A Twisted Mind

I muttered grumpily as my phone rang off irritably again for the 5th time.
Willing my hand to move from its comfortable place in my bed, I reached out to the bedside table and clutched my phone, quickly pressing the answer button so that whoever called didn’t, again.

“hello?” I sleepily mumbled.

“Am I talking to Dr. Lucy Flemmings?” a deep masculine voice replied.

“yes” I retorted, becoming more alert and awake now… dammit! I thought so much for sleeping in.

“Doctor, there’s been an incident at the ward with one of your patients, your help is urgently needed”

I sighed…

My patients were good people who had simply been at the wrong place at the wrong time when they’d finally let out all of their pent-up emotions, everyone lets out some steam every once in a while, these guys had just let their emotions out in some illegal way or the other. Of course they were regretful of their past actions. In fact, I strongly believed that three quarters of those I treated didn’t deserve to be at the ward in the first place. The Board were suspicious of my treatments, they believed that my patients were getting worse, not better, but I begged to differ.

“Who is it?” I asked expectantly.

“Well…err.. I’m the security guard Doctor” he quizzically replied.

“No you fool the patient. MY patient, who is causing the ‘incident’?” I added a roll of the eyes at ‘fool’ and quotation marks at ‘incident’.

“Oh” the guard remarked, embarrassment seething out of his voice. “I do believe his name is Luke Matheson doctor”

“Luke?” I blinked in surprise. He was one of my most obedient patients, always took my advice directly with no arguments. Why was he causing trouble? What had happened to him?

“I’m on my way, tell him I’m coming” I pronounced.

Half an hour later I had the situation somewhat in control and was seated opposite Luke. He was shivering uncontrollably, probably going into shock. I raised an eyebrow and took note of his status on my laptop. On closer observation you could see the he was also rapidly muttering something, he was clearly afraid of something, and it didn’t seem like he was going to utter a word about what it was, I mean, is he wasn’t going to tell me he wasn’t going to tell anyone. Frowning I concentrated on his words

“she…….beautiful…..evil…..stalking…..must run……but….how?” I was able to catch those words and rapidly typed them away. When I focused on his words again he noticed me trying to listen and abruptly stopped. Dammit . I locked my eyes with his and held it there.

“Luke, whats wrong?” I calmly asked.

Luke stopped shivering and seemed to become frozen to the spot, his eyes seemed to be searching mine for something before he finally gave up.

“I, I, I just had a nightmare Lucy… it was terrible Lucy!!” he was becoming more and more excited and I was starting to wonder where the night guard was. Luke can get way too excited and slip into euphoria, that’s when he starts to get a bit hard to handle.

“It was scary Lucy! I was getting chased, CHASED! His eyes were getting bigger.

“Luke…” I cautioned

“The person kept chasing me and chasing me!! They didn’t stop Lucy!” he grabbed my shoulders and shook ferociously.

“Lucy! They chased me and I got to a dead end! They got out something sharp and jabbed me!” my heart was beating a million miles an hour and my eyes undoubtedly were shooting all over the room desperately hoping to find someone or something that might assist me in calming him down.

“Luke, Luke!” I frantically tried to keep a calm and soothing tone to my voice “Luke! It was just a dream, it wasn’t real! No one can hurt you, I’m always here to look out for you”. I tried to pry his hands off my shoulders but it didn’t seem to work. My re-assurance seemed to help him, but only for a few seconds, that was enough for me to hit the re-dial button on my mobile. In an instant his crazed looked returned as memories started flooding back.

“Lucy, Lucy, Lucy! Please hide me, keep them away Lucy! I don’t know who it was! They’re scary Lucy! I need you to be with me! YOU HAVE TO BE WITH ME!” his hands were raised and they had left my shoulders and slid up to my neck, now throbbing with pain from the vicious shaking.

“Luke, please…” I managed to croak. Did I press the re-dial button?  Did the security guard forget his phone somewhere? Where were  the rest of the psychologists?

Just as Luke’s firm hands tightened around my throat the door burst open and the guard and 3 other psychologists barged in, armed with anaesthesia injections and a few ropes and handcuffs.

The guard tackled Luke, instantly releasing his grip from my throat in the process. I gasped and coughed struggling to get air into my sore lungs. There was an ensuing bustle I was unaware of as I was slowly recovering and when Dr Howard knelt down beside and asked if I was okay, I became aware of the fact that Luke, Dr Mason nor the guard were present in the room. As I scanned the room frightfully Dr Howard informed me that Luke had punched Mark (who turned out to the security guard) and had run out in the ward somewhere screaming

“You won’t get me! I won’t let you!” he mimicked Luke with a terrible voice but his emotions were exact and that worried me. “Should those words be of any concern to us Lucy?” his eyes looked deep into mine, searching for answers.

In the moment, I guess I just panicked or something but I straightened myself and looked at him with equal intensity

“I have no idea what’s happened to him” I whispered as earnestly as I could. Then, groaning with the effort I had to use I said “Let’s get Luke back where he belongs”.

Walking out of the room, grabbing the first needle I saw. Everything in this room was harmless, no lethal injections were stored here, there was a completely different place for that and that room was 5 levels under us.