Stolen Identity

Chapter One

“I’m not crazy,” she said defiantly, looking into the eyes of the man who held her by the wrist.

The man scoffed as he said, “That’s what they all say, sweetie.” He was the Superintendent of the Psychiatric ward.

“I’m really not supposed to be here. Call my uncle, he will tell you that I’m not lying.” She cried back.

He started to walk away, and then stopped. “I would, but your whole family is dead. Have a good night.” He pointed his finger towards a bed, and then walked out the door and left.

She walked over to the old bed in the corner of the room and sat down. She tried not to cry. She rested her head on her knees and started muttering to herself. “I’m not crazy. I’m not crazy,” until she was interrupted.

“You know that if you keep telling yourself that, it really will make you insane.” A man’s voice came from the dark.

“Who are you, and where are you?!” She shouted back.

From the darkness the man replied, “The name’s John, sweetheart, and what would yours be?” She didn’t know if she could trust him, but what was the worst thing that could happen, after all, she was in a psychiatric hospital already.

“If you must know, my name is Delilah, but you can call me Lilah instead.” She didn’t know why anyone would be talking to her in such a place, so if she had sounded rude, she hadn’t meant or realized it.

Breaking the silence John said, “How did they find you out? How did you get busted if you don’t mind me asking miss.” He smiled at her. John continued to speak when Lilah didn’t answer him.

“I bet it was in one of those situations where you were having a nervous breakdown and no one could calm you down. Women like you-” He stopped mid-sentence. Lilah couldn’t tolerate anything sexist, especially not then.

“What do you mean, ‘women like me’?” She said annoyed. “You know, I’m really not crazy. They think I am someone else, and I can’t persuade them otherwise. Now I am here being treated like a lunatic.” She pouted.

Trying to make her feel better, John said, “Hey, cheer up. It really isn’t that bad. At least we get free food, eh?” He nudged her shoulder, when he began to cough and wheeze. Suddenly, he coughed up a tooth. He laughed. “I was wondering when that was going to come out.”

Some time had passed since the man had left her alone will all of the crazy people she had grown to fear. As she stared at the door, hoping for what, she didn’t know, another man came into the room. He looked furious. The man yelled in both Lilah and John’s direction, “Stop talking, or I’ll cut your tongues out and feed them to the dogs!”

Lilah had never witnessed such hatred in her life, especially not when it was directed towards her. The man caught Lilah’s eye and glared at her. Soon after coming into the room, the man walked out and locked the door behind him.

All Lilah could think of was going home. She kept repeating her name, “Lilah Evans” over and over again so as not to forget who she was. She drew up the covers on her bed and thought that if she dreamt hard enough that she would wake up with her life back.

#

Lilah woke to sunlight, and for her, she would have rather have gone back to sleep. She was in the same building and in the same room as she was in the night before. She didn’t understand what was going on. There were several other patients in the room with her, which to be quite frank, scared her even more than she already was. She knew that she wasn’t dangerous, but she knew nothing about these other people. Unwilling to remove herself from her bed, she continued to lay on her side and stare at the off-white wall in front of her.

Seconds later, John shouted, “Good morning princess!” as he jumped on her. She figured that he had to be at least in his twenties, although he had the mental capacity of a five year old child. “Go to hell,” she shouted, both tired and annoyed.

He stared at her and said, “Well, seeing that I am already there, gladly.” He smiled, and she had to agree, this was her own personal hell.

A tall muscular guy whom she assumed to be security came over and restrained John from the bed. Although John was the only one who had been kind to her, she was actually glad to see him being taken away. She continued to stare at the empty void in front of herself. She didn’t see anything happening in the next couple of minutes, let alone hours.

What was it that they actually did in psych wards? She had a feeling that her uncle had already started his search for her, and that it would only be moments before she would be in his embrace once again. The giant mahogany door at the end of the room opened, and in came what she assumed to be, the kitchen staff. She was unsure of who they were, but they seemed to have food, so it didn’t matter.

She was wrong. It wasn’t food, nor was it anything good. From the platters that the staff brought in with them laid pills. Pills for what, she wasn’t sure.

Behind her the same man that had brought her in last night yelled, “It’s time for your medication! Come and get it.”

Lilah didn’t get up because she figured that no one would notice if she stayed there or not. Again, as if her luck couldn’t be worse, the man had noticed her absence.

“Hey, you! I told you that it was time for your medication,” he yelled.

Clearly he was talking to her, because all of the other patients flocked over to the pill filled platters and obligingly took them, but she stayed where she was. All she had to do, or at least what she thought she had to do was stay calm. When she continued to disobey his orders, he began to walk towards her, and with each step, she stiffened. He was right behind her at that point. Slowly, he reached for her elbow, and when his hand touched her arm he pulled her off of the bed and onto the floor.

Once again he shouted at her, “did you hear me?!”

She propped herself onto her elbows, carried her head up and stared into his brown, almost black eyes. “Yes, I heard you,” she said, almost at a whisper.

He spit on her. “Disgusting scum.”He turned to look at the kitchen maid next to him and continued, “don’t you think that it would be easier if the president just let us kill them all?” He laughed and then shoved the pills at Lilah. She reluctantly took them.

“Now take them like a good girl. I have to make sure that you swallow them.” He gave her a malicious smile. She wondered what he was thinking. She surveyed the green pills in her hand and slowly put them into her mouth. She swallowed. The man came closer to her. He kneeled on the ground and looked directly into her eyes.

Examining her he said, “open you mouth, now.”

She listened to him as he poked and prodded her tongue and the sides of her throat. At last, he decided that she had indeed swallowed the pills. He ordered the staff to clean up and leave. They all left through the door that Lilah had not long ago entered through in protest. The man, still next to her, patted her head as if she were a dog, and stood up. He then continued to the door and left the room.

She opened her hand, and there laid the pills that he had so viciously wanted her to take.

#

After watching the man and his employees leave, Lilah went over to the barred off windows and threw the pills out. She knew that if her uncle hadn’t already started looking for her, she would have to find a way out herself. She didn’t know how to get out of the room without being caught, so she figured that that was going to have to be the first thing she would have to find out. Another thing popped into her head. Would anyone come for her if she asked for help? Would she have access to a telephone?

She stared out the window to the street below and noticed that the same boy she had seen when the superintendent brought her into the building was still there awaiting customers to buy the newspapers that he held.

Lilah thought for a moment and then decided to shout to the boy below. “Hey, you! Boy, up here!” With anticipation, she waited until she saw that the boy began to turn his head in her direction.

A man, and his wife, she assumed, approached the boy. The man slapped the child and said something inaudible to her ear. The boy looked to the man, and then looked as if he were apologizing for his actions. The couple, before leaving the boy, purchased a newspaper and walked away.

The boy’s face, still red from the man’s hand began to glow brighter as tears suddenly streamed from his eyes. He didn’t understand what was wrong with communicating with the people in the yellow building. But, he didn’t have to understand, he just had to listen to his superiors, which so happened to be everyone when he visited the city of Monroe. Having sold his last paper, he wiped his tears away with his shirt sleeve, and went down the same road he had come up that morning. He was going home.

Lilah watched disappointedly as her first plan of escape failed her. She walked away from the window and went back to her bed. She spotted John across the room and thought that he resembled the mad hatter. She laughed to herself, and before she knew it John was already by her side.

With a devilish grin he asked, “what are you laughing about, sweetheart?” She didn’t know if she should tell him what she had been thinking because she didn’t know if it would offend him. She thought for a second considering whether she should speak or not when she thought that whatever she said couldn’t get her into any more trouble than she was already in.

“Well,” she started slowly, “Do you know who the mad hatter is from Alice in Wonderland?” John nodded. She continued, “Well, you remind me of him.” She smiled, putting her hand to her mouth.

“Hopefully, Madam, that is a good thing.” John said, quizzically.

Lilah looked at him and responded, “Yes, very.”

It had been a long time since she had laughed. Emotions were not her specialty, especially not ones of happiness.

John looked at her sincerely and said, “You remind me of my mother.” He seemed as though he was going to cry. This was a first for Lilah. She never knew that the ‘insane’ people that her aunt and uncle had raised her to hate and fear, had feelings just like every other person. She patted his back and he slowly grabbed her other hand in response.

Lilah hesitantly began to speak. She said, “would you mind telling me about your mother?”

John was surprised to hear such words come from her mouth, let alone anyone else’s, because it was strictly forbidden to talk about your feelings or personal lives in the psychiatric ward.

He began to speak. Softly at first. “She was the only one who ever loved me. She protected me from my father who viciously hated me and questioned why his only son had to be ‘mentally ill,’” he began to cry, “when my mother passed away I tried to run from home because I knew that there was no one left to protect me. My father eventually found out and reported me to the authorities saying that I was the one who killed my mother. He said that the ‘voices in my head’ told me to do it,” he paused for a second scanning Lilah’s face and then said, “I would never kill my mother, you have to believe me. Trust me!”

John began to yell at her saying, “Trust me, I didn’t do it. He’s lying!”

Lilah didn’t know what to do. John became louder and louder and she eventually covered her ears. He grabbed her by the shoulders and squeezed as hard as he could.

“Tell me that you believe me!” He was crying. Suddenly he shook her violently and screamed in her face, “Tell me!” She tried to calm him down but it was to no avail.

Over his cries she said, “John, you’re hurting me,” she was terrified, but she continued, “John, stop!”

He threw her on the ground. Whether it was out of realization or anger, she wasn’t completely sure.

“You’re just as bad as the rest of them! You’re nothing like her! You’re nothing like her!” John advanced with his screaming. At that point, the door at the end of the hall opened and in came security. They took John away, and this time Lilah actually felt bad about his departure.

She tried to walk away from the scene, but the security restrained her as well. “Stop! What are you doing? I didn’t do anything. Please let me go,” she said, beginning to cry.

Before they tied her hands together, she touched her head in curiosity. It had begun to ache. She retracted her hand and felt a warm sensation tingle through her. She was bleeding. She muttered under her breath, “the bloody bastard split my head open.” The security had left her with the nurses that came shortly after their arrival as they began to lay her down on a stretcher.

They took her out of the room. She hadn’t been out of there for two days and seeing some new scenery made her feel slightly better. The nurses strolled her down the hallway as they stared at her, intrigued to find out that she was calm.

Little did they know that she was preoccupied with taking in her surroundings trying to find a way out. She was learning her way around silently as if she were a ghost. Before they brought her into her new room, the nurse beside her opened Lilah’s mouth and dropped two purple pills down her throat.

This time it was evident that the pills had entered her system, because before she was able to see the room her eyes closed, and soon she was unconscious.

When she awoke the first thing she heard was, “We’re done here.” A man wiped sweat from his forehead and looked one last time at his patient before leaving the room.

He straightened his white, limp, surgical jacket as well as he could and said, “Let’s go and tell the superintendent that we have done what he asked us to do.” With that, all of the doctors and nurses left the dark, solitary room.