie's arms. "Ah! Cutter huh? you'll fit right in with all the others."

Connie blushed and turned her body away and hugged her arms to her chest. "Why are you here?" Connie asked.

Amethyst blew a stray strand of hair out of her face. "My mom thinks I have an 'eating disorder'," Amethyst said, finger quoting eating disorder. "I just love to eat, and sometime I puke."

"I saw this woman earlier, she was cleaning and-"

"That's Pearl, she's really OCD about stuff," Amethyst said. "Come on, i'll show you some of the other wackos here!"

Seizing Connie's hand in her own, Amethyst dragged the younger girl behind her. She found herself having to lightly jog to keep from behind pulled over. Soon Amethyst stopped outside one of the countless rooms.

Connie peeked in to see a small girl drawing with a crayon clenched in her teeth. It was then that she noticed that the girl was missing both her arms and legs.

"That's Peridot, she used to be this super famous super smart science fair geek," Amethyst said. "One day the thing she was working on blew up in her face, like actually set fire to her room blew up, they amputated all four limbs."

"That's horrible!" Connie exclaimed. She quickly covered her mouth after realizing she spoke way too loud.

She glanced in the room to see Peridot looking at her. "Quit feeling sorry for me!" she shrieked.

Amethyst grabbed Connie's hand and dragged her off, leaving Peridot's screams dwindling behind them.

The next room was the only one with a door.

Inside was a tall woman wrapped up in a straight jacket sitting cross-legged on the floor.

"We need to keep calm and- WE NEED TO KILL THEM ALL!"

"That's Garnet, she's totally schizo. One minute she's all prim and proper and the next she's leaping across the table and stabbing some poor jerk with a Spork," Amethyst said.

Looking back at the window, Connie saw that Garnet had vanished. She jumped back in fright when Garnet pooped out from the side and pressed her face against the glass.

"LET US OUT!" Connie fell back on her butt and screamed, tears began rolling down her face at the sight of the twisted and distorted face pressed against the glass.

Amethyst grabbed Connie and pulled her away. When they were well away from the door she pulled the younger girl into a hug.

Connie held onto her as tight as she could.

END CHAPTER 1