She sat there, staring blankly, and rolling a peach across the table between her hands. A peach. The only problem was that there was nothing magical about this peach. Not that Sarah had ever wanted another hallucinogenic peach dream- the drugs they gave her in this place were quite enough in her opinion.

Sarah's green eyes trailed across the table after the peach. The only reason they still let her have the fruit was because she'd never offered up any connection between peaches and the Underground. She'd learnt long ago that if she wanted to keep some part of the Underground with her, then she had to keep her mouth firmly closed- something that she had enormous trouble in doing successfully.

When she'd been brought to the asylum over a year ago, she'd already had everything else taken from her. Her friends, her family. Sure, they'd visited her at first, but after a while her friends had stopped making the journey to see her. Karen had refused to let Toby anywhere near his sister, who she had dubbed 'a bad influence' and effectively insane.

And her father, he would only ever visit once a month- a time that Sarah would admit was her least favourite moment in the sad little life she was leading these days. Because his visits only reminded her of what she was missing, and who, exactly, was the reason that she was missing it.

A noise from her side distracted her slightly, but Sarah didn't turn to investigate. She knew what it was. The people around her were far more heavily medicated than she was. Supposedly, it was breakfast time, but the trays of food were the only indicators of that. No one around her was eating- a few were drooling, or making low, mumbling and babbling noises. Some of them were slightly louder- like Brianna, the woman who'd made the noise that had startled her.

How could you be so stupid as to end up here, Sarah? she asked herself. She'd asked herself that question so many times, and she knew the answer to it. But it made no difference. The only thing that really mattered was the fact that her father and stepmother had had her committed and nothing she could say or do could change that.

Sarah knew now that she should have seen the signs of it a long time ago. She knew that she should have taken more notice when Karen had started making her see a psychiatrist. And she knew that she probably should have kept her visit to the Underground and the friends she'd made there more of a secret than she had.

But for some reason, they had just started slipping out of her mouth before she could stop them. It was like she just couldn't keep the Underground inside her mind. Her father and Karen had thought she was insane- that she had no idea of what was real or not. And the psychiatrists had agreed.

So Sarah had been locked in a mental institution. It was possibly the worst place she could have found herself, because Sarah knew; she knew that she wasn't crazy. No one would believe her though, and she couldn't stop the literal Underground word vomit from springing free from her mind.

Why are you so stupid, Sarah? she asked herself, finally picking up the peach and taking a bite out of it. She knew that if she didn't eat it soon, then the orderlies might take it away from her. They took everything away after too long. Sarah frowned and once again found herself uselessly wishing that things were different.

There was nothing in this place that had ever made her smile. They wouldn't let her write- because pens were obviously far too dangerous to be allowed in her reach in case she should try and kill herself with it. And they wouldn't let her read. At all. They said that reading would only 'encourage the side of her that believed fiction was reality'; so Sarah hadn't read a book since she'd found herself in this place.

It seemed to Sarah, that their aim was to completely quash any sort of creativity in her in order to help her distinguish between what she thought was real and what was real. To them, at least. This is stupid. The Underground is real, she thought angrily.

Sarah's eye flickered to the orderly heading her way and mentally she cringed. Time for more drugs, she thought almost angrily. Drugs that I don't need. The slightly overweight woman with her hair pulled back into a bun stopped at Sarah's side and placed the tiny paper cup full of pills on the table. Sarah looked down at them for a moment before she heard the woman speak.

"Now Sarah, it's time to take your morning pills," the orderly said in a sing-song voice as if she was actually trying to help Sarah.

Sarah fought back the urge to roll her eyes. She didn't need the pills that they gave her; the drugs. They only made her mind fuzzier and made it more likely for her to slip up about the Underground. She merely nodded to the woman and swallowed the pills without water.

That was another way she'd learned to cope in this place. She just didn't speak to anyone. It seemed to be the only way that she could stop herself from spurting more things out about the Underground. And more things that made them certain that she really wasn't right in the head.

There was no getting around taking the pills though. She had tried on numerous occasions to avoid taking them- and all that that did was result in orderlies holding her down and forcing her to take a stronger dosage.

Sarah put down the half-eaten peach and stood up. She wanted to go back to her room before the drugs kicked in again. It was much better to be in private on the drugs. It helped her hold to her silence and resist talking about the Underground. Sarah walked slowly back to her room and once more caught sight of the locked door that she was fairly certain she'd never find her way through.

She opened the door to her well-lit room and looked around. Nothing had changed; and it was a simple and relatively empty as always. A bed. A dresser. A closet. And a bathroom adjoined to it. Her window had only a view of the almost lifeless garden they were sometimes allowed out into, but Sarah saw nothing apart from that.

With a sigh, Sarah slumped down onto her bed and stared up at the ceiling. The only sign that any time had passed at all came in the form of the person checking on her every fifteen minutes to make sure that she hadn't killed herself. It was a routine that she had long since realised. This is ridiculous, she thought for the thousandth time as her eyes closed and she tried to block out the world around her.

Author's Note: Yes, I know, I'm a terrible person. I shouldn't be starting another fic before finishing any of my others. I just can't help it! So, yeah, I'm an awful person an should stop starting new stories... Of course, if I did that then you wouldn' be reading this right now... :P

So anyway, I'd love to know what you think, especially as I was in two minds about posting this story. Hope you like it. :)

Kit xx