A/N: past scene in italic, present scene in normal font.

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“Let me out.” Joohyun growled, glare sharp against the back of a male nurse who was guarding the front of her cell.

The man didn’t bother to whirl around and only paid her a tired sigh as if he wished she would shut up with her nuisance already.

“Get back to your bed kid.”

“I said let me out!” She repeated, louder, and the man finally turned to look at her.

“Listen, kid. No one is going to let you out with that kind of aggressive attitude. You see the other patients there? Yeah, apparently they can walk freely because they can behave themselves. So, if you wish to be released from this cell, I suggest you to tone down your temper and act properly.”

Joohyun shot him a nasty glare. “I’m not one of them.” She spat the last word as if disgusted. “I’m not your ‘patient’. I’m not ing crazy.”

The nurse broke into both amused and derisive laughter.

“That’s what all of them said before they realized just how ing crazy they were.”

Joohyun was about to snap back at him when another nurse strolled by the corridor with a trolley full of medication.

“Time for your medicine, Bae.” The female nurse stopped in front of her cell.

Joohyun grimaced heavily.

“I’m not taking those things.”

“You have to. I’ve had enough trouble with the head doctor because you kept throwing away your pills. I will force this one down your vein if I have to.”

Joohyun watched a spiky syringe emerge from its sterile wrap and immediately backed a step away in alarm.

“You are not coming at me with that thing.”

“Sorry, dear.” The female nurse sounded anything but apologetic, filling in the syringe with unknown liquid offhandedly. “You leave us with no choice.”

The door came unlocked and Joohyun scurried back to a corner with wide eyes of a threatened animal, shrieking loudly on top of her lungs. “Get away! Stay away from me!”

“Hold her for me.” The female nurse instructed her male friend and he immediately went up to seize Joohyun by wrists.

Joohyun screamed and flailed, fighting desperately to break through his iron grip, but only felt like her wrists were held down by metal chains.

Shrilling shriek tore through her when she saw the needle came closer.

In her total panic-driven mind, she shot up a knee to the male nurse’s groin and sent him tumbling to the floor with a pained scream.

The female nurse’s eyes widened in shock, and Joohyun, now free and livid without anyone’s control, immediately leapt forward with an uproar.

It was only a second before the female nurse was tackled to the floor. The syringe in her hand was turned to herself and the needle was aimed dangerously to her eye, just a millimeter away.

She screamed for her life, terror seizing her, but suddenly the body above her stopped moving and fell limply to her side with a loud thud.

Krystal Jung stared down at them with an empty syringe in her hand and a pale face.

“Are you okay?”

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Lies.

They are all lies.

You are not crazy.

They just want to keep you here.

Your parents left you here because they wanted to get rid of you.

Lies. They are all lies.

Get out and get them.

Joohyun opened her eyes to blinding light and felt her head swim with a jarring vertigo.

Her insides churned with nausea and her body felt like it was weighted down by tons of boulders.

She tried to lift an arm but failed miserably.

“I won’t do that if I’m you. The cuffs are pretty tough.”

The voice was different from the familiar, cold whispers that were caressing her ears a while ago and she sprang up to life with wide eyes in shock.

The metal cuffs around her ankles and wrists cut into her skin. She growled at the stranger beside her bed when she realized that she was chained down.

“Who the hell are you?”

The brunette in neat white-coat offered her a polite smile. “I’m Krystal Jung. I’m your intern starting from today. I’ll be taking care of you.”

Joohyun threw her a scowl. “I don’t need any of you to take care of me. I’m not sick.” She pulled against the cuffs again forcefully. “Let me out!”

Krystal regarded her calmly. “So what? So you can try to stab someone in the eye again?”

“They tried to force drugs on me when I’ve clearly told them to stay away.” Her gaze then swept acutely against the intern. “You. You stabbed me with the drugs earlier, didn’t you? You bastard, what did you give to me? What are you trying to do to my head?”

She pulled against the cuffs again violently until the bed shook.

“Relax.” Krystal said, intent to stop her before she chafed her own flesh. “I only gave you a sedative to put you to sleep. The psychoactive drugs are still here.” She inclined her head to the injection lying forlornly beside the bed. “I won’t give it to you without your permission.”

Joohyun seemed unwilling to trust her.

“Look, you wake up still feeling angry and acting like yourself, right? That wouldn’t happen if I wanted to inject these to you since hours ago. I was totally capable of doing that while you were asleep.”

The logic sank into Joohyun, and though still reluctant, she let the intern carry on.

Krystal smiled and went through the pages of her medical report. “So, Bae Joohyun. Fifteen years old, am I right?”

“Don’t call me with that name.” Joohyun spat.

The thought of bearing her family name after being abandoned here in this asylum to rot alone infuriated her.

“I hope the man who gave me that name burn in hell.”

Krystal looked at her in surprise for a while before putting the record away.

“You sure have a lot of anger towards your father.”

“Not just him.” She glowered. “All of them. They kicked out my mother, ripped me apart from her, made her die alone, and now that they found themselves a better daughter, they decided to let me rot alone here.”

There was a disconcerted look flashing across Krystal’s face before she threw her gaze back to the record, voice uneasy somehow. “They did all of that to you?”

“Why, yes.” Joohyun said, eyeing the troubled composure of the previously calm intern. The gait fell somewhere between pity or guilt. Joohyun opted for the first one because the second one didn’t make sense. “I don’t need your pity.”

“I’m not pitying you.” Krystal Jung said, making her wonder if it was the latter.

The intern continued to look bothered until the subject changed. “Well, what should I call you then? I need a name to go with.”

Joohyun let the strange thought pass and only turned away callously. “There’s no need for that. I have no plans to get domesticated with this place or you people.”

Krystal hummed, taking in the hostility nicely. “Doesn’t it get pretty lonely that way?”

“It’s nothing.” Joohyun cut, recalling all the nights she had spent crying alone in her bedroom at home; dark, empty and quiet.

Once she had wanted people around her, now she felt numb.

People only hurt her and now she wanted to hurt them back.

She would.

“How about Irene then?”

Joohyun had to strain to hear the intern amidst the loudening whispers in her ears.

“Why Irene?”

“Because it means peace. You look like you need peace.” Krystal stood up from her place and started reaching for the cuffs.

Joohyun stared at her in confusion. “What are you doing?”

“Releasing you. I thought you didn’t like being chained down?” She unlocked all four cuffs easily and then moved to the bedside table to gather all the injections.

Joohyun flinched out of reflex, ready to back away from any threat, only for Krystal to carry all the syringes to a nearby sink and empty their content down the pipe.

Joohyun looked at her with wide eyes.

“This isn’t what you need.” Krystal turned and looked at her.

“You think so?” Joohyun asked in both surprise and disbelief. “You don’t think I'm mad?”

Krystal looked thoughtful for a while before shaking her head. “You’ll be fine.” She said slowly with a small voice, wrapping it with a brief smile. “I will tell the head-doctor that you’ve taken the medicine. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

She locked the door and left almost in a hurry.

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Krystal stayed in her proximity almost every day after that.

Her company rendered the guarding nurses useless, and Joohyun was more than glad to accept the change because unlike them, Krystal never forced anything on her.

She would always dump the medicine down the sink and only took out the empty syringe to tell everyone that Joohyun had taken her prescription.

Why exactly she was willing to do that, Joohyun wasn’t sure, but she couldn’t think too much about it. The voice in her ears had gotten progressively worse lately she could barely think about anything.

It even flared worse than when she was at home.

She jerked up from sleep one night screaming and clamping her ears.

Kill them. They left you here because they didn’t want you anymore. Kill them.

“S-stop.” She begged in tears, choking and shaking at nothing. The still darkness wrapped around her like cold, heavy arms.

They won’t come back, it whispered against her ear closely and intimately.

It’s been over a month and they are not coming back.

You’re fooling yourself waiting for them.

They discarded you.

They are at home now living happily and giving your step-sister everything you never had.

Everything you will never have because you will rot here alone!

“Stop!” She shrieked, covering her ears and crumbling into a small lump. “Stop! Stop talking about them! Stop talking about them to me!”

Her yell seemed to draw attention as something rustled against her door and Krystal emerged from the darkness with a flashlight in her hand.

“Irene?”

She hit the lamp switch on and Joohyun breathed in quickly once the light came into her vision. The heavy, cold arm around her seemed to dissipate along the darkness.

“What’s wrong?” Krystal asked worriedly.

Joohyun shook her head, trying to stop herself from shaking. “N-nothing. Just nightmare.”

The intern sauntered closer and sat on her bed. “You might need the pills.” She said quietly after a while.

“No.” Joohyun spat hurriedly, faster than she thought she could in her current state. “I don’t need those things to control myself... I am not sick. I can manage myself.”

Krystal seemed deeply troubled and conflicted.

She only spoke again after a while, slow and uneasy. “Alright. None of those then.”

“Thanks.”

Silence lingered between them.

“Do you want me to call your family?”

The silence only seemed to deepen after that, stretching hauntingly against the stillness of the night. “I tried to call them three days ago.” She added.

“What did they say?” Joohyun found her voice cracking despite herself.

“Your mother was the one who received the call. She said she is still trying to convince your father to bring you back. He is...a little hard-headed about it.”

Joohyun’s heart tore apart and she could almost feel it bleed painfully through its rip.

Her father was the one who didn’t want her back, she thought.

Her own blood and flesh, her father.

To say that she was utterly devastated and hurt was an understatement.

Pain and anger pulsed through her so strongly at the moment, she could scream and tear someone apart without blinking.

Krystal rose from her bed. “I’ll try calling them again tomorrow.” She lingered in the doorway for a while before deciding to leave the door unlocked.

“Just in case you need anything, I’ll be in the sleeping quarter.”

The door closed and the voice slithered back; dark, conceited, and victorious.

I was right.

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“You will never see her again or talk to her again after this, do you understand?”

Seulgi stilled against the harsh scream, stricken by the girl in front of her who looked like anything but the ever-loving Irene she knew.

Who are you? The question hung painfully on her tongue.

“Do you understand?” Irene snapped again, louder this time, and Seulgi’s heart ached.

She had never spoken to Irene like that no matter how angry she was. She never even looked at Irene with that much spite no matter what. Just the thought of it sounded ridiculous.

She loved Irene too much to do it.

So, what exactly had made Irene capable of doing that to her?

It felt like she was standing with a total stranger and not with the girl who loved her.

“What’s wrong with you?” She asked slowly, pain and hurt apparent in her voice. “Why are you acting like this? Why are you so mad over nothing?”

“This is not nothing, Seulgi.”

“Then what is this?” Her own voice heightened, eyes starting to water at the way Irene replied to her coldly and callously. “Tell me what is it exactly that makes you so harsh to me when I have done nothing wrong?”

Irene’s eyes flashed dangerously and her teeth gritted